I’m wearing my favorite old T-shirt today. Although it’s dark navy, it’s comfortable in our current humid and hot North Carolina summer. A picture of Louis Sullivan, a Chicago architect, sits across my chest and under his picture is a script: Form Follows Function. I love the material. It’s gauzy but not too light. It’s 50% cotton and 50% polyester and Made in the USA (Clute, Texas). I don’t know how old this shirt is. I have had it since the 80s when I volunteered for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Oak Park, Illinois. Sullivan was a mentor to Frank. I learned a lot about architecture—s ..read more

If I watch a movie and am surprised that it’s over so quickly, it’s a great movie. That’s what happened when I saw Thelma in a theater a week ago. When I found out the lead character was played by a 93-year-old actor, June Squibb, and the reviews were good—the web site Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 98% rating—I had to see this picture. I went with a friend who is a bit younger than my 82 years. Passing on refreshments, we settled into our recliner seats. The lights dimmed. We watched what seemed like a dozen coming attractions, none of which we intend to return to watch. Then there was Thelma, a s ..read more

My husband and I were in Portugal on a Road Scholar trip when I had an episode of atrial fibrillation. As a geriatric nurse practitioner, I recognized this cardiac malady that occurs frequently in older adults. I was 62 at the time. A-Fib straddles the fence between becoming a serious problem or one that we can live with. And in some cases, it just goes away on its own. At that time, I chose not to seek medical care in a foreign country. I boarded the bus and stayed with our tour group. I wrote an essay about this event that I posted on my blog (a couple of times) under the title of Getting on ..read more

Last week we drove to Wrightsville Beach, a consolation beach trip instead of going on a European River Cruise. Ernie wasn’t comfortable traveling overseas with a brain tumor. A two hour drive to the beach seemed more doable than a plane ride over the Atlantic. Ernie’s tumor, subependymoma, is benign, small, rare. The tumor is usually discovered accidentally during a CT or MRI scan. At least that’s what I found out on a subependymoma Facebook group. I was the 104th member to sign on to this international connection. The members reported symptoms ranging in severity but rarely was surgery neede ..read more

I was surprised when I read the news in yesterday’s local paper: North Carolina lawmakers passed the Save Act, a bill giving nurse practitioners autonomy over their practice. That is, they are no longer required to pay physicians to “supervise” them. I have been following the Save Act, which has failed to become law, over the years. I wrote about this problem in a post in 2019: Barriers to Advanced Practice Registered Nurses.  When the Save Act was last defeated in 2017, NC had the worst health care costs, the 5th lowest number of NPs, and the 41st highest infant mortality of all the stat ..read more

I didn’t think I would finish the A to Z April 2024 Blogging Challenge. Writing a post every day for a month, except for Sundays, seemed impossible since I hadn’t written a post for the past two months. However, if I didn’t do the A to Z Challenge, I decided I would discontinue my blog. I gave it a shot. My theme was Aging: The Good, the Bad, and the Tolerable. Gerontology was my nursing specialty. Plus, I was getting older. I would write what I knew. Why would I burden myself with a topic that needed extra effort? I mixed up my messages, including academic topics interspersed with a song, po ..read more

Aging: The Good, the Bad, and the Tolerable Z is for Zen and the Art of Life Review Zen is a state of mind of being fully present, free from the constraints of the ego, and open to the wisdom of the universe. It is a state of pure awareness. A life review is a procedure for reconstructing our pasts in a manner that can provide three personal benefits that many of us need as we grow older: An acceptance of the events and choices that have shaped our lives, reflecting gratitude for the life we’ve been given rather than self-doubt and regret. A more authentic (and thus more robust) understand ..read more

Aging: The Good, the Bad, and the Tolerable Y is for Youth is Overrated Julia Louis-Dreyfus Thinks Youth Is Overrated New York Times By Jancee Dunn March 30, 2024 When Julia Louis-Dreyfus hit her 60s, she was struck by a realization: She wanted to hear from the old ladies. The star of “Seinfeld” and “Veep,” who has nearly a dozen Emmys, was in the “second act” of her life. But she was contemplating her third. She said she craved the sort of wisdom that only comes from age. Yes, she received advice from her mother, but where was everyone else? “We’re certainly not in the habit of listening to ..read more

Aging: The Good, the Bad, and the Tolerable X is for eXit life      . . . older persons tend to fear death less than the young, and many can accept the idea of personal death with equanimity. At times it represents a welcome relief from the pain of a terminal illness. In other situations, older persons feel they are ready, they have lived out their lives and are able to let go. Strong religious or philosophical convictions can be of immense comfort in the process of dying. Attitudes toward death give clues as to the life that has been lived, reflecting the problems, reso ..read more

Aging: The Good, the Bad, and the Tolerable W is for Walking My mother didn’t drive. Her younger brother took her out one day to teach her. I envision it was in the 1920s. Maybe they had a Ford Model T. I suspect they were in a field near the family potato farm on Long Island. The way she told it, my Uncle Joey jumped out of the car because she was such an erratic driver. She never drove after that. And she didn’t need to. As a young adult, she lived and worked in Brooklyn, used the subway to get around. When she married my father, they relocated to Jersey City, NJ to be near Dad’s Italian f ..read more