The Three Musketeers .... er, Gracefully Aging OTs

As you might know if you've 'been around Lumigrate enough', Petie the OTR and Karen Richardson and I all know each other from way back. We were all OTs in Colorado Springs in the 1990s or decades before and after. I was born in 1960 and had to get learning disabilities and my life turned around to complete college; I graduated in 1996 and became registered in 1997. I believe Karen's 10 or so years older than I, with Petie being about 25 years older than I, but OT was her second career; she was a drafts'man' but computerization caused her to need to return to college so she went in a NEW direction. However, they both were OTs in "the good old days" in the United States in medicine, so they have just loads of good training and experiences that us newer therapists simply didn't get.  

Between us, we have "a lifetime of experience" as OTs, and THREE lifetimes of life experience as humans.  We've also had our own various types of health challenges which have deepened our understanding of the medical world and the world in general.   

I hope that we all present a lot of similar information related to what we write about on Lumigrate and then also bring our unique perspectives as well, including what comes with the difference in our age. "It's not the age, it's the attitude", it is said.

When I went out of my way in 2010, in a most pleasurable trip to visit Petie in Colorado Springs and then Karen in Pagosa Springs, to ask them to collaborate with me in the Forums on Lumigrate, and what I envisioned their contribution could be and where that might lead, I had just turned 50. I hadn't seen Petie for a few years; my personal life with my aging father kept my free time, when I was able to get over that way, visiting him. Even when I lived in Colorado Springs, I rarely saw Petie or Karen because of that -- he had a progressive neurological disorder that affected cognition as well and I'd had to start intervening in his home safety when I was on Internships in 1996 in Denver at the VA hospital.

But after one of my visits, I drove the big, long loop back through spectacular southern Colorado to get them involved. Not long after that, Petie went on a weekend walk with her husband, Bob and son, Thomas and came back with a very sore knee. She had a partial knee replacement and wrote about it eventually on Lumigrate.  She was recovering from that when my father got well enough, thanks to western medicine, to be able to once again think clearly enough about what western medicine was going to bring his way if he continued to 'fight the fight', and we'd finally gotten the team to allow a hospice and palliative care consult.  He'd unfortunately missed the window of receiving palliative care benefits and services, and accepted the hospice benefits and with it, began getting experts consulting with him about how to 'go out gracefully'.

So I was helping with that and unable to visit and help Petie, so I did what I could do from a distance over the phone (which is quite surprising what a good OT can do over the phone with a team on the other end!).  She was still recovering and unable to come to his memorial/funeral.  But she made a generous donation to the fund related to this section of Lumigrate, as did several other of my friends and former patients/clients; in the process of my father's last years of life, those close to me knew of the struggle that I had with 'the system' and 'the team' and 'the patient/person' related to everything from driving safety to planning in advance for legal/financial and then unfortunately, what I refer to as 'mangling medicine'.  It wasn't any one person being the problem, it was the majority of situations and professionals being ineffective and simply 'wrong'.  

Karen and Petie and I have spent our professional lives advocating for the ethical treatment of our patients and clients and we have now all suffered personally and professionally from the medical system's blunders.  We're passionate and committed to bringing our expertise to Lumigrate's followers.  So thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy our work here, as we are THREE FUN OTs, and learn a lot along the way.   

Today I got to thinking about a funny thing that happened years ago that told me something about my own views about aging and dying. I used to read the newspaper every weekend morning and I've always been an obituary reader because I love the stories about people's lives.  However, I could not read them when I was eating -- that just grossed me out back before I became a medical worker, but working in medicine I worked so much related to bodies and death, including cadaver anatomy (where I became vegetarian for a while, making my health problems worse as I didn't know at the time wheat was causing/contributing to my muscle pain and weakness!).

One day my husband and I went for a walk after I'd been reading the paper and I said to him that 70 is a cutting off point in my mind of when I'm surprised to hear about someone dying and not. Younger than 70, my thought process was different than if the person was over 70. We returned home and the mail had come and in it was an invitation to my "Uncle Harmon's" 70th birthday! (I had no aunts, uncles or cousins, it was my mom's cousin who was my 'uncle', like I am now "Auntie Mardy" to several friends kids so I get to have FRAMILY since I have no FAMILY.

I got such a laugh out of that, I remember it to this day! I wish I'd thought to say that at his funeral; I was blessed to get to spend part of the last evening of his life with him and have him call me back from the door when I was leaving to hear him boisterously say 'hey, kid, I love you'.  I'd known him almost 40 years and had never heard him say that; he lived to be in his 80s, dying from the side effect of a pharmaceutical for autoimmune disease -- something which in a different paradigm likely could have been nonexistent had he found the underlying foods and factors!  Similarly, my mother, who died unexpectedly years prior, had called me on the phone the last evening of her life and closed with those three words, which was highly unusual for her, and most interesting to me, continuing my evolution spiritually related to our connection to our lives on Earth and before-this-life and after.  When my father passed, true to the tradition in our family, I got three signals that all occurred when I was talking in person, on the cell  phone, or on a landline with friends about his death and the situations surrounding it, caused by poor end of life planning on his/his team's part, unfortunately.  Petie was involved in one of them.  We took it as 'a sign' he would want us to proceed in this direction with our work on Lumigrate.  So here it is! 

I hope I don't read an obituary for a long time with Petie's name on it! (OR Karen's!  Nor they mine!)  But if that happens, I know that she's made her peace with this life coming to and end and I hope she is going to continue to share with us about how it is that she has this 'winning attitude' when there is so much in her life which is 'difficult'. She writes often about her middle aged adopted son, Thomas, who has developmental differences and lives 'independently' with a lot of assistance and supervision for support, not only from Petie but the tax/community-based programs.

On top of what most people have to plan for as they age, she also has to think to transition those responsibilities; since I'd worked with Thomas related to driving and we had a good rapport, and know and get along well with her husband Bob as well, I felt I could at least help or be nearby and assist if something were to happen since her daughter lives in another state.  Karen also worked with Thomas related to driving, but before I did. As with anyone, his ability/disability "functionability" changes over time so he went from being not able, to able, to not.  One never knows -- with further knowledge and interventions in the future, perhaps new levels of function will occur.  Or not.  We all are just where we are and having to shift our habits and how we go about life as those needs and abilities shift. It comes down, also, to the cost of a vehicle and all that goes into driving one, and it's simply more efficient for MANY (and safer) to make other plans.  And that's where Karen's specialty comes in here at Lumigrate, though she is very experiences as a generalist as well (which can include geriatrics). 

I know that if I were to not know Petie and read her obituary, I'd find it fascinating, so I trust that by having her here 'live and in person', you're finding the same. I hope that her openness about sharing what's going on in her head and life related to the aging process is of benefit to you and your loved ones.

Recently, I watched the HBO documentary on Gloria Steinham. I found myself comparing how she looked in shots that were taken when she was my age, and I was thinking about things that she was part of when I wasn't even aware there was a 'women's movement'. Her Ms. Magazine was where the expression '50 is the new 40' started, I believe, and I know that to me, Petie's teaching me that '70 is the new 60'; she's active in her community, has learned in her 70s of her gluten intolerance and switched gears to eat differently, stays physically active and is upbeat and happy. Most of the time; I think we both write to the optimistic attitudes and don't want to 'drag anyone down' on our more difficult days. 

But then hopefully we toil and mull and emerge wise and ready to write and have something GRATE to say.