What will Your 80's and 90's be Like? Will you have a Good Quality of Life?

My husband got one of those dreaded phone calls this morning. His sister called to say that his 85-year old mom is in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. This morning she slumped over, passed out stone-cold in her chair. We are in Colorado and his mom is in Pennsylvania. As we wait for further news, I think back on his mom's health history. In the fall of 2002 she had a pretty bad stroke. We thought that would be the end of her. But she's a tough old bird, as my mom would say, and she survived. She's never been the same though. She's constantly dizzy and has neurovascular disease. Three years later, she broke her hip. We thought that would be the end of her. But needless to say, she survived. Again, she's never been the same. She has a lot of trouble getting around and moves extremely slowly. The human body has a remarkable capacity to keep going even after it has been traumatized. It was designed to live and strives for health. The problem is that while she did survive the stroke and the broken hip, the quality of her days is far less than optimal. We wonder how she feels about the quality of her life, but it's not a question we can ask her. This kind of incident always make me even more passionate in my efforts to do whatever I can, at age 50, to give me the best chance of having a meaningful quality of life if I reach my 80's and beyond. The things we choose to do now and the lifestyle we are living at this moment have a dramatic effect on how well we will age. Please join me in re-committing all our efforts to make healthy choices whenever possible.