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OLD AGE IS NOT FOR SISSIES

NOTHING IN LIFE IS TO BE FEARED

What No One Tells You About the Great Barrier Reef

by Filed Under: Travel

The Great Barrier Reef is actually over 2,300 reefs in one giant coral reef system running approximately 1,400 miles along the northeastern shore of Queensland, Australia in the Coral Sea.

One of the 900 islands on the Great Barrier Reef seen from the air on our first day.

Queensland is like one of our states.  The reef sits about an hour and a half by boat from the city of Cairns.  Our group of 20 individuals took a catamaran out on a fairly rough day at sea.  The rain limited our visibility for photos but not for exploring.

Our Catamaran Trip to the Reef

The views looking back at the mainland were awesome.  This coastline of Australia had mangroves, humidity and palm trees like Florida.  Unlike Florida, though, it also had mountains and saltwater crocs.

We snorkeled wearing wet suits, because of a particularly bad jelly fish.  We swam out from Michaelmas Cay.

We found the diversity of life on the reef to be amazing.  Two of my most exciting moments was swimming over a giant clam…

and having a very large manta ray swim under me.

And all the other sea life!

We also took a submarine type boat to see another part of the reef in this area.

By the end of this trip, this was by far my favorite day!

A Train to Karanda

by Filed Under: Travel

On day 2 in Australia, we traveled by train through dense rainforests, past spectacular waterfalls, and beside deep ravines.

Kuranda Scenic Railway

The railroad was built in the late 1880s.  We traveled through 15 tunnels and over 37 bridges.  Since we were near the coast, we also had views of the sea as well as the fields around the area.

Queensland near the northern coast of Australia

Kuranda is a village in the rainforest on the northern coast of Australia near Cairns.  We ate lunch in the village and returned by skyrail.

A Sky Ride Above the Rainforest

That evening we had dinner together on the roof of our hotel with the rest of the group from Georgia Tech.

Our Rooftop View

Then each of us got to hold a koala and have our picture made.

My Moments with a Real Live Koala

The minute they hand you the koala, he hangs on for dear life as if giving you a caressing hug.  It was so sweet.

A Koala Handler

Australia or Bust

by Filed Under: Travel

We just got back from three weeks in Australia and New Zealand, so we picked five photos from each day.  Enjoy the photo album!

 

The flight over was 22 hours counting connections, airports, and the flights themselves.  Strangely enough, the jet lag wasn’t bad at all.  Not sure why.

We finally got to Cairns in the Queensland region around noon after losing a day on the flight over from Los Angeles.  On the north coast of Australia and its most tropical, the city is pronounced Cans.

Cairns at Night

After a quick lunch we took a flight out to the Great Barrier Reef to see it from the air.  We knew it would be important to stay awake for the rest of the day, and we thought the flight out and back might help.  In two days we will go snorkeling on the reef.

The Great Barrier Reef near Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Coming back we saw the sugar cane fields, but there are now so few of them.  Malaysia seems to have taken away their sugar cane market.

That night we had dinner with our tour director who will be with us during the entire three weeks both in Australia and New Zealand.  An Aussie himself he gave a brief presentation on what is unique about Australia, its people, its economy, and its culture.

Most interesting was his warning about swimming at the beach or even walking along the shoreline anywhere.  It seems that the salt water crocodiles are frighteningly deadly as is a certain box jelly fish.  In short, absolutely no walking anywhere near the water, even on the road by the mangroves; and absolutely no swimming except in the daytime in a designated area.

Cairns at Night

How Working Forests Work During a Hurricane

by Filed Under: Family Life

This week members of the forestry community are hard at work in Northwest Florida after the devastating winds of Hurricane Michael.

When Michael slammed through their area on Wednesday, October 10th about two weeks ago, over three million acres of Florida’s forestland in eleven counties were affected. Hurricane Michael pummeled these beautiful forests, some of which will take generations to recover.

This week is Working Forests Work Week in Florida, and members of the forestry community will work all this week to help people understand the business of forests and trees in our state.  Last year I posted about this.  You can read it here.

Forests are Important to Florida

What you may have learned last year is that a working forest is one that produces economic value to an area.  There are over 17 million acres of forests in Florida, mostly in the north and central regions of our state, which is more than half of our state’s total land area.  Almost 65% of them are in private ownership.

A Florida Forest – Florida Forestry Association Photo

But what does that mean to those lands in the path of Hurricane Michael?

Well, it means a lot, a whole lot!  Hurricane Michael seems to have picked the least populated path to go through Florida.  The eleven mostly rural counties affected depend totally on agriculture, and trees are their biggest crop. The initial value estimate of these altered, damaged, or destroyed timbers in Florida is staggering.

Michael’s Path Through Rural Northwest Florida – Florida Forest Service

Of Florida’s 17 million acres of forest, 2.8 million were affected, that’s 16.4%.  Almost 350,000 acres suffered catastrophic timber damage.

Catastrophic Damage

That means an estimated 164 million trees were destroyed.  But those are only the trees on acreage with catastrophic damage.  Another 1.04 million acres have severe timber damage and 1.4 million acres have moderate timber damage.

Florida Forest Service Photo

These numbers include not only pine acreage, but also mixed uplands and bottomlands.  Plus, damaged were pulp mills and sawmills.

A Catastrophic Financial Loss to the Industry

The financial losses to the timber companies and private landowners are devastating.  The total estimated timber damage is over $1.289 billion, but these are only the immediate and direct impacts of the hurricane.

Floridians are used to these hurricanes, and previous experience and knowledge indicates that there will be even more long-term impacts and losses.  These same industries will spend added dollars for significant debris removal of the timber that can be salvaged.  Also, reforestation could be as high as $240 million.

Some timber may be still standing, but will lose value due to wind damage, such as poor form and wind sweep.

Wildfires may pose problems due to upwards of 100 tons of forest fuels on the ground per acre.

Yes, that is a house back there behind a lot of forest fuel on the ground. It reflects how much fuel is actually there.

Finally, long term there will be potential losses due to the reduction of jobs and forest industry in the area.  Not all tree owners will replant.

It takes anywhere from 20-25 years of hard work and diligence to grow a pine forest.  That is why these losses are so painful to so many.  The private landowners especially have such a passion for their lands.

So Who was Affected

The three counties with the most catastrophic damages were Bay, Calhoun and Gulf Counties. Bay and Gulf are coastal counties, but interior Calhoun’s forest lands totaled 88.1% catastrophic loss. Gulf which includes little Mexico Beach lost almost 85% of their forest lands.

The Cleanup Has Started

For a short time many of these areas will have an increase in forestry-related work.  Loggers, tree nurseries, truck drivers, and others will find themselves busy over the next few months clearing and salvaging what can be salvaged, while others will be replanting.

Many Recreational Lands Affected

This area of Florida is also cherished for its recreational value.  It is full of beautiful state and national forests used for hiking, camping, hunting and other recreational activities.    These industries will be affected as well.

Great Quail Habitat – Florida Forestry Association Photo

These lands were also crucial to our environmental systems.  The recovery of these resources matter, not only to our state but this region especially.

To add insult to injury we are entering winter in Florida, and normally we get cooler and drier here in north Florida.  Wildfire conditions increase normally during the winter, but this year may be worse due to all the downed trees and dry debris.  Added to this are crossed fire lines, inaccessibility to timberlands, and the chances for fire increase exponentially.

The Aftermath of a Wildfire – Florida Forest Service

Last weekend, my daughter, brother-in-law, and I made a relief run to a little town called Howard’s Creek just north of Port St. Joe in Gulf County.  We witnessed this devastation first hand, and many of the photos above were taken then.  Already, though, the recovery efforts have begun.  Timber crews were already at work removing downed trees in these forestlands.

These are survivors.  The people of Florida are survivors.  The work has  begun, and this is how working forests work in our state even during a disaster.

Everyone Listen: Here’s Why I Must Say Goodbye

by Filed Under: Family Life

It is with a heavy heart that I must discontinue posting to my blog; why I must say goodbye.  I find that I have less and less time for this endeavor as Chuck’s condition continues to decline.

If you remember, a little more than a year ago I posted a description of my initial reactions to Chuck’s diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.  You can read about it here.  

We entered into a long line of tests feeling confident that they would find an answer to his short-term memory problem, a diagnoses that could be reversible.  We were wrong.  It appears Chuck is part of the 65% who worsens over time.

 At the time I thought I could continue the blog and maybe even share moments of our life with all of you. I even thought it might be therapeutic.

But I was wrong on so many levels.  As Chuck’s condition deteriorates, I have less and less time for the blog, book, the garden, or any other hobbies that I had.  It’s time to say goodbye.

 

One Wild Ride

It has been a wild ride.  He completely stopped paying bills back around Christmas of last year, and it was a relief at the time because I never knew whether all the bills were getting paid or not.  Since then I have had to pick up that chore myself. For the first time in 30 years I’ve had to sit down and pay bills.  On the bright side I haven’t had to worry about our finances in a very long time.

On the other hand when things break, I no longer have him to depend upon.   In fact the situation has reversed and is worse than ever.  He still thinks he can fix it. 

For example, a few weeks ago one of the toilets at the coast malfunctioned.  We don’t stay there all the time, and we noticed an odor each time when we arrived—an odor that disappeared after a short while.  Then a couple of weeks ago we arrived but this time the odor did not disappear right away.   Instead Chuck flush the toilet and water poured out of the seal just above the floor.  

We immediately called the plumber but it was Friday afternoon and the plumber could not get to us until Monday.  We decided not to use the toilet until he came. He told us that the toilet had been re-sealing itself after each long period of non use until finally the gap got so large that it released water.

However on that Saturday Chuck called me into that bathroom and proudly announced that he fixed the toilet.  He had a bucket of water and had taken the lid off of the back of the toilet whereupon he demonstrated how he could pour the water into the tank and then lift the bulb to flush the toilet.  I tried to explain that this wasn’t the problem but he would have none of it so convinced was he.  I’m learning to just agree and move on.  By that afternoon, he broke the bulb off.

The next Monday I had a doctor’s appointment and was away when another plumber came who did not know exactly what was wrong with the toilet. So he fixed the broken bulb and left without fixing the seal. I had to call the plumber back to fix the original problem.

Two Steps Forward and One Step Back

This is my life now, one step forward and two steps back.  And now Chuck is having fender benders—at least five that we know of in the past several weeks. Two totaling almost $5,000. He is having a driving assessment. Meanwhile we have to try to keep him out of the car…and the boat. 

He is angry about it because he doesn’t understand. He keeps telling us that he feels fine and that nothing is wrong and that we are all blowing this out of proportion.  Yesterday he angrily accused us of treating him like a child.  

Time to Reorganize

And so my time is consumed by phone calls, appointments, and general minutia.  It is time for me to re-organize my life so that I begin to have more time for Chuck as well as myself.  I also have to realize that I cannot do it all.

So I won’t be posting anything new and will probably not continue updating any of the old posts as I have been doing since the first of the year.  I will keep the website up and I may give everyone an update from time to time but nothing will be regular.  For now I owe it to my sweet, sweet Chuck to try to maintain calm and carry-on the best that we can, to bask in the fleeting golden moments of time together.

It has been a wonderful five years writing to you. Thank you to everyone for all the supportive comments and feedback and all the best to each of you.  I may be back when life changes again, but for now it is goodbye.

An Unforgiving World

by Filed Under: Opinion

Have you ever booked a car, a room, an event, maybe a flight and then in a quick moment realized that you had booked it on the wrong date or the wrong plane, or maybe even the wrong event? Did you try to call them back quickly, say within a few minutes only to be told that it was nonrefundable, that you were just out of luck?

Let’s face it! We live in a world that is sailing past us at a ridiculous rate, and no one, “I repeat,” no one can ever make another mistake. You will be penalized.

It has happened to me. For example, every year we save our pennies and splurge for a weekend at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta. I always contact their website usually just after the new year and book our reservation, because the hotel fills up so quickly for Homecoming.

In the years past, I went online to book the room on the hotel site. I pulled up the page and went through the motions of booking the room. I input my credit card and clicked the final sale. The minute I got the confirmation page, I realized I had made a mistake. I thought had the wrong date for Homecoming.

But It Is Worse Than That

I looked for a cancellation policy or place to click. I found none, and then I realized I wasn’t even on the website for the hotel. I was on a website called Reservations.com. They were a google ad that was listed before the Tech hotel site.

I unknowingly booked through a third party, and worse, I booked a nonrefundable hotel room. I couldn’t even find a number to call until I went back to the first page and found one there.

I called the company immediately, literally within ten minutes of booking the room; and I got a young lady that refused to do anything except remain perfectly nice on the phone but always telling me I was out of luck—that I had clicked and that was like signing a contract. She all but said, “sorry Honey but we got you and your hundreds of dollars.” Of course, she didn’t say it, but that is how I felt.

What has our world come to when people cannot make a mistake. Personally, I have never had it happen before. Oh, I have made mistakes very similar to this one, but the person on the phone always helped me change the order and get it right or reverse the charges.

But not this company. Reservations.com did not care. They just wanted the money. Customer satisfaction is something they do not believe they need, and they may be right. A sucker is born every minute, and the internet gives them a broad field from which to glean. They got me once, and they don’t care if they get me again. There are so many from which to choose.

It did me no good to even try, but that poor girl whose initials are RK (that was all she would give me) got an earful. I maintained calm and calmly let her know that she and her company should be ashamed of themselves and that I called immediately after realizing my mistake. I did not wait an hour or a day to call back.

I also told her that what they were doing to me and my husband was simply another way of stealing. They were taking hard-earned cash and keeping it even though they knew we could not partake of the product. She just quietly listened and calmly from time to time reminded me I clicked, and they had a contract.

I asked to talk to her supervisor, and I waited several weeks for that call. I called the Georgia Tech Hotel and related my dilemma to them. The front desk manager gave me his name and asked if I would call the Reservations.com person I talked to and ask her to call him. The Tech Hotel was willing to reverse the charges, but Reservations.com, when they called me back, would not let me out of the contract.

I also asked what time it was where the girl was from. It was 2 a.m. there while it was 11 p.m. EST here. I asked where the headquarters for the company was located, and she gave me an address in Orlando, Florida. I’m ashamed to say that the headquarters for this shyster company is in my own home state.

So we were stuck with a room for two nights in Atlanta that we thought we did not need. We have a daughter that lives there, and we always have a room at her home. But Chuck loves to go to Homecoming and fraternize with his old college friends, so we make reservations downtown for this one weekend.

In the end, we were fortunate, though. Homecoming was the weekend we booked. Chuck had the wrong dates. We just got very lucky! I just lost a lot of time and the whole situation stressed me out.

It just seems that there should be a law that requires at least an hour where people can break just such a contract. It gives both sides time to make sure everything is correct. We do it to purchase other items. Why not this type of contract? You have time to back out of a contract on a car within three days, I believe.

Frankly, I never thought we would need such a law because 99% of people understood and helped you correct the situation, even if it was offering an alternative or a gift card. This company, Reservations.com, though, seemed to delight in being greedy and unsympathetic.

The other part is that we are elderly. Chuck and I are in our 70s and 60s, respectively. Older people don’t always get it right the first time. I went back and looked at their Reservations.com/Georgia Tech Hotel website, and it looks just like the Tech Hotel website. There’s no doubt in my mind that they want you to think you are dealing with the hotel itself.

This is the reason I no longer click on ads. When you search for something, notice that Google marks the first few sites in the list on your browser as “Ads”. Always scroll past these and go directly to the place of business. It will help you steer clear of the shysters in the marketplace.

It is sad that companies like this are allowed to take advantage.

Why I’m Celebrating an Ancestor this Mother’s Day

by Filed Under: Family Life

This Mother’s Day I wanted to write about a matriarchal ancestor–my third great grandmother on my mother’s side. This is her story.

The family lore we heard was that she was a red-headed if not a hot-headed woman who loaded up her family in a wagon and moved to Florida in 1848.  Florida was only three years old a state, but Peniope McSwain Hamrick decided that her sons and daughters would have their best chance to thrive in a state of mild climate, fertile soils, and cheap land.  I wish to remember her this Mother’s Day because, without her strong-willed temperament, we would not be in Florida today.

When I grew up in the 1960s, the old-timers said that the family got all the way from York, South Carolina to Monticello, Florida in wagons; and that they brought with them all their worldly possessions.  It was a long migration, but their real problems came at the end when trying to get on to their new land.  For that part of the trip, they used homemade wooden sleds to slide over the brush and low lying stumps left behind by the quick clearing.  The older relatives said that the sleds set back of an old barn until they finally disintegrated several generations later.

Peniope’s sons, daughters and their offspring helped populate Jefferson County, Florida. You can find their names on plaques in the courthouse, at the library, and in her history books. One of her offspring is the current editor of the Monticello News/Jefferson Journal.

Descended from Peniope’s oldest son, I grew up in this county to which she entrusted her children.  It seems she made a good decision for all of us.

Peniope’s oldest son and some of his family.

A few years ago my niece (Peniope’s fourth great-granddaughter) met and married a man from the same area in the Carolinas from which Peniope McSwain Hamrick embarked.  It wasn’t long before the Hamricks from that scarcely populated region realized that my niece was one of the Hamricks whose ancestors migrated to Florida.

An elderly Hamrick from there wanted to talk to her, but she waited until I came to visit before the two of us went to see him–I being the self-proclaimed amateur genealogist for this part of the family.

It was a pleasant conversation as he tested my knowledge of my Hamrick ancestry.  And then he asked me if I knew why Penina (one of her nicknames) packed up her kids and came to Florida.  I told him that I heard that she got mad at someone and came South.

What surprises me most about what I learned that day is that they are still talking about her up there over 170 years later.  My great-great-great grandfather was killed in a farming accident leaving her with seven children to raise on her own.  It seems that she left because her husband’s family pressured her relentlessly to marry his youngest brother, who she did not like.

Several of Peniope’s Grandchildren

So this Mother’s Day I’ll remember the mother in my family who brought us to this great state of Florida which has been so good to all of us.  Thank you Peniope McSwain Hamrick for your perseverance, your courage, your insight, and your strength.

Peniope’s great-great-granddaughter, my mother.

Why a Concealer No Longer Works for Me

by Filed Under: Beauty

Finding a good concealer is getting more difficult. At least for us baby boomers.

This is an understatement, but this aging thing is certainly a problem. What I really mean is that I constantly reinvent the wheel lately. Life is getting more and more complex.

Take my under eye circles for example. A few years ago I wrote a post about the new concealer I found. You can read it here. I waxed on eloquently about its attributes, not realizing that in less than five years my complexion would change once again. My concealer no longer works, except for the broken capillaries on my leg.

What’s Happening to My Skin

In addition to the wrinkles and sagging skin, it seems I use fewer cosmetics. I’m learning that wearing less looks better. Many of the formulas were not made for older skin anyway.

They tell me that the outer layer of my skin is thinning, even though I still have the same number of skin cells. All the while, my pigment cells are decreasing, so my skin gets paler and more translucent.

This is why I now wear a sunless tan on most days. Pale skin looks pasty to me and every pound I gain looks like I gained five. I perfectly understand why our president and most politicians wear sunless tans.

For more info on how your coloring changes, the following blog post has a great explanation. You can read it here.

Then there are the blood vessels that feed my skin and which get more fragile while the connective tissues decrease. This is getting ugly.

They also tell me that the oil glands in my face produce less oil, and that’s why my face is drier. So I apply hyaluronic acid to my face daily. It sucks in the moisture my skin needs, but I wonder how long it will work, too. You can read about my skincare routine here.

In addition, I apply retinol. Retinol reminds skin cells to behave as they did when I was younger and healthier, It minimizes wrinkles, thickens skin, controls acne, strengthens blood vessels (so there’s less breakage and discoloration), and fades sun spots. Lately, I noticed that it takes more to do the same job.

So all of this seems to no longer work as well. Lately, my concealer doesn’t work at all, and my skin gets dry and itchy far too easily. It could be my hormones, but they are stable because my doctor checks them at least once a year. I am on bio-identical hormones.

Why I No Longer Wear Concealer

While my concealer should be the answer to erasing under eye circles and combating the look of fatigue; if used incorrectly, it also makes me look older. Too much makeup around the eye area highlights wrinkles and lines.

Careful about its application, I used my finger to melt the concealer into my skin. If I piled it on without blending it in, it settled into my fine lines and wrinkles. I looked for lighter and lighter weighted textures until I realized in the end that nothing worked well any longer. It seemed to just sit on the surface. Instead of making me look younger, it only made me look older.

A few years ago I ran across a makeup artist named Cindy Joseph. She now has her own makeup line.

She said, “Allow the character in your face to be your beauty. Adding texture to texture just makes more texture. So if you want to get rid of wrinkles, putting makeup on them is just going to make them more so. A young face is more like a blank canvas so you can paint colors and textures and all that stuff. But when you get older and you have character and wrinkles and age spots and all that stuff going on, just let it be there. You know, you’re not going to trick anybody. You’re not going to fool anybody.”

I don’t have to give up my foundation yet, but I guess that day will come too. In the meantime, I just keep adjusting my makeup routine to fit my situation.

You can read about more tips from Cindy Joseph here. The video at the end of the post really convinced me.

So what concealer do I use now? I took Cindy Joseph’s advice and I don’t wear concealer at all. I just use my foundation to cover my circles though it doesn’t do the job as well as concealers used to do. I make sure, though, that a primer is mixed with my foundation. It helps with the application.

Dozens of Spring Trends Inspired by Fashion Week

by Filed Under: Fashion

Last September during Fashion Week, fashion designers, brands, and houses displayed their latest collections for buyers and the media. Their hope was to influence trends and markets for the upcoming 2018 Spring season.

So Spring/Summer 2018 is finally here, and online and in our stores are the latest fashions inspired by fashion week last fall. Below are examples of what I found, several of which are too rich for my pocketbook, but are beautiful examples.

Here’s What to Expect

Ice cream colors. Pick a pastel shade but do it up right from head to toe. Maybe a muted peachy pastel.

Tailored, polished denim. Does this mean it’s time to pack up those holy jeans?

Polished jeans from Talbots.

Wider shoulders, a la the 80s.

Pants legs all over the place. Skinny, wide, shorter, ankle, whatever you like.

Shorts, mostly short. Sorry, not something I still do, but it’s great for the younger women.

Vinyl–raincoats, boots, jackets, ponchos, even dresses, and skirts. It started last fall; but will it make it through the summer? I’m not even sure we can do vinyl down here in Florida in the summertime.

Here are three trends in one piece. The rainwear is vinyl, is cherry tomato red, has broad shoulders, and is a trench coat. Oops, that’s four!

Pencils skirts with pointed kitten heels for a touch of class. I would love a sailor blue pencil shirt to add to my wardrobe.

Styles

The trench coat reappears mainly in softer earth colors, especially warm sand. And trench details are in our blouses and dresses. Again with wider shoulders.

A trench coat with broad shoulders in warm sand.

Colors

Other than the all over pastel shades, there are bright colors. Especially worn together. Think a jeweled purple like ultraviolet and a chili red…or a neon lime mixed with a cherry tomato, though the latter seems a little Christmasy to me. All the same, be colorful!

Something for a formal wedding!

Think multi-faceted and very colorful. There’s a sunny yellow and a soft rosy violet. The reds are a cherry tomato and a chili hue. There’s an azure blue and a violet so deeply purple that it’s called ultra violet.  Expect to see this color in shades of nail polish and eye shadow.

Look for ultraviolet and the retro green shades in eyeshadows and nail polish as well as clothing.

There’s a green that’s somewhere between mint and emerald and looks like a retro color. There’s a muted peachy tone called Blooming Dahlia that will look great with Almost Mauve which looks more like it is almost white.

For a good foundation color, there’s a deep cognac brown. I need some new brown pants, and something in this color will be very useful. Or maybe some chili red ones.

Finally there is a fuchsia orchid and a neon lime.

Rounding out the foundation colors are coconut milk, harbor mist grey, warm sand, and sailor blue, a navy shade.

Prints

Prints include all-over checks and tartans; and there are stripes up and down, horizontal, and all directions including vertical candy stripes.

Wouldn’t this make a great Valentine’s Day gift for your young granddaughter or daughter? Or how about for yourself to your husband?

Lots of floral patterns–some soft romantic and airy, others like we had in the 60s, and some micro sweet and tiny. Florals are definitely in.

Rainbow patterns, black and white polka dots, and statement shirts that try to tell us how to think. Included are tropical and art inspired prints.

Trends I’ll Reject

One trend I’ll refrain from trying is the “in your face” nipples…all over the place—maybe in The Big Apple or Los Angeles, but goodness, not in out here in Realville.

Reminded me of the cool see-through blouse I brought back from Miami, while visiting my cousins in the early 70s. It was hard to see anything with its dark, dark fabric and large pockets strategically placed. Black and supposed to be worn with a black bra, that shirt didn’t last two days in my parent’s home. It vanished into thin air never to be mentioned again.

So that’s my take on what to expect. Go forth ladies and discover what’s out there in fashion for Spring, 2018!

Why It is Important to Understand Frailty—Part 2

by Filed Under: Health

Earlier I did a blog post about how our bodies begin to lose muscle mass while we are in our 30s and that loss of muscle mass is how we become frail as we age.  You can read it here.

This is part 2 of the two-part post on frailty. In the first part we discussed the definition of frailty, how it affects us as we age, and the very important symptom of muscle mass loss. In this part, we’ll talk more about muscle mass, what to look for, and how to reverse its loss. We will also discuss how doctor’s measure frailty.

What I’m Doing Now

As mentioned in part 1, the primary treatment for loss of muscle mass is exercise, mostly resistance training or strength training, so I joined a gym and bought weights for my home.  If I failed to make it to the gym, I tried to lift weights at home in the evening.

I also tried to increase muscle strength and endurance by other means, such as carrying bags of grocery instead of using a cart and by unloading them myself instead of asking for help.  I tried to pick up my own bags of fertilizer, straw bales, etc. when gardening.

The other night I moved my own furniture like I used to do.  I compete with my husband to handle my own luggage.  He’s always worried I’ll hurt my back. I try to take stairs and ride my bike twice a week on the hills of Tallahassee.

At the next appointment, Dr. Emhof noticed an increase in muscle mass in my arms and chest, but I was still lacking from the waist down.  I had to do all this and do at least four exercises just for my hips and thighs.  Finally, my legs responded.  Dr. Emhoff is pleased, and I don’t have to go see him every three months now.

But Frailty is More Than Muscle Loss

Our fifties trigger lots of problems. When we get to our fifties, the risk of heart disease increases along with problems such as cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes.  If you are a smoker, this is when it really catches up with you, holding your body back from repairing itself as it did in the past.

Degrees of Frailty

Remember the discussion earlier about how frailty increases about the time we get to be 75?  That downward spiral accelerates if we don’t begin to worry about our muscle mass and our heart by our fifties.

Doctors Use An Index to Determine How Frail We Are

So frailty is when we have many things wrong with us. When your doctor notices this, a geriatric assessment is made and he counts the number of things we have wrong or the number of deficits. It shows how fit or frail we are. There is a frailty index to help them determine to what extent one is frail.

The medical community measures frailty several ways, but two stand out.

Fried et al in “Frailty in Older Adults: Evidence for a Phenotype” defines frailty as an imbalance of the “physiologic triad” of sarcopenia, immune, and neuroendocrine regulation. The latter is a big word, but our nervous system and our endocrine system work together to regulate the physiological processes of our body, otherwise known as homeostasis. It regulates reproduction, energy utilization, blood pressure, our metabolism, and much more.

Using this index, patients are considered frail if they have three or more of the following:

• Reduced activity; maybe even a slower gait

• Slowing of mobility

• Weight loss, such as an unintentional loss of ten pounds or more during the past year

• Diminished handgrip strength

• Exhaustion

Someone who has only one or two of these items is said to be “pre-frail”; someone with none is said to be “robust”. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t plan to get anywhere near my doctor when I’m having a bad back day.

The assessment takes about fifteen minutes.

Another way to measure is The Frailty Index which is based on the concept that frailty is a consequence of interacting physical, psychological, and social factors. It was developed by Dr. Kenneth Rockwood and Dr. Arnold Mitnitski at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Frailty Index (FI) = (number of health deficits present) ÷ (number of health deficits measured. These deficits include diseases, signs, symptoms, laboratory abnormalities, cognitive impairments, and disabilities in activities of daily living.

As these deficits accumulate, people become more vulnerable to unfavorable outcomes. In short, this frailty index is based on a comprehensive geriatric assessment. It includes functional dependencies as deficits, such as say the patient needs help dressing.

My Cousin

I have a cousin, an octogenarian, who took to her chair and later her bed due to rheumatoid arthritis. She looked as if a puff of wind could blow her over.  Her gait was slow and unsteady, and later she hardly rose from her chair. On my last visit she took to her bed–never getting up again. Hers was a classic case of frailty.

So as you can see and as I learned, the word frail means so much more.  It is important to realize that the whole person is in a process of aging, and it is a very dynamic process.  Some of us will be helped by knowing and will try to keep ourselves from going farther down the index.

For all the rest of us.  It is good to remember what one doctor said–that there seems to be a natural order of life. When we are well, we walk around a lot. And when we get sick, we move around less.

When we really get ill, we may take to our bed. And at some point, we might not get out. And finally just before we die, we hardly move at all.

Another doctor noted that people fail in predictable ways.