[maybejane]

I'm having a hard time with getting old. I'm 54 and I see my 88 year old father with walking problems and other age related health issues, and my mom with dementia who is in a nursing home (really nice one). I do help them out. I spend more time with my father who lives at home alone and doesn't drive anymore so I have to take him around. I'm not working right now.

I can't seem to find things that I can look forward to except getting old and ill and potentially ending up with dementia. That scares me.

I don't have kids, but do have a husband and dogs. I suppose many people go through this. I don't find that getting over 50 is great as some people claim. It doesn't get better.

[dandylin]

I often see people out in public having a difficult time getting around, or trouble with atm machines and cashiers and think to myself 'I don't want to live long enough to go through that' But then I see other very active and bright elders and think 'that will be me'

I don't look forward to getting old myself. I have never been married and no kids. I was in perfect health myself until I was 51. When I turned 50, I still felt like a kid and thought that getting old will be a "piece of cake". My doctor, whom I have a regular exam with, told me that I will live to be 99 years old. Not sure if that's great news. But at 51, things turned around.

Since being 51 I've had skin cancers, infections, and recently diagnosed with a disease. I still feel fine up to now, but I was told that I have to take care of that diagnosed disease or I'll be sorry. Just today, I'm feeling under the weather suddenly. I don't know if my doctor now will think I'll live a long, healthy life.

I see old people myself and some look OK and some don't. I don't know what the old people who are OK have done to be so lucky. But I seem to see plenty of old people who are not so lucky. I think that everyone strives to live a long, healthy life. Good efforts don't work for everyone. And nowadays people around my age and younger are coming down with terminal diseases (life cancer) in record numbers and dying. And with the way the world is going, and my world also, I don't think I want to go on much further.

[artichack]

Originally Posted by maybejane

I'm having a hard time with getting old. I'm 54 and I see my 88 year old father with walking problems and other age related health issues, and my mom with dementia who is in a nursing home (really nice one). I do help them out. I spend more time with my father who lives at home alone and doesn't drive anymore so I have to take him around. I'm not working right now.

I can't seem to find things that I can look forward to except getting old and ill and potentially ending up with dementia. That scares me.

I don't have kids, but do have a husband and dogs. I suppose many people go through this. I don't find that getting over 50 is great as some people claim. It doesn't get better.

I can say that getting older for has been much better than when I was younger.....having depression in the early 80's in Alaska was horrible.....no comparison with the help...meds...understanding....I can only imagine....and have read about those suffering with mental illnesses back in the "good old days"....I'd never had made it...true..our bodies do change with age....but I think being in my 50's I have better reason to deal with problems that arrive(I too have a type of skin cancer....bad place on the face...) but am dealing with it .....(Plastic surgeon next Friday)....Hope you feel better......and can find things in your life that are positive....they are out there........Artie