Don’t Assume

I just got back from my retina specialist. 

She wanted to check on my floaters. The last time I was there, she said “Let’s wait and see.” 

I took her words to mean, “Look, you’re in your seventies. How much longer do you have to worry about your vision, anyway? Floaters come with age. But, if it makes you feel better, I’ll see you every six months and tell you the same thing.”

Today, she opened with:

“How’s the left eye?” 

“Still garbage,” I said.

“We can fix that with surgery if you want,” she said.

“WHAT??”

“Yeah. It’s a little risky, but you have quite a mess in there. You’re a good candidate for this, and I don’t say that to too many patients.”

And here I thought she was agreeing to see me every six months just to mollify, appease, and pacify me. And I almost didn’t go today, but G nagged me. 

And it turns out I actually have a surgical option here. And I’m going to take it.

October 29^th. Vitrectomy. 

Bye-bye Twiggy and the Twiglettes, that giant floater and her backup singers who have been doing a number in my eye since late March. 

Geez. I am so happy.

This new development made me think a lot about how when you get old, people treat you differently. You even treat yourself differently, especially when it comes to self-improvement and self-renovation projects. I know whenever I contemplate doing something new, I’m always mentally measuring the runway. Can I pull this off in the time I have left? 

But it galls me when someone else does it to me—withholds options from me because they assume a lack of runway.

That’s what I assumed my retinal doctor was doing when she said, “Let’s just wait on these floaters.” I knew they weren’t life-threatening, but their lack would certainly be life-enhancing. But I figured that wasn’t high on her list of concerns, even though it was high on mine.

But I know older people who voluntarily opt out of life-enhancing expenditures because they think they won’t get their money’s worth. They won’t live long enough to see a decent ROI.

My mother-in-law (RIP) put up with threadbare carpeting in her apartment for years because she figured she wouldn’t live long enough to get her money’s worth from new rugs. 

I know another person who won’t get tooth implants because he’s in his 80s and thinks it’s just not worth the money and the hassle at his age to be able to chew a steak. 

We all should monitor this kind of self-stinginess.  So what if you die in five years? You’ll have had the pleasure of feeling your tootsies sink into that deep plush pile every single day. You’ll have savored every morsel of that steak.

 We should also be on the lookout for sneaky, insidious ageism, especially when dealing with medical professionals who prescribe solely based on life expectancy rather than life quality. 

Let’s stop this. Let’s not let others, however well-meaning, make assumptions about what would be best for us based on our age. 

Let’s live like we deserve good teeth, clear eyes, and a newly remodeled apartment, no matter how old we are or how much runway we have left. 

Because we don’t know. We probably have ample runway to do whatever we damn well please. Let’s take off, enjoy the ride, and see.