Citizen Journal: Technology halts questions on aging

When I was a kid, the mention of a sanitarium brought to mind a kind of “health resort,” a place more like a spa than a hospital. Recovery of all kinds happened at a sanitarium. Healthy food and fresh air cured problems, mental and physical. As a kid, I hoped that I might drop out of school and reside in a sanitarium for a season or two.

Where I didn’t want to reside was in a “full-care facility” which is what we kids referred to as a “rest home” or maybe an “old folks home” back when people spoke of sanitariums. I’m not fooled even as I enter my golden years. I see right through the disguise, “full-care facility” on the outside, “rest home” on the inside.

My kids have noticed my decline as I pile on the years. It started when my high school athlete daughter beat me in a foot race to our rural mailbox. We lived on a county road, the mailbox was a hundred yards away from the house. I was ahead at first but faded over time, and she went by me at the end. I lost by merely two or three strides but I was never the same again. At 40 years old, my spirit was broken.

A couple of years later, I turned 65 and went on Medicare. My detractors began to focus less on my physical deficiencies and more on my mental failings. Nowadays, I am forced to mask my memory lapses. If I call one of the grandchildren by the wrong name, their parents, my children, smell blood. I counter their suspicions by reminding them that my brain is loaded with twice the history as theirs. And I have lived many more decades than the grandchildren who are also trained to spot my memory deficiencies.

“How come grandma still has it and you don’t?” the young ones pester me.

“I only slept four hours a night, your grandmother slept eight hours all her life. That equals almost a hundred years of extra memories in my brain. That means my mind has to process way more information than your grandmother’s brain. It’s the difference between a desk reference book and a full set of encyclopedias.”

My wife and I go shopping. Sometimes we go far out of our way taking circuitous routes for a reason. My wife pulls up to the curb and points at the door of one of those disguised rest homes that she thinks would be a good fit for me. They have warm folksy names like Fairview Oaks or Old Home Place. My wife suggests that I go inside and take a look.

She is one of those who watch me for my mental lapses. She doesn’t always say something when she catches me dialing her cellphone to locate where I left my cellphone. But I’m certain that she keeps a tally card where my memory lapses are recorded. I will never see that secret tally card until it is presented as evidence at the hearing to determine if I’ve finally gone around the bend.

Until then, I am devising strategies to keep my mental failings and memory lapses under wraps, hidden from human eyes.

My latest trick is high tech. We have a couple of security cameras installed at our house. One camera is outside, aimed at our front door so we can observe possible intruders and the mailman. We can watch that camera recording from the safety of our computer.

A week ago, I filled out my yearly Medicare Supplement Choice then sealed the legal-size envelope which had a bright red stripe. I kept the envelope on the hall table in plain sight as a reminder to mail it.

A couple of days went by. I forgot to mail the envelope. Then one day I noticed that the envelope was no longer on the hall table. I had no recollection of posting the Medicare envelope. But the day had been a busy day and the fog of war had been in effect. I chose not to ask my wife if she had seen the missing envelope because she would add a mark to my secret tally sheet.

After several hours of agonizing over the possibility of losing my Medicare Supplement to a black hole, my overloaded brain seized upon a possible solution. I went to our security camera feature on our computer. and replayed the previous days’ recordings. On the third day’s playback, I watched a large man who looked like me, dressed in my clothes, come out our front door and placed the legal-sized envelope with a red stripe in our mailbox. Then I sped the recording ahead to watch the mailman take that same envelope from our mailbox and continue on his route that would eventually end at the Medicare Headquarters. My heart swelled.

I concluded that security cameras are a tool for us seniors who are under “Memory Lapse Watch.” I went shopping for a security camera to install in my living room and kitchen. The salesperson told me that any idiot could install these new cameras. So I, the idiot, did just that.

My children come over to badger me with intimidating memory questions like, “What have you been doing today, Dad?”

I live from moment to moment without crowding my memory with the mundane parts, I raise my index finger and curl it to indicate that my annoying inquisitive child should follow me to the computer screen. I play back the day’s events as recorded by my new in-house security camera, showing my wife and I beginning our day by eating breakfast. I point at the screen and say in my scolding tone that drives them nuts, “Take a look for yourself,” and I leave the room.

The kids have quit asking.