Tag Archives: health

I suppose I’m a little disappointed with how sore I am this morning. While I was looking forward to it I knew riding my bike 25 miles in the Tour de Palm Springs that was held yesterday morning wasn’t going to be easy but I had ridden that far, once before. I know, I know; plenty of people run that far – I think they call it a marathon – but given the level of my fitness a few months ago this was a worthy goal. On my bucket list, plain as day, is the goal to Ride my Bike for 40 kilometers (I think it seems like more than 25 miles that way, and, besides, it’s so international sounding). Smack dab in the middle of my 60^th year and perhaps 10 or 30 pounds overweight (or should I say 4 or 13 kilograms? Sounds like a lot less, doesn’t it?). And, this Boomer of dubious physical conditioning, I thought pointing toward a 25 mile bike ride on this particular date was a worthwhile pursuit. And, it wasn’t just 25 miles mind you; I rode my bike to my friend’s home (Syd and Joan) easily 3 miles from mine where we loaded up the bikes on the back of his SUV and headed to a parking lot that was another 1.5 miles from the start/finish line and then back again to make a grand total of 31 miles on the rock hard seat. It was more than I had anticipated (or should I say 50 kilometers – now that’s a nice round number!). I could tell you about my recent bout of bronchitis too but then I could be accused of piling on.

The Tour de Palm Springs is an annual gathering of more than 10,000 cycling enthusiasts using every type of wheeled, self-propelled vehicle available today that participants can choose to ride along various routes ranging from 1 to 100 miles in and around the city of Palm Springs for the primary purpose of raising money for a number of charities and a getting a new T-shirt. It’s anything but a race; in fact the organizers go way out of their way to deemphasize any competitive aspect of the ride although I heard the Public Address announcer more than once use the term “Race” only to quickly correct himself. Event is the preferred term. Upwards of $300,000 finds its way into the coffers of various local and national charities with the choice of designee up to the rider (I earmarked my portion of the $40 entry fee to the American Cancer Society – go figure?).

The day before the Event my wife and I decided to have lunch downtown within walking distance of the Registration Booth right under the massive statue of Marilyn Monroe at the epicenter of Palm Springs on the corner of Tahquitz Canyon Way and Palm Canyon Drive. I figured we would mosey on over to the pick up my wrist band after lunch and check out the vendor expo that was part of the celebration. I had told Syd and Joan I would pick up theirs as well to save them from the exercise. What I hadn’t counted on when I signed up for the Tour was dodging rain drops in the middle of California’s desert in February. While it can happen, it rarely does. But here we were with mid-day temps in the high 40’s and the wind chill deducting at least another 5 degrees and the sky spitting on us. I started questioning my sanity about entering this Event until I was handed a few free samples of various Clif products which went a long way toward smoothing over my angst. It’s hard to beat free.

Figuring I needed to do a little “carbo-loading” the evening before my wife and I decided on pizza for dinner to the tune of the raindrops plinking on the window with the wind howling through the trees for accompaniment. Then it was off to bed for a good night’s sleep in anticipation of the next day’s fun. I awoke at 3:18 a.m. to the sound of a fierce wind whistling through the 10 foot setback between our home and the one next door cursing my luck of signing up for a monumental outdoor pursuit on the same day a hurricane was going to strike our normally calm and warm desert. Further attempts at sleep were impossible so I hauled my soon to be sore butt out of bed and busied myself until it was time to make the appointed arrival at Syd and Joan’s by 8:30.

Mother Nature can be quite the vixen. By the time I buckled the chinstrap of my helmet the clouds had cleared and what awaited us was an incredibly bright sky with new fallen snow twinkling like diamonds off Mt. San Jacinto in the distance and only the slightest zephyr. While the temperature was on the brisk side I figured that was far preferential to having a warmer than normal day – at least for us cyclists. Upon arrival at the staging area Syd, Joan and I saddled up our hybrid bikes with more than 10,000 other event participants and migrated by foot toward the starting line to the music of the local high school band all the while inching closer to a point where we could actually ride. 20 minutes after the scheduled start of our Event we were finally balancing on our wider than normal seats and peddling north on Indian Canyon in full exhilaration. Joan bid us adieu as she didn’t want to be perceived as a “slow poke” and we agreed to wait for her at the finish. Syd had provided a few warnings to me earlier, since he has a storied biking history that has included cross-country rides (not “cross country” like a high school track team but “cross country” as in all the states between California and Florida). Perhaps the best advice he gave me was to understand that bikes don’t have brake lights and that it was possible that riders in front of me would stop for any number of reasons, traffic lights being chief among them, and it was important for my well-being to pay attention. While it might make for a better story if there was some mishap, nothing of the sort occurred during our ride; I think primarily because the type of bikes we were riding allow for regular athletic shoes and didn’t require binding of our feet to the pedals in a way that only resembles ski bindings.

As the herd plowed its way through the streets of Palm Springs and other nearby cities, past emerald colored country club golf courses and tennis resorts, obstructing traffic all the way, we found comfortable gaps in which to exist so as not to be hassled by the other riders; that is until we were periodically forced to stop en-masse at a number of controlled intersections in order to allow the motor vehicles to pass. A certain amount of physical coordination was required at these infrequent stops so as to stay upright but I can proudly say that both of my knees are in pristine condition today – at least on the surface. We were peddling along so well that we decided to bypass the first SAG stop at the Desert Princess Resort, some 6 miles out from the starting line (SAG stands for Support And Gear, but mostly snacks). We agreed we would avail ourselves of the next (and final) SAG stop at Cathedral City High School, another 12 miles out since we were skipping this first one. While speed was never a requirement or recommendation I was self-impressed when Syd announced (he had an odometer on his bike) we hit 21 miles-per-hour on the downhill portion of Ramon Road near the Agua Caliente Casino, that is until he told me he once averaged 21 MPH for an entire ride of something like 50 or 500 miles. The details were lost in the grim dose of reality that was clouding my brain. We were going along really well, even on the uphill climb on Bob Hope Drive from Ramon Road to Gerald Ford until I started to feel my quadriceps in a way that reminded me of two-a-day football practices in which I participated the last time in 1970. I did my best to suck it up and started to anxiously anticipate the looming SAG stop at Cathedral City High School now probably only a couple of miles away.

As I started to recognize the terrain that would lead us to the school parking lot the cruelest of ironies presented itself. Syd had the audacity to mention that a “pretty good hill” was right in front of us on DuVall Road and of course my inability to stop thinking about Pink Elephants manifested itself in the use of at least 21 of the 24 gears available with various configurations of the derailleur on my bike to help complete this leg of the ride without any embarrassing delays just before we pulled into the school parking lot. As I parked my bike with wobbly thighs helping to engage the kick stand we made our way toward tables lined with teenagers thrusting various 3 ounce Dixie Cups into the hands of those before us. Contained in these cups, no-doubt, was some high-tech energy supplement that looked and tasted suspiciously like Peanut M&Ms. Directly adjacent were large jugs of colored liquids that are normally used for dumping on victorious football coaches and another table of sample sized portions of Clif Bars and something called “Gel Shots” that I was suspicious might contain alcohol but learned later were really 100 calories of liquefied sugar. We loaded up our pockets, gulped the high-tech energy supplements and colored liquids as we listened to live Jazz Music along with a couple hundred of our fellow Event participants. The musical entertainment made me long for a beer or a glass of wine which if that could have been part of the respite would have required the dispatching of a taxi to get me back to the finish line. After no more than 5 or 6 minutes of “rest” we remounted our bikes and continued along our path to the finish line that was now about 6 miles in the distance, somewhat refreshed.

Not more than a few minutes later as we were making a swinging right-hand turn I thought I recognized a rider a few bikes in front of us. As I kicked my mechanical stead into a higher gear and caught up to the familiar figure I immediately recognized that it was Joan whom we hadn’t seen since our goodbye at the starting line. Wondering aloud how she could be in front of us when she was worried that we would be waiting on her I quickly learned that she had neither stopped at the first or second SAG depot; I quickly changed the subject as we rode briskly along toward the conclusion of our ride.

It was somewhat thrilling to approach the finish in downtown Palm Springs in the shadow of that much larger than life statue of Marilyn along with the thousands of other riders, all of whom had their routes converge into the common finish line, whether 1 or 100 mile riders, complete with clocks marking time and T-shirts being thrust into the hands of the finishers. With the glow of self-satisfaction at least internally illuminating my psyche we quickly made our way back to the parking lot and mounted our bikes on the SUV rack for the ride back home.

I’m headed for the Jacuzzi this afternoon. I think next year I’ll do the 50 mile ride.

565,000

January 31, 2013

About Blog By Boomer

Leave a comment

My stated intent with this blog is to help my fellow Boomers navigate through the morass of issues that are facing those of us born between 1946 and 1964 as we age together. I think I know what those major issues are; at least I know which ones keep me awake at night. In the interest of democracy and the realization that there are most probably many, many other issues facing Boomers that I have not yet encountered I tried a little experiment: I GOOGLED “problems facing Boomers” and, in 1/3 of a second I received 565,000 responses. Five Hundred and Sixty Five Thousand! It’s no wonder I have a hard time getting the recommended amount of sleep every night.

The first thing that jumped out at me was a FOX NEWS report from last year that simply stated “If rates of disease and disability continue at their current levels, America will become a nation of sick, senile, disenfranchised, impoverished seniors, with too few resources to care for them and astronomical medical costs that will cripple our economy.” Cheery thought, that, but it kind of sums up challenge. I don’t know about you but I am not looking forward to living out my golden years as a depressed, sickly old man wearing tattered Dockers and an old flannel shirt waiting on the veranda of my government subsidized housing for one of my grandchildren to pick me up for an outing to the local park, hoping I can remember his or her name when they arrive. So, I suppose Health and Healthcare that is affordable needs to be at the top of the list of every Baby Boomer’s worry lineup.

Then, it seems, all the concerns about Money and Inflation combined with anticipated Longevity for Boomer’s in general. In simple terms, the Fear of Outliving Assets commands a high place on every Boomer’s list. How to know when enough is enough, that’s the rub. Assuming you think you have “enough” when its time to cut back and try to enjoy whatever is left of your days with our Federal Budget Deficit running in excess of $1 Trillion per year with no end in sight and accumulated debt at $16.5 Trillion and growing is frightening to say the least. It seems we are being led to believe that allowing the Federal Government to keep minting money at breakneck speed is a good thing for our economy. The believe that somehow we will spend our way out of our national fiscal problems flies in the face of all lessons economic I learned over the last 60 years. The simple concept that was taught that when there is more and more currency in the system chasing a finite amount of goods and services the effect squirts out as inflation seems to have been lost in the current environment. Thinking about a day when you might take that last distribution from an IRA account because your money ain’t worth what it used to be and it cost a lot more to live to that point than you ever thought possible and you are left with nothing but a meager monthly distribution from Social Security to support yourself and your spouse that is younger and much healthier than you – now that’s the stuff of which nightmares are made.

Another worrisome issue that jumped out at me, one I had not considered on my own because I have a committed and caring spouse, are the unique challenges facing Single Baby Boomers as they age. I was somewhat taken aback to read that 1 in 3 of the almost 80 Million Boomers is either divorced or never-married or widowed and of that population of more than 25 Million Americans only 10% fall into the widowed category. Among the commonalities of this growing segment is that they tend to be younger, female and non-white. As a group, they become disabled at almost twice the rate of married couples and are less likely to have adequate health insurance. The obvious concerns of who will care for them if they do become incapable on their own are exacerbated by the economic challenges of living alone.

Many Boomer’s are part of what is known as the “Sandwich Generation“; simultaneously having to care for family members that are both older and younger. I think we all know Boomers that have been ensnared in that web with a living parent that needs a significant amount of care and children that have either never left the nest or have returned as victims of the challenging economy or other social problems. The tax of the energy and resources on our contemporaries that are caught as the meat in the middle of this sandwich can be overwhelming.

Functional Decline is another concern of Boomers that I personally hadn’t spent much time thinking about, although I find it distressing that what I once thought of as my razor-sharp memory needs ever more reliance upon a digital calendar for prompts about the normal and necessary parts of day-to-day living.

Abuse, Neglect and Financial Exploitation have their own places up and down the roster of those things about which to be concerned. I have a friend that is an attorney specializing in Elder Law. Apparently, the need for this specialty is growing exponentially.

Death and Dying mixed up with cultural and religious beliefs creates its own menu of concerns for Boomers who want to have a say in how their own lives end. How and when to make their wishes known to family members and the worries about whether those wishes will be honored are among the details that must be reconciled.

Where To Live is another challenge facing Boomers. Layering the desires to be close to (or not) other family members, health care facilities, recreational opportunities, entertainment, shopping and religious facilities with the need or willingness to move from an existing home creates another set of insecurities.

My goal over the coming period of time is to explore these issues in-depth and other concerns that are brought to my attention with a focus on how best to attack each of the challenges as we age together. If there is something keeping you awake at night that you would like to have me address please let me know.

Illness Insurance

January 29, 2013

Health, Insurance

1 Comment

Health Insurance – that’s a funny name when you think about it. You virtually never use it when you are healthy; only when you are sick. I’m thinking about it because I am home – sick with the flu. I’m waiting for my primary care physician to call me back to let me know when I can visit her office.

We are owner’s of a small Real Estate Broker and Mortgage Company in Palm Springs. Our Employee Benefits are handled by a provider that bills us for the monthly premiums for all of our insurances along with our payroll. We are pretty vigilant about making sure we get the appropriate coverage at a good price; especially given my history of 2 major cancer bouts in the last 15 years. Either of those would have bankrupted us without our insurance coverage. It’s not a Cadillac plan; probably better referred to as a VW. The coverage is within a HMO and I can honestly say I believe I have been provided every reasonable service to which I have been entitled since we have been part of this scheme. Theoretically, we get reduced premiums because we get lumped together with a bunch of other small businesses and pre-existing conditions don’t affect the cost – only age.

Now here’s the rub. My wife, she works with us in our business, just had what the provider refers to as a Milestone Birthday. Apparently because she was one day older on January 27 than she was on January 26 the risk to the insurance company became so great that they needed to raise her premium by more than 30%!! Since we don’t have an employer (other than ourselves) to pay their “portion” we get to see what it really costs – $766 each and every month for just her Illness Insurance – matching what we pay for mine. The really scary part is I have a Milestone Birthday coming up in June and I have already been warned that my premium will jump from the aforementioned $766 to God knows what. I suppose that since being 55 and 1 day old is 30% riskier than 54 and 364 days then turning 60 plus that one extra day probably means I will be at least 50% riskier to the insurance company than I am today. Let’s hope not because our current premiums are more than our mortgage payment, taxes,homeowner’s dues and insurance on our home. I could drive 3 or 4 different fancy cars for what I pay in illness insurance premiums.

In 5 short years I’ll be faced with the alphabetical decision-making that accompanies the conversion of my illness insurance to Medicare. The more I read about Parts A through F the more confused I become. I am not fearful that Medicare will disappear by the time I turn 65 – after all, my congressperson has promised me it won’t. But, I am more than a little concerned that the my portion of the cost of the combination of the Affordable Health Care Act and whatever supplemental plans I will need to have will escalate to a level that provides no relief in this spiraling illness insurance cost structure.

I think thinking about this is making me sick. When is that doctor’s office going to call me back?

Cut it Out!

January 25, 2013

Health

1 Comment

One in five American adults smokes some type of tobacco product. Astonishing! In the face of irrefutable evidence that smoking significantly shortens life span and denigrates the quality of that reduced time the beat apparently goes on. In addition to the guarantee of an earlier death, the economic consequences to the individual and society as a whole are staggering. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 443,000 deaths occur in the USA each year related to smoking; Still; Really. Lung disease, cancer and heart ailments are at the top of the list of those smoking related ailments that contribute to the earlier than necessary demise of smokers.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study wherein researchers discovered that quitting smoking at every age up to 64 can add from 4 to 10 years to the life expectancy of the new non-smoker. The sooner the activity is stopped, the better the life expectancy. The study concluded that both men and women that died in 2006 and were smokers at the time of their demise were about 3 times more likely to have died during the term of the study than non-smokers. This disparity is partly attributable to increased health standards for the non-smoking population. Consider also that among Americans that died of lung cancer in the early 1960’s women who smoked were 2.7 times more likely to have died from that horrible disease than non-smoking women, while men in the 1960’s died at a rate that was 12 times more likely. Pretty staggering info that pales in comparison when you come to understand that by 2010 that both men and women that died of lung cancer were smokers was 25 times the rate of non-smokers. Women, I suspect, caught up to men in this regard due to the increased social acceptability of smoking by females and the larger influx of women into the workforce. The increase in the overall death rates is in no small part attributable to advances in health care that has helped to stem the tide of other life ending conditions but apparently not so much lung cancer.

We have a number of video tapes of our family when we were kids in the 50’s and 60’s, usually of family gatherings around Christmas time. In almost every tape the adults are seen with cigarettes burning in one hand and a drink in the other while the kids are scrambling at their feet to rip open their presents – quite often with one or more of the female adults obviously pregnant. Our parents weren’t being careless or irresponsible, the simple fact is they did not KNOW what we know today about the harm that smoking causes. I remember my Dad quit in the 70’s; cold turkey. It was tougher for my Mom but she finally gave up the cigarettes in the 80’s as best as I can remember.

I smoked off and on from 1971 until 1984 – I suppose because everyone else did. Mostly I worked office jobs and even if you didn’t have your own you spent your days inhaling everyone else’s tobacco smoke because that was just the way that it was. When I quit for good it was as much for practical reasons than concerns about my health; I had just burned a hole in a brand new tie. It wasn’t the first time it happened but I was committed it would be the last.

What we know today about cancer includes the understanding that you don’t “catch” cancer like a cold or the flu. While there is a growing belief that viruses may be at the root cause of some cancers, many cancers require an “irritant” to which we are exposed over an extended period of time along with some genetic predisposition. And, in many cases, it takes a good long time for the cancer that may be growing inside of us to become noticeable to health professionals. Consider the mountain of evidence that exposure of our Soldiers, Sailors and Marines to Agent Orange and other defoliants in Vietnam and Korea are now manifesting themselves in deadly lymphomas, prostate cancer, respiratory (lung cancer) and skin cancers – in many cases 40 or more years after the exposure. Lots of these service personnel also smoked creating what has proven to be an especially lethal cocktail. Consider also that defoliants have been in use for agricultural and landscaping purposes all over American soil, albeit at much lower concentrations than in the forests of Asia where we so indiscriminately sprayed. There is a growing body of evidence that chemicals of many kinds contain the keys to unlock predisposed molecule of DNA toward cancer in those of us that possess them. Tobacco products release a number of chemicals into our organs when inhaled including cyanide, arsenic and lead – known carcinogens Placing one of these burning time bombs between your lips is literally playing with fire.

I remember when Obamacare (The Affordable Health Care Act) was first being debated and we were told that it would take a number of years for all the features and benefits, along with the resulting costs, to be calculated and understood. What folks heard (or wanted to hear) was that the program would guarantee affordable health care coverage for everyone but that the details still needed to be worked through. Since most of the remaining major changes that will take place are scheduled to kick in beginning January 1, 2014 those heretofore unknown details are beginning to squirt out. Consider the consequences for smokers.

There is a little talked about provision in the Act that allows insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies premiums that are as much as 50% higher than non-smokers. Estimates range up to an additional $4,250 per year for coverage for a 55-year-old smoker as compared to his/her non-smoking contemporary. Younger smokers will be charged lower penalties but I think its safe to project those surcharges will escalate along with age and a growing body of evidence that smoking in and of itself increases the potential healthcare expenses for individuals over their lifetimes. While it is widely believed that surcharges will not be allowed for policyholders that may be overweight or have other pre-existing conditions that potentially require more medical care than average, the discrimination against smokers is allowable and likely.

Do yourself, your family, friends and bank accounts a favor. If you smoke, quit now. If you don’t smoke, don’t ever start.

—Blog By Boomer

One Boomer's Perspective on Living

Archive

Tag Archives: health

Tour de Palm Springs

565,000

Illness Insurance

Cut it Out!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: