Health Care is Different in One’s Third Act

By Charles LaFond, ISR Senior Development Director

The last few months have been hard on my body and on my mind.  Aging requires courage, patience, savings, and budgeting. My body has been racked with fevers, pain, surgeries, and two amputations just last month. I have diabetes, so removing my socks to look at my feet is the most courageous thing I do each day. My budget has been similarly racked with co-pays. Are we allowed to talk openly about aging health or is this to be whispered about behind the woodshed?

In my 20s, the question, “What will happen to my body?” was a joyful one, wondering as I did about travel to far-off lands, slalom skiing on black diamond slopes, experiences of sensuality for which I longed, and a delight in all things food from India and Asia. In my 60s, however, the question, “What will happen to my body?” brings up different thoughts about genetic vulnerabilities, retirement savings, prescription costs, and Medicare.

Now, in my “Third Act” (as they call one’s 60s through the 90s) I am loving how my wisdom clicks up exponentially, and yet I am disappointed that my body is more vulnerable. The root word of “vulnerable” is “vulnus” or “wound.” 

As Bessel van der Kolk so powerfully puts it in the title of his excellent book, The Body Keeps the Score, our traumas can result in our illnesses while our illnesses can fuel our anxiety. Our mind and our body interplay. In a recent news article about aging and health care[1] the title was “Older Americans Worry They Can’t Afford Their Own Health Care.”

Every day, I am grateful that Island Senior Resources exists because, without it, I would need to move to the mainland to get the advice and resources I need to navigate this “vulnus phase” of my life.

As a friend and Island Senior Resources client, Josephine Ann Gennaro, said recently “Island Senior Resources helped me as I moved to Island County to be near my daughter.  Island Senior Resources gives me a support system.  They provide information about how I can get meals, how I can navigate Medicare, how to engage in support systems around aging, and how to get medical transportation with wonderful drivers whose conversation reduces isolation. The agency means that I can live near my daughter, and it helps me beyond my daughter’s support. She works full time and has her own family, so Island Senior Resources means that I know that someone is there to look out for me and who can help me. It’s a tremendous benefit and relief for me and others who struggle with reduced finances we find ourselves in during our final decades. We need these services for health care, to stay where we are and not worry.  We need to survive. ISR helps me to find doctors, insurance, and groups to join for support.  It’s like having a security blanket for those of us who are aging.  I don’t feel so scared now.” 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/18/health/older-americans-healthcare-affordability-kff-partner-wellness/index.html

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/18/health/older-americans-healthcare-affordability-kff-partner-wellness/index.html