Aging is a process of breaking down. Coping with aging is learning how to compensate and adjust for those break downs.
I know, for example, that my hearing is breaking down. I don't hear as well in my mid-50s as I did even 10 years ago. To compensate I've done two things: I tried out some high-tech hearing aids that worked pretty well but were too darned expensive. The other thing I've done is told everyone to speak up, which is more annoying for all concerned but certainly less expensive.
I also know that my knees aren't the pistons of good health that they used to be. They creak on occasion, especially going up stairs. So I've substituted a running regimen of exercise with a variety of other exercise such as swimming and walking so as not to pound my knees so much into submission. I've also followed my physical therapist daughter's advice on some weight training to help build up some knee strength.
Then there's my eyesight. I've been nearsighted since high school. But, as age is wont to do, my nearsightedness is deteriorating fuzzy-sightedness, that is without the help of contact lenses or glasses.
With the help of my eye doc I'm adjusting to the need for corrective vision to drive the car and read the paper -- though not necessarily at the same time -- without swapping out different glasses for the different tasks as I've been doing in the past.
The bottom line is that I’ve gone to bi-focals. The good new is that we don’t we call them that anymore. For baby boomers sensitive about growing old, marketers have tried to de-age the need for glasses the same way they've been trying to eliminate the age stigma of hearing aids. We don't refer to hearing aids as hearing aids -- we call them audio assistants. In the same way we've come to refer to bi-focals as multi-vision lenses.
And certainly the technology has made them less bi-focal looking. My new glasses aren't set off by the lines that separate far and near; they provide gradual vision changes from top to bottom for far, medium and close-up.
It's the new multi-vision contact lenses that I really like because they make me feel like the Bionic Man: "Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster." And it didn't cost me or a secret government agency $6 million.
Okay, so maybe not stronger or faster, but definitely better. The lenses allow me to see distance or read by finding the sweet spot for the particular need. As the eye doc says, the brain is an amazing thing. If I'm watching television news while reading the newspaper I often transition from the TV set to the printed page. I can literally will my brain to focus on the print, and it's very bionic and cool to literally watch it happen.
This is a far better solution to what I had before -- so-called mono-vision lenses. My right eye had a contact lens for distance; my left eye had a contact lens for reading. The brain was amazing enough to combine the two in a comfortable way, but sometimes I'd catch myself cocking my head one way or the other in order to emphasize the distance eye or the reading eye.
I'm lucky so far. The aging process isn't taking any worse a toll than a few things that a little tweaking can't fix. I'm not sure I'd want to turn into a medical case that required $6 million to fix in order to make me better, stronger, faster. I don't think my health insurance will cover it.
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