The CCC Chronicles: From Foot Doctors to Reflecting Pools

 

In this week’s dispatch from Jean’s Continuum Care Community, the everyday rhythms of aging collide with the absurdities of modern life — from firefighters hauling residents upstairs to a foot that stages a midnight rebellion to a national monument wrapped in drama like a bad home‑improvement project. Jean brings her trademark blend of humor, candor, and side‑eye to the small dramas of communal living and the larger drama unfolding in Washington. As always, she finds the thread that ties them together....AI

“Who got picked up by the ambulance last night?” That’s a frequent topic of conversation at lunch or dinner tables here on my Continuum Care Campus. But today it was a different twist. The question was, “Why was the fire department here so long?”

The answer: the elevator in one of our buildings quit working, stranding several of our more fragile residents on the first floor when the repair crew couldn’t get a needed part until this morning. So the firefighters (stationed three minutes away) had to carry people up to their apartments. It was either that or they’d have to cuddle up on the couch in front of the lobby’s fireplace which wouldn’t be such a bad choice if it was winter, and not so close to the forth of July.

There are other times when our mealtime conversations turn into a litany of aches and pains, sounding like the very jokes younger people make about our age group. As Maxine of calendar fame says, "At my age, a 'balanced life' means 50% aches and 50% pains."

But for the most part, we leave our aches and pains at our apartment doors. Still, here’s a piece of advice if you’re thinking of moving to a CCC: don’t downsize your greeting card stash. I’ve written more “get well” and “thinking of you” cards (and “birthday,” and “sympathy cards”) since moving here than at any other time in my life. Not a week goes by that I’m not digging through my card drawer.

I’m no exception when it comes to having my own list of medical woes. I have a foot doctor, a hand doctor, and an orthopedist for the rest of the bones in my body. I’ve got an ENT, a dermatologist, an eye doctor, a gastroenterologist, a sleep doctor, an urogynecologist, a primary doctor, a nurse practitioner — and a dentist. Who could ask for anything more? Not me. I’m one of the lucky ones, though. A few  of my fellow residents have cancer and heart doctors on their lists.

Despite having all those people on my medical team, last week I decided Dr. Google was a better choice. I typed in my symptoms, and their AI “doctor” told me that shooting pain around an open sore meant I should go to Urgent Care immediately because it could be an infection. Not wanting to do that, I called my foot doctor’s office. They tried to schedule me a month out — until I repeated the magic words “shooting pain” and “open sore.” Suddenly I had an appointment the next day. Thank you, Dr. Google, for the buzzwords.

This all started just after my six‑month check‑up with my sleep doctor, where I gave him a glowing report. I shouldn’t have done that — it jinxed me. That very night the shooting pains started, waking me up and refusing to let me sleep again. My foot looked like the photo below. Actually, worse — that picture was taken after a week of swallowing antibiotics and daily slathering the area with silver sulfadiazine cream. 

The foot doctor claims there are no broken bones, but I don’t believe her or her X‑rays because it hurts too much. The weirdest part is I have no idea what caused it. I don’t remember hitting my foot, dropping anything on it, or doing anything dramatic like letting a stranger suck my toes. All I’m told is that the X-ray shows no infection or broken bones, but "skin bruises easily on the elderly” and the foot is “the slowest place to heal.”

Yup, I know that, doc. I had a similar gash on the side of the same foot recently, and it took four months to heal without medical intervention.

Lest I give the impression that all we talk about here is ourselves and our woes — not true. Recently at our Tuesday Night Conversation dinner table we discussed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the cost of repairing it, and the claim that “vandals” cut a 350‑foot slit down the center despite 24/7 security cameras. I’ve got a bridge to sell you if you believe that. (But not the brand new bridge between Canada and Detroit that Trump refuses to allow to be opened, but that's another scandal for another day.) 

We can all read the news and draw our own conclusions about the pool, but around our dinner table the story sounds a lot less like “vandals” and a lot more like, “someone had their head up his ass.” You don’t need a PhD to connect a few dots: With cameras everywhere they would have stopped anyone in the center of the pool long enough to cut a 350 foot slit; a no‑bid contract that included no oversight by manufacturers of the liner polyuria coatings; and the presidential motorcade running over the uncured coating so Trump could get a closer look. The presidential limo alone weighs about 20,000 pounds, which is roughly the size of a small whale — and we’re supposed to believe a mystery vandal with a box cutter is the culprit. Please.

It doesn't take a deep dive in cyberspace to learn the experts all agree the failed project is due to one or more of the following: 1) improper preparation of the surface, 2) not applying the polyuria according to manufacturer’s specifications, 3) speeding up the timeline for applying a second coating, 4) the solvent added to kill the algae, and last but not least, 5) vehicles running over the uncured surface. 

Everything shows its age eventually — our bodies, our buildings, even the places meant to inspire awe. Here at the CCC, we meet those changes with humor and a little stubbornness, because what else can you do. The reflecting pool could be funny too, if it weren’t such an expensive lesson in what happens when oversight and comment sense takes a holiday. We can’t stop time from aging us or our monuments, but we can at least insist that the people in charge stop accelerating the process. © 

Nabbed off Dawn's Bohemian Valhalla Blog

              

The Day Sinatra Made Me Cry in Public

In this week’s installment from Jean’s corner of CCC life, what starts as a simple outdoor concert — the kind you attend mostly because it’s on the calendar and the weather’s decent — turns into an unexpected brush with memory. A Sinatra impersonator, a rollator walker packed like a day‑hike, and a crowd of fifty neighbors set the stage, but the real story is how a single song can reach backward and tap a place you thought had finally gone quiet...AI

I saw Frank Sinatra today. Oops — I left a word out of that sentence. I meant to say I saw a Frank Sinatra impersonator. Good thing I cleared that up, lest you think I’ve hustled on over to the Land of Delusion, given the fact that he died in 1998. I was never a fan of his music, nor were my parents, so I didn’t cut my teeth on his many hit records the way a lot of my ninety-something neighbors did. But my Continuum Care Community booked him for the second time, and since the reviews were glowing after his first performance, I thought, What the heck, it’s something to do.

So I loaded up my rollator walker with a sweater, a bottle of water, my phone, a notebook and pen, and my apartment keys, then headed for the park nestled between the Memory Care and Assisted Living buildings. (Permanently in my walker are: binoculars, ear muffs, gloves, a bird call, sun glasses, and two books.) I don’t need a walker, but I use one outside because I’m proactive about preventing sidewalk falls. I’ve seen enough people with bloody faces and broken hips get picked up by ambulances to know the smart money is on those of us who aren’t too proud to admit we’re old and tend to shuffle along instead of picking up our feet properly.

But I’m not a shuffler. Yet. I know that for a fact because — being proactive again — I took the Fall Prevention Study offered here last year. My only walking issue is that every five or six steps, the heel of my right foot hits the side of my left foot. I’ve known this since childhood because the side of my left shoe was always scuffed up. What I didn’t know was why. Turns out I walk with asymmetry: my right leg strides 21 inches and my left 24. I also walk with my feet only four inches apart when they should be six. Knowledge is power, or so they say.

A lot of my fellow residents were afraid to do the study for fear our “overlords” would use the information to move them down the road to Assisted Living. Paranoia is alive and well in senior communities like mine. If you failed the study — which I did not — you earned some physical therapy appointments, not an eviction notice.

The Sinatra singer was in his 60s, I’m guessing, and even with the classic hat and suit he didn’t look much like the real McCoy. But he sounded like him, and he had some of Frank’s characteristic moves down pat. With audience members from all three buildings plus the townhouses, we were fifty strong. The weather was perfect. The sky was bluer than it’s been all week and the sun was shining.

And wouldn’t you know — even though I’m not fond of that kind of music — I ended up with tears in my eyes during the last song he sang: My Way. I was sitting in the back row, and in my view was a Memory Care patient in a wheelchair with his wife sitting behind him. During that song she leaned forward and put her arms around his neck while the performer sang, “Regrets I've had a few...I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.”

I felt like I was looking at a snapshot of my past life when I was Don’s caregiver. Those twelve and a half years were a test by fire, and I’m proud of how I handled them. But by the end of the song the wife was wiping tears from her eyes, and so was I. She’s still living the stress and devotion I went through. It’s strange how you can think old wounds are healed, but a damn song comes along and reminds you that some wounds never fully close. They may scab over, but bump that scab and the hurt comes back.

Places like this always book entertainers who play the era of music residents grew up with, built families to, danced to, so we hear a lot of '40s and '50s stuff. When an entertainer takes requests, I usually ask for a Bruno Mars song and they will say, "Don't know that one, but I'll learn it before my next gig here." Even after nearly five years of going to these musical events, I’ve yet to make it through one without tears (or hearing Uptown Funk). Sometimes they’re happy tears, but usually they're a jolting flashback of longing for what can no longer be. 

Another highlight of my week: I went to a Father’s Day banquet. At first, women weren’t allowed to sign up unless they were dining with a father or father figure, but eight of us raised a fuss. After all, for Mother’s Day they served the women afternoon tea and cookies, but the guys were getting a ribeye steak dinner with baked potatoes and asparagus. The injustice was noted. The ribeye was wonderful, and it was the last big meal I had before starting my GLP‑1 shots the next morning.

Then a few days later we had another musical event put on by a local favorite, The Beer City Blues Band. This time it was right outside my building on the piazza — impossible to avoid, not that I wanted to. They play more contemporary music, so fewer memories get stirred up for me. Not to mention I love their sound.

We have an active charity foundation that funds all our musical programs, including one‑on‑one music therapy sessions down in Memory Care, our summer concert series, and monthly birthday party entertainers. You might call it lucky, but I knew before I bought into this non‑profit CCC that our sister campus was heavily supported by this group. It’s kind of a shame, though, that the senior places where more Medicaid recipients end up don’t have the same kind of charity foundation. Maybe they do and I just don’t know about them?

Our charity sponsors golf tournaments, fancy‑ass balls, fashion shows and parties, and I suspect the reason they raise so much money is because the donors hope to live here someday. The guy who lived and died across the hall from me gave so much money they named our street — and a golf tournament — after him.

Music has always had a way of slipping past my defenses, but living here has made that truth unavoidable. Every concert is a gamble — you never know whether you’ll walk away smiling, crying, or both. But I keep showing up. Maybe that’s the point. These small moments, these shared songs and shared tears, remind me that living life doesn’t stop in a place like this. It just keeps unfolding, one performance, one memory, one unexpected pang at a time. ©

See you next Wednesday.

---

Preparing for Zepbound Like It’s a Baby Shower

 

In this post, Jean chronicles a week filled with medical busy work, sleep apnea victories, and the long, bureaucratic march toward starting GLP‑1 treatment. With her trademark humor and sharp observations, she turns frustration into storytelling — and even finds room for a cameo from “Dr. Cutie Pie,” her ever-charming sleep specialist. ...AL

 

It was one of those weeks where every waking moment felt devoted to either busy work or maintaining my body like it’s a vintage car that requires constant tinkering. Friday afternoon was a prime example: I spent 17 minutes and 12 seconds on hold just to report that yes, I did keep my follow-up appointment with my sleep doctor. This was in response to the medical supply company's strongly worded letter warning me that if I failed to show up — or failed to call to confirm I had shown up — insurance would not cover this very expensive odyssey I’ve been on since last December.

I was actually excited to keep that appointment, and not just because Dr. Cutie Pie looks like he wandered off the set of a medical drama where he plays the heart-throb who keeps millions of women and gay men tuning in each week. He’s also genuinely nice and extremely thorough. I wanted to tell him that except for the fact that my face looks like a relief road map every morning, I’m doing really well.

And wouldn’t you know — he has a “cure” for the puffy-face-with-ruts look. Witch hazel wipes. Not the fancy expensive, cosmetic-counter potions I’ve been trying. Witch hazel. I could have kissed him, but I didn’t want to smudge his imaginary TV makeup.

The good news is that treating my sleep apnea and hypoxemia has already changed my life. My morning bed no longer looks like I’ve been wrestling alligators all night. And I don’t dread going to bed, especially after learning at the sleep lab that I was quitting breathing 64 times an hour. Now, with my BiPap machine and my pseudo-astronaut headgear, I only stop breathing 1.5 to 2 times an hour — and when that happens, the Bi-in-the-Pap yanks the breath right out of my lungs and puts another one in like a tiny, bossy life coach yelling, “Breathe, damn it, BREATHE!”.

I’ve been 100% compliant with the machine, which is extremely important if you don’t want Medicare to stop paying for supplies then send you a bill for $1,000 if you don’t return the machine ASAP. And how would they know if you’re using it...or if you’ve strapped it to your dog? Oh, they know. The machine has its own Wi-Fi and sends a daily report to Medicare: how many hours you were hooked up, how often you took off the mask to pee, raid the refrigerator, or — in the case of my youngest niece — go sleepwalking down a flight of stairs. (She’s just beginning her own sleep apnea diagnosis journey.)

Back to that phone call: after my 17-minute hold time, I finally talked to someone, then left my apartment — and my phone — to go to lunch. When I got back, there was a voicemail from the same person asking me to call back Monday because they “need more information.” Busy work. Waiting around for a medical supply company to data-mine my brain may not technically fit the definition of busy work, but it sure feels like a stupid waste of time. They've called me four days in a row, now. Why can’t people do their job right the first time?

Speaking of which, here’s another example. Over a month ago, my Nurse Practitioner started the process to get me on the GLP‑1 drug Zepbound for weight loss. First she sent the prescription to my short-term pharmacy instead of my mail-order pharmacy. Then she forgot to include dosing instructions. Then I had to go through Prior Authorization, which is basically the insurance company looking for a reason to deny the drug. This back-and-forth took place through texts and MyChart messages and still isn’t over. But OptumRX assured me that one phone call from the NP is the last hurdle, and they’ve sent her two faxes. I sent her one message. We waited. Then they canceled the prescription when they didn't hear back from her. More calls and text messages and finally everyone is on the same page and the prescription is being filled as I write.

Since I’ve had a month to prepare, I’ve been nesting for this medication like a woman setting up a nursery. I bought the hardcover “bible” on GLP‑1 to learn how to get the best results and manage side effects. It’s not a miracle drug, not a quick or easy fix — I’ll still have to track my food — but the strange part is that everyone on the support sites say they track their food to make sure they’re getting enough calories, protein, and water. Every other diet I’ve ever been on required tracking to make sure I didn’t overeat. The drug stops the ‘food noise’ that goes on inside your head. If you experience it, you’ll understand what that term means. GLP-1 a natural hormone that our bodies product that tells us when you’re full and apparently on GLP-1 we listen.

I also bought a tracking journal specifically for GLP‑1 users. If you’re smart and you want good data to show your doctor so you can keep on the drug you should record everything: injection sites, calories, protein, water, side effects, and what goes out of your body — by mouth or… you know where. Like pregnant women who vomit at the smell of certain foods, some people on GLP‑1s do the same. So my pantry is stocked with ginger gummies and ginger tea. I’ve got high-protein snacks and shakes because apparently protein is key and they don’t mean red meat.

Just doubling my protein and staying under a 500 calorie deficit a day from what my body weight requires in preparation for this big adventure helped me lose ten pounds in fourteen days. Hopefully, when I finally get to do my first injection, I won’t be projectile vomiting. But if I stick with the program, I’ll get to see Dr. Cutie Pie sooner than my one-year follow-up because all my sleep apnea settings will need to be recalibrated. He’s confident I’m a rule follower and will do well on Zepbound. Did I mention he’s also a psychiatrist as well has a sleep specialist? He’s says there’s a lot of overlap regarding why we have sleep issues.

Surviving in today’s medical community requires equal parts patience, paperwork, and circus‑level flexibility. But if it gets me better sleep, a healthier body, and another appointment with Dr. Cutie Pie, then I’ll deal with feeling like I’m living in a full‑blown medical montage. All I’m missing is a soundtrack and a slow‑motion shot of me bravely opening the Zepbound box — when it finally gets here. Fingers crossed. ©

See you next Wednesday.