The Lights Are On But Nobody's Home---YouTube TAG from MsCavalier01

This is my first ever 'tag' or 'collab'! YouTubers do 'tag' and 'collab' videos all the time, but never saw a blogger do this before. If you're not that familiar with YouTube, a 'tag' is where someone thinks up a little game or subject to create a video around, makes the video, then calls on other YouTubers to do the same. Sometimes it's a game, like The Whisper Challenge, or sometimes it's simply answering a given set of questions. A 'collab' or collaboration is pretty self-explanatory. 

In this case, Colleen, who I mentioned in my recipe post, did a collab with another content creator called LeadMeToPeaceJeannie about some of the challenges we face in our sixties, primarily forgetfulness. Colleen suggested I write about it on this blog (since I don't do videos) and I thought, "Why not?" Thank you, Colleen, for the encouragement and thank you to Jeannie for the idea of this topic. 

Here is Colleen's video HERE and Jeannie's video is HERE.  Just click those links and give these ladies a thumbs up and subscribe, if you aren't already! I can't really expand much at all on their two pretty comprehensive videos. But here's a couple of things...

(I asked my husband if he could think of any funny incidents caused by my forgetfulness. His response was, "Well, I'd have to remember, wouldn't I?" Smart aleck...)

Yes, that 'sixties fog' some of us find ourselves living in! I can tell you there have been plenty of times I put food on the stove to cook and forgot to turn the burner on or searched high and low for my glasses, only to finally find them perched on top of my head. Also, I lose pens and other small things and am convinced someone has stolen them. I'm sure most of us have done similar kinds of things. (Well, maybe not the lurking sneak-thief paranoia...)

I may have written about this one before, I don't remember! A woman I used to work with told me about this horrible smell in her kitchen. As each day went by, it got worse and worse. Every day, she searched high and low for the source of this nasty odor. Finally, she found it...she had cleaned out her freezer and had set some fish wrapped in foil on top of her fridge and totally forgot about it. Can you imagine the stench after a week? I laughed till I cried when she told me this story!

Quite recently I under-boiled (is that a word?) some eggs to make egg salad. I was chagrined when I peeled one and saw that the eggs weren't quite done. I popped the rest of them back on the stove and got them back up to a boil. Hating to waste the peeled egg, I was about to toss it in the trash when I spied the microwave. "I know, I'll just pop it in there for a minute!" So I did. What I forgot was that you really aren't supposed to microwave whole eggs. This was something I was very well aware of, but it totally slipped my mind. When the egg was done I happily pulled out a knife to cut it. Covered the egg and knife with my left hand and proceeded to slice it open. Good thing, too, because BANG! That egg totally exploded into the palm of my hand. In a nano-second the most searing pain registered in my shocked brain. Luckily, I was standing right by the sink when all this happened so I immediately thrust my seriously scalded hand under the cold water tap. Did I mention the blood-curdling scream following that bang? I did not know my dear old husband could move that fast anymore! Next thing I knew, he was at my side, "What happened, Boo? Are you ok?" while I sobbed at the sink, "I'm an IDIOT!" I wailed. Poor guy thought I'd electrocuted myself with the microwave. This whole episode just ticked me off....I KNEW BETTER! But my brain just wasn't quite working...

A couple of times I've gotten in the shower only to look down and realize I still had my underwear on...
Or I've been known to go around half the day with my shirt on inside out.  Once I wore two different shoes to the hairdresser's and didn't realize it till I was on my way home...

Yep, those are my feet on the
way home from my haircut. I laughed 
so hard, I had to grab my phone and 
take a picture!

On a serious note though (and Colleen discussed this in her video), one thing I want to heavily stress is the importance of normal oxygen levels and of quality sleep to maintain a healthier brain function. And this is for people of all ages. I don't want to repeat a lot of what Colleen said, so let me just illustrate this point with a couple of stories.

When I first met my husband, I was in a horrible habit of staying up late, watching TV, then reading till I fell asleep. I was never asleep before 11:30 or midnight. Getting up was a nightmare. I'd hit the snooze fifteen times until at last I had only ten or fifteen minutes to get ready for work. At work, I struggled to fight off sleepiness all day and I could never remember things I was supposed to get done. Somehow I managed, but it was a constant battle that went on for several years. That memory issue was getting frightening...I was only in my mid-forties then! I even started taking ginko biloba but I didn't see much difference.

Then along came Patrick, a very structured fellow, who lives by his schedules. When we became a couple and began living together, it was a strain on me. (Undoubtedly on him, too!) He was so regimented in his routines! He had to be in bed no later than 8 p.m. so he could get up at 3 a.m. to get ready for work, etc. Eight o'clock! Who goes to bed at eight o'clock besides toddlers? And there couldn't be any noise in the house either to disturb him. 'Oy vey! That meant no TV loud enough to bother him, no washing a load of clothes at night, etc. etc. This was a tough adjustment for an impulsive person who pretty much winged her way through life. 

But he was adamant about his bedtime and we all had to respect that and tiptoe around him. Soon it was easier just to join him rather than try to beat him... So I began going to bed by nine. Eventually, this became a habit and I was asleep by ten every night. Before I knew it, I was getting up without an alarm clock! The workday sleepiness vanished as well as the memory problems I'd been having. Gone! All from getting a couple of extra hours of sleep every night. 

A very close friend of mine, Milly, who's now in her early seventies, has been suffering from an upside-down sleep cycle (up all night, sleeping all day), chronic, debilitating fatigue and depression, and horrifically scary memory issues among other things. This has been going on for maybe as long as twelve or more years. The last five or six years Milly has been steadily getting worse to the point that she is seriously worrying her family and friends. In fact, she sometimes climbs into bed and doesn't get out for 24 hours or more. So when she doesn't answer her phone during the day, we get alarmed.

In a recent conversation, Milly did not recall us having spent 2 weeks with her the previous summer at her house! She looked completely blank when we mentioned it. She finally remembered after about 20 minutes of our prompting 'Remember this, remember that?' She loses her purse and her phone constantly. I'm not sure how many phones she's lost, but I'd guess at least half a dozen. Once we went shopping, and my husband ended up following Milly around the store, picking up her purse every time she laid it down and walked away. He swears it was at least ten times...in ONE store! Once she was traveling and had driven two hours before realizing her purse was missing. She was lucky that time; she called the restaurant she'd been at and they confirmed they had found her purse and kept it till she drove the two hours back to retrieve it. What is most frightening is the frequency with which these incidents happen to her. I don't believe Milly has any idea how close to outright dementia she has been edging towards...

Thankfully, a few months ago she finally changed doctors and underwent some sleep tests (among other tests). They discovered she had sleep apnea and a low blood oxygen level and put her on a CPAP machine at night. (Continuous positive airway pressure therapy uses a machine to increase air pressure in your throat so your airway doesn't collapse when breathing in). Since using the machine, Milly's blood oxygen levels are improving, she is feeling much better and her depression is improving as well. In fact, she is more chipper than I've seen her in forever! This is also due to a change in some of her medications, but still...it's a remarkable change. Now, if we can just get her to drink water! I can't stress enough the importance of quality sleep and sufficient oxygen for brain function.

I also want to tell you about my neighbor, Sue. She and Milly are a study in extreme contrasts. Sue is at least 80, walks five or six miles every day and zips around our neighborhood like a teenager. She told me she was heavy and smoked when she was young, but got pretty sick. The doctors told her she could continue on and die young or she could change her ways...  Sue made up her mind she was NOT going to die young. She changed her entire lifestyle, became vegan, stopped smoking, lost weight and walked, walked, walked. Today, at 80+, she takes no medications whatsoever. Her blood pressure is normal. Everything about her is normal, except for her zealous attitude about life. Her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm for every new day God graces her. And Sue never stops moving. Use it or lose it!

On a side note, when I had my eye issue recently, Sue advised me to get some bilberry extract. She had started developing a cataract and swore that she cured herself of it by the use of bilberry. Reading up on it, I learned it's also excellent for cardiovascular health and has a number of other benefits great for us in our golden years.  There are almost no side effects either, but please do your own research.

On another related note, I recently put a pair of 3.5" bed risers under the head of my bed, so that I am sleeping on an incline with head higher than my feet. (I'd tried a wedge pillow but found it very uncomfortable and impossible to fall asleep.) The very first morning after using the risers, I woke up with much less brain fog than usual and much less nasal/sinus congestion. Any morning grogginess dissipates faster. And there are many more benefits as well. It's helpful for those with acid reflux and for snorers. It may also help some types of back pain. Click HERE  for an interesting article with more info about sleeping on an incline. For me, the bed risers are perfect!

Time continues to march on and much to our surprise, one day we wake up to find ourselves in our sixties. But that's the good news! The rest is just normal aging stuff, but we can deal with it! Most of us are from an era where it's uncomfortable talking about our frailties. However, we gain by sharing and banding together, and learning we're not alone in this aging thing. Hopefully, you found something helpful in this post today, or at least got a chuckle!

Thank you again, Colleen for suggesting this post/tag/collab. And thanks to Jeannie for starting this conversation! 

Till next time,

"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche