I am 80. After retiring from clinical medicine I returned to pharmacy, my original profession, for the past 10 years. I especially enjoyed counseling seniors on the adverse effects and potential interactions of their usual polypharmacy collection of drugs. I want to relate a harrowing story of side effects from a drug I took for three years to protect my heart. Initially I thought I was merely showing my age. The tale began one afternoon as I...

And after Adam and Eve had partaken of the fruit, they blushed, gazed at the wonders of the Garden of Eden and asked each other: What else is there besides living in this beautiful place? Unable to find an answer, they had babies who grew and had babies, and on and on, and the place became crowded, spilt over and the world became populated. Everyone shared genes and the lingering “what-else” question. And as they dispersed into different places...

This is the story of how Dennis Hale manages the PTSD of his near-death experience. At 2:00 am on the morning of November 29, 1966, Dennis was asleep in his bunk on the Daniel J. Morrell in the middle of Lake Huron. A seasoned sailor, he’d learned to sleep under any condition. Battling 70 mph winds and 30-foot waves, the Morrell was headed north, for the Soo Locks.  At 2:15 am he was awakened by a general alarm and a series of loud thuds. Built...

The older you get, the more life’s baggage bears down.  After childhood’s memories of love and good times, scraps, bumps and bruises comes adolescence’s exuberance and darkness, and then adulthood’s gains and losses. Vivid memories of events and their accompanying feelings of joy, pain and sadness, fear, guilt and anger are life’s stories. Happy ones are weightless, like fresh air, and easily shared. The untold, unhappy ones get heavier once...

Being 80 is taking some getting used to.  I’m reflecting a lot about life’s natural span. I’m neither fearful nor complaining. I accept that life is what it is – for as long as it lasts.  Then I’ll die. The length of life’s string depends on not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It depends on the genetic hand I was dealt. And it depends on how well I protect myself physically, spiritually and emotionally. In my 60 professional...

We’re frustrated and angry with government. At only 43% job approval rating, President Obama leads the ‘popularity’ pack. Democrats, whose approval rate is 32%, come in second. Only 19% of voters approve of the job Republicans are doing. And Congress, charged with working together to preserve our way of life, comes in dead last, with an approval rating of 15%. Our dissatisfaction mirrors the message in a 1920s cartoon where a railroad switchman...