Two years ago, during my routine check-up here in our office, Dr. Verzosa urged me to get a bone density test. I was then
54 years old and in reasonably fit condition with no major health problems. Since I liked Dr. Verzosa and respected her medical opinion, I made an appointment, but without any great
enthusiasm. To me, it was just another reminder that I could no longer put off being conscripted into the ranks of the "middle-aged". Pretty sobering for someone who came of age
in the late 60s, a time when we were not only going to be forever young, but also immortal.My bone density test revealed that I had osteopenia. Vaguely alarmed, I asked what this meant. I was told to add more
calcium to my diet and do more exercise unless I wanted to end up "a little old lady" with a hump and a walker in the next ten years. I ran to the nearest drug store, bought the calcium
and for the next two months made a sincere attempt to fit an exercise routine into my day.
Two years later, I still take daily calcium supplements but the exercise has become a distant memory. I comfort myself with
the thought that in an article I once read by Jane Brody, she mentioned how ANY form of exercise was OK, even if it was just doing household chores like gardening or ironing or walking
up the subway stairs instead of taking the escalator. I do a lot of ironing (probably the only woman in America who regularly irons her jeans) and I walk the dog to our little park down the
street at least twice a day. The park is about a hundred yards from my house, and, when I get there, I basically sit on a bench and wait for the dog to complete the only two tasks
assigned to her during the day. As for the supplements, more often than not, they supplement a diet of coffee, chocolates, cheese and dry cornflakes with sugar. My daughter, who is as
disciplined as a drill sergeant when it comes to diet and exercise, thinks this is pathetic.
But that's the way it was until April 14, 2004. I wasn't getting fat and I wasn't sick so why worry-we all have to get old
sometime.
On April 14, 2004, at 9:49 AM I became a grandmother for the first time. My younger son and his wife had their first baby, a little girl who walked straight into my heart the minute I laid
eyes on her. As my head danced with all sorts of plans for the future-taking her to The Nutcracker in a red velvet dress and black patent leather shoes, taking her to the Met to see the
knights in armor that had so fascinated her father twenty years before, eating cotton candy in Coney Island, riding an elephant into the Gir Forest in India, the country of my birth,
so we could glimpse tigers like the stuffed one I bought for her in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London a month before she was born-all of a sudden, it became enormously important
to stay healthy and strong. I realized that it was through my link to this new life that I was going to find my own immortality.
I have made appointments for my yearly physical, my
mammogram, my eye-check-up, and with my ob/gyn. I'm going to see my nephrologist next week so he can continue to ensure that my single kidney stays in tip-top shape. And, I am
going to schedule my next Bone Density test because these bones have to last me a long time. I don't want osteopenia to turn into osteoporosis. One of these days I plan on making a
hitchhiking trip across America with ALL my grandchildren (I hope, between my three children to have at least ten). Somehow a backpack and a hump don't fit into this picture.
