Seasonal poems submitted by readers of Minnesota Good Age’s sister publication Southwest Journal

THE SCORE    
Sandra Nelson

I didn’t see it coming.
First a question, then a favor,
then a chance meeting at that Oktoberfest party
where you stuck to me like glue
and bragged how you liked to dance.

I didn’t see it coming.
Even when you tracked me down
at that computer store and begged to have lunch.
Or the time you knocked on my door at midnight
and offered up some lame excuse.

I didn’t see it coming.
Until you blurted it out
over limp iceberg lettuce and cheap red wine
at that corner bar I hated so much
bu
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Five years ago, Janet Nyholm had arthroscopic surgery performed on both of her knees, but was alarmed by the parting words of her doctor.

“He told me he’d probably be seeing me in about a year for a knee replacement,” says Nyholm, who lives in Richfield. “And I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ I figured I’d just have to find a way to live with it.”

Slowly but surely, living with it became an uncomfortable reality. Nyholm, who faithfully walks on her home treadmill each day, had to reduce her standard hill grade of 7.0 to about 3.0. Her three-plus mile per hour pace slowed and she started to experience pain during every workout session.

“Pretty soon, I found myself having to take the
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Assessing your home’s safety level

“I had a stupid fall. I really hurt myself,” said Dan Ferber, 84, of Apple Valley. “I was partially asleep and when I got up and reached for my walker, I didn’t quite reach far enough.” He chuckled and shook his head. “So I fell on the hip I’d just had repaired.”

“I caught my toe on the dining room rug,” added his wife of multiple decades, Dorothy, 83. “I adore that rug. My beautiful, Oriental rug. I moved it and tried it in a couple of other places, but it’s in storage now.”

It’s the downward slide, as it were. Falls, that is. Often, it’s what accessibility consultant Alissa Boroff terms, “the tip
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Remember Psssssst shampoo? It was that “instant spray shampoo” marketed in the 1970s — pretty much talcum powder for your hair. It seemed like a lifesaver at the time, but there is a reason it didn’t make it into this century: it was stinky, itchy and left its cornstarchy color on the scalp. Good news, though, people: Good Age tested No Drought Dry Shampoo from Lush and while it takes a bit of control to get the product (and the right amount) in the right place, the scent is nice and the powder absorbs oils well. Plus, it’s vegan — does not contain any animals products at all. At $12.95, it’s a nice alternative to make do until your next shower, especially in
these dry winter months.

Available locally and also at Lushusa.com,
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Here is a quick true/false quiz to reveal how much you know about keeping your joints healthy and pain-free.

Most of us probably do not think much about our knees, back, shoulders and other joints until they become painful or stop working properly.

“Each season brings its own influx of injuries related to a different set of sports as well as outdoor activities. When people use muscles that they have not used since last year, it can result in painful strains,” says Cathleen London, MD, a family physician and competitive triathlete. “Many of these injuries and inflammations are caused by underlying chronic joint conditions which resurface with renewed activity and resulting inflammation.”

Here is a short quiz to help you
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While half of the population is preoccupied with diets and gimmicks designed to promote weight loss, more than a few older folks are worried about unwanted loss of pounds. A mild and slow loss of weight is not uncommon as a person goes through the later decades: taste buds become less sensitive, bones lose mineral density, and muscle mass tends to be replaced by fat. But these physiologic changes do not result in an abrupt change in weight. In fact, most persons maintain their usual weight until the events leading to their death. A noticeable loss of weight that occurs unexpectedly over a few months should alert an older adult that a serious health problem could exist.

Explainable loss of weight is that which occurs in association with previously recognized diseases such as
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St. Paul Parks and Recreation offers a variety of activities, programs, and special events for seniors, retirees, and adults over the age of 50. The “50+ Across Saint Paul” newsletter is published four times a year and provides information about recreational opportunities available to adults over the age of 50. To receive a copy of the “50+ Across Saint Paul” newsletter, please contact Mary Livingston at 651-266-6447 or get a copy online at stpaul.gov/index.aspx?nid=3711.
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Accurate Home Care has opened three new regional offices to better serve its clients throughout Minnesota: in St. Cloud, Burnsville, and Duluth.

Providing in-home health care assistance to a wide array of pediatric, disabled, adult, and senior clients around the state, the agency specializes in serving the complex medical needs of clients with chronic conditions who may require 24 hours per day, seven days per week care. “The intent of these satellite offices is to be as accessible as possible to the Minnesota families with whom we work,” said Amy Nelson, Accurate Home Care founder, CEO and
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The Medicare Rights Center and AgeOptions announce the release of “How Medicare Works With Employer-Based Insurance: A Guide for Employers, Professionals and Consumers,” a toolkit of educational materials designed to help older adults navigate the transition from employer-based health insurance to Medicare. The toolkit’s release comes at a time when the first baby boomers are aging into Medicare, many of whom are expected to keep working past the age of 65.

“We’ve seen a surge of calls on our helpline from older adults who can’t get a straight answer about how their employer insurance coordinates with Medicare,” said Doug Goggin-Callahan, director of education at the Medicare Rights Center. “The toolkit will not only help the
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February is officially designated as cancer prevention month. As a cancer survivor (prostate), I’m acutely aware of the toll the disease takes. In the past three years, I’ve lost two of my best friends to cancer and a half dozen others are in the midst of the battle, living proof the six-letter word is not a death sentence.

From each of these survivors, I’m learning something about living this life of mine. The thoughts, tactics, and techniques they’re using have a universal quality I want in my emotional repertoire. I’m only using their first names because, to a person, they’d be uncomfortable with the attention. They don’t generally think of themselves as heroic or extraordinary.  

Trudy was diagnosed with colon
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You may not yet have had the chance to read my home safety article in this issue, but there is something I wasn’t able to put in that feature that I’d like to say here. I tend to fall down a lot. I’m not sure why. This past autumn, I stepped off my deck (a short six inches off the ground) with my usual vigor and didn’t see that leaves were hiding a small indent in the ground. My daughter said it looked as if I fell in slow motion, so when I didn’t get up right away, she thought I was just goofing around. Because, “Mom, usually when you fall, it’s like — wham!” Well, three months later, my ankle still isn’t solid.

One of the most memorable spills I took involved (I’m serious) a banana peel. I won’t go in
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In 1966, I was chosen as a juror for a manslaughter case that was tried in Hennepin County. A Native American man had been charged with a grisly murder that occurred during a drunken brawl in one of the many flophouses that lined Washington Avenue at that time. The victim was a transient who happened to be staying there that night.

The trial was rife with drama, intrigue, and pathos. It made a lasting impression on me.

My most vivid memory is of the flophouse occupants who’d been called in to testify. I’d lived a pretty sheltered life: these men shocked me. They were the lowest of the low end, and in various stages of alcoholism. Some appeared drunk as they took the witness stand.

One, an older man, who was thin and shaky with a white mane of
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Still not ready to make your next move? Or are you waiting for an apartment in your senior living community of choice? Either way, there is LOTS you can do in preparation for this upcoming living transition, even if it’s a few years away. And anything you do now to tackle even some of the preparation and downsizing work will be like money and time in the bank down the road.

Need a list to get you started? The following are great tasks to start working on to begin the downsizing, right-sizing process for your simplified and “lighter” future:

· Talk to your financial advisor or CPA about which financial and tax records you need to keep, and then shred the old records that are no longer needed. Consider using one of the professional shredding
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We have just concluded four full chapters on a subject no less heady than our mind-blowing brain. We have gazed in wonderment at its capacity to mold itself in its own image merely from the sort of thoughts that it thinks; we have reveled in its phenomenal flexibility in the face of adversity; and we have reaped the benefits of its ever-growing gifts for humor, happiness, originality, and wisdom.

Where there is strength there is vulnerability, however, and so it is with our mind-bending cortex. If its power lies in its sublime sensitivity, its ensuing fragility is its ultimate curse. The most pernicious threat to the brain’s vitality stems from the same miraculous feat that defines its humanity: its capacity to conjure forth emotional pain ... and then wallow in it. Neithe
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