Wait! Did you think I meant white water rafting, bungee jumping or skydiving? No, no, I fear it's more mundane than that. When you get old some of the most ordinary everyday things become extreme sports.
So let's start at the beginning of the day. Just getting out of bed. When you've lain in bed for a few hours, your arthritic joints get very stiff so just the simple act of getting out of bed can become challenging. I do have some exercises to do before I actually try to get out of bed and I guess they must help. Not really sure to be honest. But then I have to make sure I hang onto the bed head, sometimes the radiator so that I can lever myself up through the stiffness and the pain. I would say that it varies from day to day. Some days I seem to rise relatively easily. The irony is that I used to be one of those irritating people who leapt out of bed first thing, full of beans and raring to go. Even as recently as lockdown I was up and out at 05.00 am some mornings but I have deteriorated since then. Once out of bed and upright there becomes quite a pressing need to make it to the bathroom. Sometimes I walk, other times I stagger hanging on to door jambs as I go. I'm lucky in that the geography of my house has placed the bathroom close to my bedroom which is a blessing.
Getting dressed? Never gave it a thought when I was younger, washed or showered I threw my clothes on. Now it has become a much more careful and choreographed activity. Sit down on the bed for dressing the lower regions, slowly mind, then stand for the upper body. Being female the securing of my bra can sometimes demand some gymnastics from my arms and stiff fingers that doesn't seem to work sitting down.
Once dressed the next event in the geriatric olympics is descending the stairs. Oh, how I long for the days when I ran up and down the stairs without thinking. My stairs have a slight turn in them at the top and once I've negotiated that I can sometimes go down 'normally' albeit clinging to the banisters. At other times it's one leg at time with a sense of relief and achievement on reaching the bottom without falling.
Once downstairs it's plain sailing - until I need to ascend the stairs again! On a good day I try to make my reluctant legs work, letting my arms and upper body pull me up the stairs but on a bad day I go up on all fours. As I set off at the foot of the stairs I imagine the climb as Mount Everest for the elderly. In time I guess I’ll have a stair lift.
I like to go for a decent walk each day. I don't always manage it. Some days I feel like I'm wading through treacle and every step is an effort, other days it's easier. It's usually uncomfortable as one might expect with chronic pain but I can move beyond that when I see the sea, or maybe bump into a chum and stop for a chat. The weather plays its part too as I avoid going out on a frosty morning because my fear of falling has increased dramatically over the last few years. Winter Olympics are out. I often avoid the rain too but it depends on its severity for I don't actually object to rain per se.
But once I get outside then the fun begins! I'm not sure what it's like in other parts of the country or even the world but where I live there is a tendency of motorists to park partly on the pavement regardless, of whatever other obstacles there might be on the pavement.When you are young and flexible it's not such problem to squeeze past and you probably don't even notice the obstacle, (in this photo example though, I think it’s quite unlikely.), but when you don't move so easily it's a pain in the proverbials. Often I have to go round the car into the road which brings its own perils and dangers because motorists aren't expecting to see a little old lady shuffling along the tarmac!Crossing the road too has changed for me. I used to be able to gauge pretty accurately whether I had time to nip across the road but now I find my judgement impaired. I am perhaps more anxious and hesitate where in reality I am perfectly capable of making the crossing! I do think confidence decreases and anxiety increases as I age.
But even when the pavement is clear and uncluttered by vehicles there are the perils of the pavement cyclists who believe they have right of way, the joggers who also believe they have right of way, the double buggy tandem mums who clearly feel they have right of way and even those on mobility scooters who seem to feel they have right of way too. In fact everyone seems to feel they have right of way except me it seems!!!! It is a strange thing for when I was a child hanging on to my mother's hand or the handlebar of my sister's pushchair I was frequently required to 'get out of the way' usually to let an older person continue their passage unobstructed. I would have to release my grip and walk behind my mum and the pushchair momentarily. I expressed my resentment in my self absorbed, childish way and my mother would assure me that when I was old everyone would get out of my way. NO! They don't! I have been barged by joggers, had cyclists ring their bells at me, been forced off the kerb by the baby strollers, none of them realising that I can't move as quickly as they can or indeed as quickly as I used to able to.
I have realised that one trick is to use a walking stick. People do tend to observe you more, if you’re tap-tapping along the road with one. I don't like using the stick but now I always carry a fold up stick with me whenever I go out because there are times when it really does help. And I suppose it is a sign that maybe I need to be cut some slack. I don't move slowly deliberately!!
Another extreme sport I will mention is the 'restaurant slalom'. This can take place on entering an establishment and trying to find your seat, or more often it is when you need the loo and have to make your way through other diners without jostling them and without losing your balance. The gaps are sometimes incredibly narrow. Often you can negotiate a wayward path around the tables to make it an easier journey but you do get some strange looks and that's just from your own party!!! 'Where are you going?' 'The loo.' 'But it's that way!'
Which brings me to my final high risk sport - actually going to the toilet when you're out. The problem is that the cubicles are often too small and narrow. When you aren't very flexible that can be tricky. And the seats are often too low. I have been in the position where I have thought, 'OMG I can't get up!' So I have been known to choose the disabled toilet sometimes. I don't class myself as disabled, just old and inelastic! But there are usually bars to hold on to lever myself up. However not everywhere has that facility.
Other every day things like opening bottles and jars, even packets are really quite hard now, They are child proof and old person proof! The irony is that I used to have incredibly strong hands. My family, and even other people would always hand things to me to open! And now sometimes it’s the other way around.
Objectively it must be much the same for a baby or toddler negotiating life, but not perhaps being aware of the difficulties because the experience of finding things easy is never there. And some of the challenges brought about are because of the way life has changed. Years ago, cars didn’t park on the pavement at all. But we’ve produced vehicles that are too big for the roads that were created. And there’s so many cars now that parking is a real issue. As a cyclist when I was a kid, you wouldn’t dream of riding on the pavement. But then roads are much more dangerous now. I don’t think jogging existed when I was little! You were never in danger of being mown down by somebody running, full pelt along the pavement.
So the challenges I face are a combination of my aging and a shifting emphasis in every day life. But when it comes to extreme sports for pensioners, I am a gold medalist!!
