James  Petersen - The Logbook of Diminishing Capacity

 

 

I'm on the phone to my daughter, a serious scientist. And I said, “Have you noticed that the older you get, the more you seem to worry?” And she says, “Dad, the older I get, the older you get. And that's the source of my worry.” [audience laughter]

 

So, we launched something called The phone call. Once a week, she leaves her workplace, drives across town to pick up her kids at daycare and she will check in. To prepare for the phone call, I start something called The logbook of diminishing capacity. [audience laughter] 

I keep a record of anything stupid or alarming that I've done since the last phone call. [audience laughter] It has to be new, because I've done stupid and alarming things, all my life. It has to be new and it has to be age-related. So, we are talking about memory. Sometimes it seems like I spend half my life looking for something that was there just a minute ago. [audience laughter] And if I forget to un-silence my cell phone after a movie, I come home and put it down, it's gone. [audience laughter] My daughter knows enough to call on the landline, because those phones are large, and loud and exactly where they've been for 35 years. [audience laughter]

 

We discussed the accepted wisdom about aging and memory, that it doesn't matter if you forget where you left something. It's only serious when someone forgets the purpose of the thing, like, say, shoes. [audience laughter]

 

When we started the phone call, I was uncomfortable because when I was a parent, I never burdened my kids with my problems. When I turned 70, I did one of those bucket list trips. I rode a motorcycle in the Himalayas. And on the second day, I crashed. I got thrown down an embankment. I rode for two more days, because I had to. We got to a town in Kashmir, 15,000ft, and I could go no further. 

 

The town had a hospital and it had Wi-Fi. So, I texted my daughter and said, “Slight mishap. I'm in the hospital. Not to worry.” I was in the hospital with five broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a chest cavity full of blood. My daughter figured that out. And for 48 hours, she worked the phones, the internet, contacting groups on three different continents, arranging an emergency medical event halfway around the world. All, while taking care of her eight-month-old infant son. 

 

When I heard that, I realized that my solo adventures had never been solo. They affected every single person who loved me, every single person I loved. I owe her. The logbook of diminishing capacities has had some interesting moments since then. There was the time I fell off a ladder and tore a rotator cuff. And then, there was the debate about snow shovels of like, “How do you tell if it's heart attack snow?” [audience laughter] And my daughter says, “Is it white?” [audience laughter] So, now I have a snowblower. I turned 75 on March 2nd, and I went out to Utah. [audience applause] Surprises the shit out of me too. [audience laughter]

 

I went out to Utah to ski with my son, my daughter and my grandchildren. Three generations on the same mountain. It was a gift. At my yearly physical, I told the doctor, “Well, it took me about two days to get used to the altitude. I had to stop and catch my breath on some runs. There was a day where I was dizzy and literally toppled over, but we were trying to ski in a whiteout at 10,000ft. You don't know what's up, what's down, what's sideways.” The doctor hears shortness of breath, dizzy fall. And he orders a test I've never had, something that measures calcium deposits in and around the arteries of your heart. A score above 300 indicates, you might have plaque clogging the arteries. And anything above that indicates a likelihood of stroke, heart attack or sudden death. My score was 4,622. The cardiologist wanted me to come in for angiogram. I said, “Okay.” 

 

Two weeks ago, I wake up in the recovery room. No stitches. I don't know what a stent feels like. The doctor comes in and says, “Good news, you can go home.” “What?” And he puts on a video of my heart, my beating heart. It's mesmerizing. And yes, there are two arteries 100% blocked with calcium plaque, but those same arteries have created a new network of brand-new blood vessels to take up the slack. My heart has done its own bypass. [audience laughter]

 

I say a prayer to this stubborn, precious muscle. It has survived years of bad habits, and yet still chose to give me more time and I know exactly how to use that time. I pick up the phone and I call my daughter.