Anyone else dealing with issues of aging + frailty?

[SheilaT]

17. More about cataracts and the surgery.

What it does to your vision should absolutely not be affecting your balance. That would be other issues entirely. They just cause your vision to get worse and worse until eventually you are totally blind.

Two years ago, at the age of 63, I was always by a decade or two the youngest person in the waiting room when doing the testing before the surgery, or waiting for the actual surgery itself. A lot of people ten plus years older remembered when the generation ahead of them had the surgery and it was a bigger deal, involved more recovery time, and the cataracts could grow back. Today the techniques are vastly more sophisticated. You're in and out in a couple of hours. Initially your vision may be a little blurry immediately after the surgery, possibly as long as 48 hours, and then it's completely clear. Over the next couple of months it will continue to improve slightly. Here's the real bonus: I got back my night vision, which had been slowly deteriorating long before cataracts.

If we're still on DU I will be telling everyone here about that eclipse, trust me. I frequently bring it up, and often get quite strange looks from everyone. But there's been this interesting mental benefit. I always used to think I'd probably live into my early 80's, because that's about how long all my aunts and uncles lived, as well as one grandparent. Then it occurred to me that I'm the beneficiary of a vastly improved health system, plus I never smoked with every single one of my aunts and uncles did. So I figured I'd make it into my late 80's, early 90's. Then I discovered that eclipse. All of a sudden my sense of how long a future I have in front of me is as vast as it felt thirty years ago.

And, since 2045 is rather a ways away, you can possibly plan on seeing the one that will occur August 21, 2017. Here's a link to the NASA website about it: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle2001/SE2017Aug21Tgoogle.html

My son in Portland knows I'll be visiting him that week.