A few months ago a guest blogger, Jenny Harrison, wrote a wonderful article called “Naturally Improving Your Hearing.” This blog has consistently been the most visited page on my website, indicating that the topic resonates with many people. I don’t doubt it. There is something about hearing loss that affects us deeply. Jenny offered some suggestions for naturally reducing the risk of hearing loss, including:
1.     Avoiding accumulation of earwax
2.     Avoiding loud music and noises, and
3.     Exercising your ears.

I refer you to the blog to read more about what Jenny has to say: http://www.bartastor.com/1/post/2013/05/naturally-improving-hearing-loss-can-you-naturally-improve-your-hearing.html.

Loss of hearing is something not to be ignored. About 30 million Americans suffer from hearing loss in both ears, and the incidence of hearing loss increases with age. Hearing loss has a huge impact on our lives: it basically cuts us off from people. You can literally watch someone tune ouf of conversations when they get tired of saying, “What?” all the time. Imagine the isolation you wold feel. Imagine how easy it would be to just withdraw. Although there is no rational justification for the stigma of being hearing impaired, hearing loss seems to affect people emotionally, and they resist admitting they’re suffered a hearing loss.

How do you know you are losing your hearing? You can watch for signs:

• You’re often saying, “What?”
• You ask people to repeat themselves, particularly when there’s surrounding noise.
• The TV never seems loud enough (except for the commercials)

But the truth is you won’t know unless a specialist tests your hearing. If your doctor suspects hearing loss, it’s likely you will be referred to an audiologist, a licenses professional who is not a doctor but who can perform a hearing evaluation. If your doctor suspects something more serious than just hearing loss due to aging, you’ll likely be referred to an “otolaryngologist,” a medical doctor specializing in diseases of the ear.

Life Story

I recall many years ago writing an article about getting a hearing test. I guess I was about 50 or so. I made an appointment with an audiologist so I could go through the actual experience. I’m sure somewhere along the lines you’ve had one of these tests. You know, “Press this button when you hear a tone.” I remember feeling so incredibly anxious for this test. I jumped on the button the second I heard anything through my headphones. I not only wanted to pass the test, I wanted to ace it! How weird is that?

Turns out, it’s not weird at all. The audiologist told me, “Relax, this isn’t like Jeopardy. You don’t get points for doing it first. And you don’t get graded by how quickly you respond.”

Apparently a lot of us, when we are getting our hearing tested, get nervous. We don’t want to feel old, and we know that a loss of hearing is a sign of aging. Well, certainly it is. But it’s also not. And given that most of us have spent countless years with music blasting in our ears, especially more recently with the very prevalent use of earbuds, it’s a wonder we’re not all deaf.

So I wrote up the article and included all that stuff about my anxiety and wanting to be the first to press the button. When I sent it to the editor, she wrote back, “This is good, but I don’t think we need to put in all that personal feeling about anxiety.” She didn’t get it. I learned later that she was pretty young, in her 20’s or 30’s. Of course she didn’t get it. She had no idea that she would age. But I bet most of you who are reading this do get it. You understand that a loss of hearing is not anything like losing some of your vision. Many people need glasses and there’s no stigma attached to that. Even young people need vision correction. But hearing aids? That’s strictly for old people, right?

I’m a bit older now and had another hearing test because I was experiencing vertigo. A  symptom to be concerned about when you have vertigo is some loss of hearing. It could mean a serious issue. When I took the test, I was nervous. But not about feeling or being labeled old. This time, it was about whether there was any loss of hearing and if so, whether it meant I could have a problem. And I didn’t jump to press the button the split second I heard a tone.

This post comes as a result of a comment made to me through my website from Cameron Von St. James. Cameron wrote asking if I would consider allowing him to tell his story and to share what he learned as a caregiver for his wife, Heather, who suffered with malignant pleural mesothelioma. I said, “Sure, but let’s do more than just tell your story. Let’s give readers insight through the lessons you learned.”

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To learn more about mesothelioma, please go to mesothelioma.net.
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Many of us 50+ become caregivers, sometimes overnight. In my own case if was for my in-laws as my wife and I had to take responsibility for seeing that her parents were cared for as they aged and became more and more infirmed. Our struggles and what we learned caring for mother-in-law became my book, Baby Boomer’s Guide to Caring for Aging Parents. That book was updated re-published as an electronic book just last year and I’m offering it free to anyone who buys my current book, Roadmap for the Rest of Your Life.

So when Cameron asked about telling his caregiver story, and shared with me what he went through, I harkened back to my experiences and was thrilled to say to him, let’s go for it. Cameron was not caregiving for an aging parent or aging partner. Heather was young and, up until her diagnosis, a healthy young woman. But I quickly saw that he had learned the same lessons I had.

So why did he have to learn them on his own? Why do we always have to reinvent the wheel?

Well, the answer is, we don’t. So herewith are the lessons Cameron and I learned in our different but similar experiences as caregivers. And please be sure to read the accompanying Life Story.

Lesson 1: Learn to accept help from others. Just as the patient has bad days, as a caregiver you will have days when discouragement takes over.  

Lesson 2: Learn to ask for help. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.  

Lesson 3: Learn to deal with uncertainty while maintaining hope. Hope is the greatest weapon the caregiver has to meet the challenge of each new day.  

Lesson 4: Learn and use your time- and stress-management skill. As caregivers, we had to be organized. We didn’t have the luxury of floundering, especially in Cameron’s situation since he also had to care for a newborn infant. A nice side benefit of honing the time and stress management skills essential to successful caregiving is that these same skills allow us to be successful in our careers or schooling.

Lesson 5: Learn to accept that the role you're taking on is new and unfamiliar, and that you will never be the same. Embrace every resource at hand to navigate through the uncertainty and so you can retain some level of sanity.

Whether you’re a caregiver for a cancer patient or an older person needing extra care, oftentimes we caregivers face many of the same challenges, and it helps to share your experiences with each other.


The role of caregiver for a loved one with a serious illness is a significant personal challenge.  Uncertainty, chaos and stress dominate each day because of the family role changes that happen. Reach out to others for the encouragement and hope required to never give up the fight.  

Life Story

On November 21, 2005, Cameron Von St. James instantly went from husband to caregiver when his wife, Heather, was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer. As he said to me, “To admit I was unprepared for the role is a remarkable understatement.” Just three months prior, they had welcomed a daughter into their lives. The normal chaotic time with a newborn was, instead, about treatment options, travel arrangements, and fear.

His first realization that his caregiver role would feel lonely and overwhelming came immediately after Heather was diagnosed. Following the doctor’s medical description about mesothelioma, he provided three treatment options: a local university hospital, the local hospital that while excellent, did not have a proven mesothelioma treatment program, or going to a noted specialist several hours away in Boston. It was Heather’s decision, Cameron felt. He would make due with whatever she wanted. But faced with their first big choice, Heather could do little more than sit in stunned silence. She was still struggling to work through her sense of shock and disbelief. Cameron’s first care-giving decision was to look at the doctor and say, “Get us to Boston!”  

Their daily routine went from order to chaos since Heather was no longer able to work and Cameron had to work part-time in order to deal with travel to and from Boston, providing for their daughter’s daily needs, and going to doctor’s appointments with Heather. Beyond that there was the pervading sense of fear when he allowed his mind to consider that his young wife would die of cancer. Thoughts of spending every penny on medical bills and losing all their possessions in the fight saddened and frightened Cameron. He envisioned himself as a homeless widower and young father. And when he was not in Heather’s presence, he occasionally melted onto the kitchen floor in tears. Only through focusing on the tasks at hand would he masquerade the fears and feelings of helplessness. He did what every caregiver tries to do: he tried to remain a rock and tower of strength and never allow the recipient of his care to see his fears.

Friends, family members, and complete strangers blessed their family during these dark days by providing remarkable acts of generosity, from kind words to monetary gifts. That was hard for Cameron. He had never had to accept help from others. But with little choice, he grew to accept the gifts graciously and not worry about how to thank or repay them.

For Cameron, accepting generosity was the most difficult test of his life. With no way to quit or simply walk away from the responsibility, he had to deal with the fear and anger that took over his whole being. Yet he also told me that throughout the ordeal he never let those emotions take him hostage.

Cameron and Heather’s story had a happy ending, although years passed before their lives returned to some semblance of normalcy.  Heather’s treatment programs included surgery, radiation and chemotherapy in the fight against mesothelioma. Against all odds, and despite the typically poor prognosis for mesothelioma, Heather beat this horrible disease.  Seven years later, she remains healthy and cancer free. To read more about their story and about mesothelioma, you can click here for Cameron's blog and here for Heather's blog.

Sometimes things just don’t fall into place perfectly so we try to come up with ways to force it. In my experience, that usually doesn’t work well. It’s especially true when fighting institutions. They generally win. We try to explain that our individual situation doesn’t fit the mold. That our personal story is different. We feel that if we could only find that one person who can make an exception all would be fine. Together you’d make it work. Unfortunately, we usually can’t get to the person who has the authority to make that exception.

I remember trying to take advantage of the low mortgage rates by refinancing our home. Because my wife and I had reduced our working to part time, our income was no longer sufficient to qualify for the mortgage amount we needed. Isn’t that ironic? We were already managing to pay the higher amount. A refinance would reduce our payments. Yet lenders wouldn’t lend to us. So we had to come up with a creative way. And we did. Our retirement accounts were well funded and we were over 59 ½ so there would be no penalty for withdrawing funds from those accounts. So we agreed with our lender that we would take monthly payments from our IRAs. The lender counted this monthly withdrawal as income and, therefore, made our total monthly income enough to qualify for the loan.

But we went one step further, which ultimately saved us a lot of money. The fact is, we really didn’t need the income because, as I said, the refi reduced our mortgage payments. So as soon as we closed on the loan, I put a halt to the IRA withdrawals. We had never told the lender we would continue the withdrawals and, in fact, we even told the lender we were stopping them. They were fine with that. Furthermore, because the loan closed within 60 days of the first withdrawal, we were able to redeposit all the money we had withdrawn right back into our IRA with no penalty, as if the withdrawal had never happened. That saved us a great deal in our tax liability.

We were different than most borrowers trying to refinance their home. And institutions don’t always adjust to square pegs. We had assets but lower income. We didn’t need more income and didn’t want to reduce the amount in our IRA. So we managed to fit that square peg into the institutional round hole. We won by reducing our mortgage rate, and the lender won because they got to finance the loan.

Having cut back from full-time to part-time at his company, Jeff decided that he needed to take out some money from his retirement account. He currently has only a 401(k). When he spoke with the plan administrator of his 401(k), he learned that when he withdraws funds they are required to withhold funds to pay for federal and state taxes. But because Jeff has significant tax deductions, he didn’t want to have any of the funds withheld – he calculated that even with the income from the 401(k), he’d still be getting a tax refund. Jeff also learned that if he withdrew funds from an IRA, they are not required to withhold funds to pay taxes. So Jeff opened an IRA at that same investment house and rolled over the funds from the 401(k) to his IRA. He even kept the money in the same funds. When he withdrew money from his IRA, the withdrawals were not subject to withholding. 

Sometimes it really is all luck. But most times, it’s so much more. I believe we make our own luck by maximizing our chances of good things happening. And that requires work. So the harder you work, it seems, the luckier you get.

As I’ve said often, most of what happens in our lives is not a surprise. Yes, we can fall ill, get injured, or win the lottery. But most of the time we can see what’s up ahead. You can be fairly certain that when your parents get older, one or both of them is going to need care, either at home or in a facility designed to provide the needed care. No surprise there, unless you’ve closed your eyes. As your children grow up and talk about going to college, you can be fairly certain you’re going to experience an empty nest. No surprise there either.

How you handle those situations will depend to a large degree on how much you’ve prepared for them. Before your mother has “fallen and can’t get up,” have you and she talked about her medical condition? Does she have a way to contact someone when something like this happens? Is there a neighbor with a key who checks up on her?

When the last of your children is packing his things for freshman orientation have you thought what you might want to do when you return to the silence in your house? Have you reached out to friends or made plans? Talked about new work opportunities? You knew this day was coming. Did you think if you just ignored it, all would be well and you’d just figure it out when you needed to? Hardly. The people who just happen to fall into wonderful lifestyles and for whom great opportunities open after their children move away didn’t rely on luck. They worked hard preparing for that day. They put in much effort. They talked with employers or supervisors. They sought out training. They perservered.

What others see from the outside is just how lucky they were that the perfect job just happened to come along when they needed it. Or that a wonderful visiting nurse’s aide “just happened to be available” when your mom needed someone to come in daily.

But from your perspective, you know that you prepared for that moment, you worked hard to prepare before mom fell.  To those watching, you were so lucky. But you know better: the harder you worked, the luckier you got.

Most of what happens to us is not a surprise. While sometimes life brings the unexpected – illness, injury, or even lottery winnings – more often than not we see the ball coming at us right off the bat. As it heads our way we generally don’t have time enough to consider all of the options. As every coach has said, we needed to have thought about our options before the ball was pitched, not when it’s on its way: What if the ball is hit to me? Where do I throw it? Who’s on base? How fast is the runner?

Then I let my muscle memory take over as I scoop up the grounder and throw it to second base to start the double play. If I bobble it, that’s an error. Errors happen; we do the best we can. If I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the ball when it comes to me, that’s more than an error. That was preventable. That’s me letting down my whole team.

When the horse is moving along at the pace he’s comfortable with, and you accept the horse’s direction and pace, all is well and both of you are enjoying the ride. But if up ahead you see a fallen tree across your path, or if you know from having been down this trail before that there’s a sharp drop up ahead, you need to make sure the horse knows about it too. If not, the outcome is uncertain and one or both of you could get hurt. Has he jumped before? Have you? Do you speed up, slow down, stop to inspect? Like the ball coming at you in baseball, you’ve got to have thought about your options before you come up to the drop or tree blocking your path. You may choose to jump the tree, and you’ll feel exhilarated when you’re successful. Hopefully so will the horse! If you or the horse make an error, at least it was your choice. You weren’t a victim of circumstances you could have prevented. You didn’t let down the team.

So it is with life, including all the financial, legal, health, and work choices we make. By anticipating, planning, budgeting, and paying attention, we don’t have to rely on luck to reach our goals, to ensure the outcomes we want, or to enjoy our lives at 50+. When we know where we’re headed, have taken care of all the administrative loose ends – like number crunching, adequate insurance, and all the other legal requirements – we can better the odds that we’ll get to our destination, which just happens to be exactly where the horse is headed.

In the frenzy of the house-buying mania a few years ago, Pete and Diane were anxious to get in on the opportunity. They weren’t looking to make a killing by buying a house and flipping it. Rather, as a young family, they wanted a home they could live in with their two children and they feared that if they didn’t act quickly they would be priced out of the market. They saw homes for sale being bid up from the asking price and a year or less later being resold for significantly higher prices. Investing in real estate, they thought, was a safe bet. Lenders were wooing them, making them attractive offers that would make buying a home easy to manage on their budget. They offered low rates that ballooned in 5 years, and the opportunity to buy a house with almost nothing down. Who wouldn’t jump on this chance to get their starter home?

Well, of course, we all know what happened. The housing boom busted and the price of their home plummeted as foreclosures and short sales dropped neighboring homes to half the amount they paid. Then their mortgage rate jumped, doubling their payment. There were better interest rates available but they couldn’t refinance because the house wasn’t worth enough. They were stuck paying twice as much for their mortgage, an amount that stretched their budget thin, for a house that wasn’t worth but half of what they owed.

What to do? The options were few but the most obvious one rose to the top of the list: walk away. With almost nothing invested in the home, there were few downsides to this choice. Even their attorney agreed. It pained them to leave their home, knowing that their bad credit would prevent them from buying anything for years. And all they wanted was to provide a home for their children.

It’s easy to second guess, but they realized later that they never thought through the whole process or the possible outcomes. There were experienced people from whom they could have learned that the market was not going to sustain this frantic level, that the home they were buying was particularly vulnerable given the location and size, and that by agreeing to the balloon rate mortgage they were putting themselves at great financial risk.

Pete and Diane waited out the years until their credit rating was back up and the housing market had stabilized. They saved up for a down payment and just closed on a small starter home in the same neighborhood where they’ve been renting where housing prices have stayed the same or gone up slightly. They’ve sought counsel from professionals and they’re comfortable knowing that this time they made the right decision.

The other day a friend was thumbing through my book, AARP Roadmap for the Rest of Your Life, and chanced to stop at the section on hobbies. He commented, “I suppose you are recommending we start a hobby so that later when we cut back on work or retire completely, we won’t be sitting around watching TV all day.”

I said, “No, I’m not suggesting anything of the sort. I’m suggesting that if, when you cut back or retire you decide to sit around and watch TV, it’ll be your choice and will be what fills your leisure time. It will be your hobby.”

“But that’s bad,” he said. “Huh?” I responded. “Why is it bad? If it’s what you want to do, if it’s what gives you pleasure, then that’s what you’ll do. You don’t need to put a value judgment on what you like.”

Well, you can imagine that that went over like a ton of bricks. He believes it’s bad to sit around and be unproductive. So watching TV for hours on end is not an acceptable use of his time. Ironically he has no problem sitting around for hours watching a baseball game on TV. Or streaming movies. I guess those are productive ways to pass your time. Personally I don’t see any difference from reading mysteries or so-called “beach reads.” Am I being any more “productive” when I’m reading a Stephen King novel than I am watching a movie on TV based on a Stephen King novel? Yet to him it’s “bad” to watch TV for extended periods of time.

I don’t mean to be criticizing him or singling him out. I think it’s what so many of us say. We decide that something is bad or good. That directs our lives and, unfortunately, narrows our thinking.

I have a totally different philosophy than my friend. I won’t foist my view of life onto him. But I will invite him to cut back on the value judgments. All it will do will be to limit his life. And, likely, make him less happy.

There are a few other reasons I don’t encourage labeling an activity as good or bad. In addition to limiting his behavior, he’s also effectively putting down people who do, in fact enjoy sitting around watching TV. Or who do so because they have physical limitations and it’s an activity they can do. So by deciding that what I’m doing is bad, he’s made both of us unhappy.

Another reason to hold off on labeling yourself is that it defines who you are, as if that’s a permanent scarlet letter. It’s neither a scarlet letter nor permanent. It’s now, it’s what you enjoy now. When you no longer enjoy what you’re doing you’ll very likely change your behavior. I realize this sounds so “Zen-like.” But really, it’s just basic common sense.

So I have two pieces of advice about choosing hobbies or leisure time activities:

1.     Accept that what it is you do in your spare time is what you like to do.

2.     Don’t judge what you choose.

Life Story

Joanna, whom I highlight in my book, retired from being a middle school principal. When she was working she would come back after a hard day and, most evenings, sit around watching TV before going to bed early. Joanna’s children and friends worried that when she retired that’s all she would do, that is, sit around doing crossword puzzles and watching TV all day, “wasting away,” as they’d call it. She didn’t appear to have any “hobbies” they could see. But of course, she did have a recreational activity she loved: crossword puzzles and TV shows.

For a while, Joanna didn’t do too much more than what her kids envisioned. She began each new day by blissfully getting up late and reading the newspaper (always getting the crossword puzzle done first). Her days weren’t very filled, but she did manage to catch up on a few things and be in touch with a few friends. But for the most part, she really did watch a lot of TV, mostly cooking shows, the history channel, and animal planet.

After the official retirement at the end of the school year, she rented a beach house for a week where her children and grandchildren joined her.  When the school year began, she relished that she did not have to go to school and she continued her daily routines.

Fast forward six months and you would not recognize her or her lifestyle. During those months she began tutoring ESL to a couple of children, tried being a docent at a local museum (which she didn’t enjoy and eventually stopped), and volunteers as a Traveler’s Aide worker in the airport, helping passengers navigate around the airport and answering their questions about the area.

She still watches a lot of TV, not wanting to miss her special shows, and remains addicted to her crossword puzzles. But her life is full and, in her own words, she is “happier than I’ve ever been.”

No value judgments about “wasting her time” and no regrets about how she spends her days being unproductive. She doesn’t know what’s next, but she’s not worried about her future.