Our bodies belong to us, yet mostly they are strangers. They drop bad news when they feel like dropping it and rarely let us know too much beforehand. They never ask. The Buddhists don’t talk so much about “my body” as they do about ‘“he body.” I’m sorry if yours has dropped bad news recently without asking you.
We pretend we are in charge. We go to the gym, count grams of protein, strategize about restorative sleep, stretch. We add a second weekly water aerobics class. Some of us hire personal trainers, which is like signing up for an AP class, hoping the tougher class will get us into the college we want. Earnestly, we talk to one another about the need for self-care, especially at a certain stage of life. When all goes well, there’s a satisfaction. It feels, temporarily, that we are in charge.
Of course, we are not. The body decides when and how it’s going to present its plans. In this aging business, sometimes the plan arrives violently: cardiac events, cancers. It’s gentler at other times. But for everyone, the body speaks up when it wishes to, firmly, loudly, and insistently.
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These days there is also a specialist for every part. It’s like an orchestra with each instrument tuning separately, requiring this consultant, that appointment. The specialists multiply.
Back in my childhood, there was only one doctor. He took care of both parents and children in a family, occasionally at the same time. We saw him in his home office—where, after walking through the door, his wife, the practice nurse, used to greet us in the living room—but when we were really ill, he would come to our house with the little black bag that now exists only in museums. He scribbled his exams and prescriptions in longhand and saved our charts in manila folders.
I recall him as very calm, with bright red hair that interested me. I remember his voice, too, even and undisturbed. He rid the kids of endless ear infections, shot everyone up with vaccines, and eventually, tended my father during his final cancer. Every day during his lunch hour, he would drive to our house with an injection for pain. Many years later, my mother told me that he refused to accept any payment for the trips he made.
The body goes its own way. With age, it requires many caretakers. But I am still nostalgic for the days when an entire family shared one doctor, when he kept track of all of us, when visits lasted as long as they needed to, and when, if someone spilled coffee on a chart, the paper pages grew blurred. So much is better now: treatments have advanced, the odds of success can be astounding, ancillary resources are more widely available. And so much is worse: physicians scheduled in 15- or 20-minute increments, caseloads rising into the thousands, doctors feeling unseen, patients feeling unheard.
Meanwhile, the body makes its way.
Elissa Ely writes about seniors/baby boomers for The Belmont Voice. She is a community psychiatrist.