some scattered, non-comprehensive reflections on aging and mortality

date initiated: 2023 December 19
last updated: 2023 December 21

[2023/12/21]

My last grandparent died yesterday morning, at the grand old age of 96. I last saw her in October, for her birthday banquet dinner. She still had a firm grip when I shook her hand.

My dad had sent me her medical report the other day. I’m not a doctor (but I used to manually extract information from electronic medical records (EMRs) for clinical research) but most of her physiological systems looked serviceable. The main problem seemed to be her kidneys; she had end-stage renal disease (ESRD – reading clinical notes is largely in recognizing all the acronyms). And she was in the hospital because access point for dialysis had gotten infected, so they had used emergency access points, and were having trouble finding a permanent access point to be able to discharge her. Then, it seems like they had trouble removing excess fluid the day before she died, and she already had hypertension (HTN). It seems she died in her sleep this morning.

I chatted with my family after hearing the news; my mother mentions how 30 years ago, my grandmother came to stay with them to help out with Vic around my birth. My memories of her are clearest when they are from when I was less than 10 years old – she was much more active then. I remember playing at her sunny house with my sister; I was maybe 4. She might’ve had a garden at that point. I would ask her to wrap a doll up like you would a baby, and she’d oblige every time (the wrapping would come apart after some time). When I was elementary-school-aged, she obliged in scratching my back when I was watching a movie at my aunt’s house (I had chronic eczema) until my back was sore (I had asked her to). She made these ‘crystal skin’ dumplings filled with water chestnut, dried shrimp, mushrooms, which I’ve never seen elsewhere.

I did not know her particularly well, but my mom loved her deeply, and her death feels like the end of an era, maybe in how childhood feels so much more nostalgic and bittersweet now – figures from that era will inevitably fall away (eventually it will be my own parents).

I had the passing thought the other day, that another upside to having quit my PhD is that I’m not as officially tied to the field of aging. It is perhaps notable how uninterested I am to it compared to the average person I encounter. And then I do not want them to find out that I used to work on it because I feel like a party pooper every time, holding a pessimistic/apathetic attitude towards their hope against a deep-seated fear (AFAICT).

I think it would be good for me to be wrong, but I can’t help but feel a bit of validation when my skepticism pans out. For example, I was surprised to hear that a longevity drug ‘passed’ FDA approval; I’m not surprised to now learn that it has low proof of efficacy. There was another tweet recently about how RetroBio wants to add 10 years to everyone. Perhaps I’m complacent because my grandparents have almost all made it to their 90s, and it’s not clear to me that they would’ve benefited greatly from same solution you’d try to give the average person to extend their life 10 years (death from cardiovascular disease or cancer, I’m guessing?). I am not sure how senolytics, say, will address or prevent ESRD. The mechanistic connection seems far, from the perspective over here. Generally, I think it’s theoretically possible, but I suspect it’s much more complicated than they make it seem (I’m reminded of the ‘war on cancer’). And I guess it’s not really constructive criticism, but it does not quite seem like the right shape of a solution.

I did not saliently consider that you could have a lightpost to mark your life (I saw a lamppost casted with a dedication on a walk recently), but if that’s possible, I’d much prefer that to a gravestone. (What about a lightpost that can hold a few books?) Even a bench would be cooler. (A joint lightpost, bench with a close friend/family would be greatly satisfying, with a little library in proximity). I should make some sketches at some point.

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