Some elderly folks believe the most important advantage of living in any retirement community is the health care opportunity provided during those years when sickness may be more prevalent than health. Although Karen and I agree it is very comforting to have medical facilities readily available, we have not seen this to be an essential requirement. I do admit, however, that as much as I enjoy living in a small town, or even in a country setting, I would not move to a location where one must travel for hours to reach either a physician or a hospital. I fully appreciate having two physicians physically present at Eagle’s Trace, during an eight-hour workday, and available 24-7 for on-call emergencies. I have enjoyed taking only an elevator to the location where blood can be drawn for laboratory testing, if one can really enjoy such an activity!
When early residents moved into Eagle’s Trace, we were assured that an extended care facility would be constructed within a year or two. The unit, to be called the Renaissance Center, would provide assisted living, memory care, and rehabilitation. When there was a delay in the construction, many residents were irate with the “broken commitments” made by the Erickson enterprise. Karen and I were not among this group; we had not moved to a retirement community for its long-term health facilities. We were interested in an active retirement.
Construction of Bayou Vista, the renamed Renaissance Center, began in January 2012, some eight years after we moved into ET. The recession of 2008 – 2009, as well as a period when Erickson suffered the threat of bankruptcy, resulted in the delay. Fortunately, Karen and I did not require the facility, except for her use of rehabilitation procedures that, at the time, could be found on the first floor of our main building.
Karen liked the medical assistance routinely provided by Dr. Reina Patel, the first M.D. at Eagle’s Trace. I had Dr. Holden, who had been the medical director before he returned to academic medicine. Dr. Brian Tremaine has been an excellent replacement as my general medicine practitioner. On the other hand, the specialists, who were proposed to have an on-site presence, did not materialize. I have remained, however, with the former ET audiologist when she left us. Karen and I went through a series of dentists until we found a nearby practice. For several years, we continued to visit our Baylor ophthalmologists and dermatologists at the Texas Medical Center, where we have been treated since the days I worked at BCM, before transferring to ones who have offices closer to ET.
Over the last fifteen years, as our own health has been modified, we have added a few more specialists in disciplines relevant to our needs. A neurologist became one of my annual reviewers as a result of global transient amnesia. I experienced a GTA episode during a one-hour incident, the details of which my memory does not hold – except for remembering I kept asking Karen what had happened during the lecture we were giving to an ET class at the time it occurred. Several days at a local Memorial Hospital, along with magnetic resonance scans and parallel examinations, did not reveal the cause of the problem, which is the usual case with GTA. A year later I had to excuse myself from a meeting with a couple I had been preparing for marriage. As a result of this second GTA episode, I could not remember how I had managed to drive home from CGS. Nevertheless, once a year, I continue to see Dr. Diaz, who has assured me that motor-skills and other learned behavior continue to function during the episode, although the memory of the associated events does not.
Karen’s new specialists are involved with orthopedic surgery. Several years ago, she had both knee joints replaced, one-at-a-time. After laboring through an encounter with the walls surrounding Dubrovnik, Croatia, she decided the time had arrived for new knees. The results were fantastic. Once more, it was pleasant to use the elevator to commute to rehabilitation sessions, even if the bends and stretches experienced there were not pleasant for her.
At this time, we learned how quickly the ET first respondents actually responded. Karen had been given a brace for her knee, to be used during the initial post-operation week. She had removed it in the bathroom. Her weakened leg collapsed and so did she. I was at CGS at the time and, thus, not available to help her. Fortunately, the bathroom has a pull-cord for emergencies reported to the front desk at Eagle’s Trace. When she did not answer the immediately ringing telephone, two respondents arrived within five minutes of her cord-pulled-notification that they were needed. There are great advantages living in a retirement community equipped for the unique needs of its residents.
Having had a successful surgery on her knees, a few years later, Karen was willing to have the ball and socket of her right shoulder replaced. Meanwhile, her orthopedic surgeon had returned to Tennessee. His replacement was not as fine a surgeon. Since the pain and degree of motion for the treated shoulder became worse following the replacement, she decided to forgo any action on the other one. Having recently found another specialist, she has obtained some comfort from cortisone treatments. Final consideration for the second shoulder remains pending.
Recently, during our seventeenth year at ET, she has had her right hip replaced. She is becoming a bionic woman, at least of her right side. Although she expected an easy recovery, since hip-replacements are supposed to be easier than either knee or shoulder renewals, her body is now that of an octogenarian, one that required ten days in rehab-care at Bayou Vista before returning to our apartment. On the other hand, I finally learned how to use our dishwasher and washing machine while she was recuperating.
The only other surgery during our retirement years has been for the removal of cataracts from my own eyes, again one-at-a-time. Another Baylor specialist removed them with the result that I saw the color blue as it was meant to be seen, a magnificent color devoid of the greyness it once possessed. The artificial lenses have allowed me to dispense with the eyeglasses I have worn since I was in the first grade. A year later, I noticed some distortion in my long distance vison while driving, but I continue to be thrilled by what is so actually visible across a once beclouded room.
Our personal problems with sickness and any diminished health have been minimal here at Eagle’s Trace. We recognize this is not the case for our friends. A significant difference in living in a retirement community from that of a usual neighborhood, results from the demographics accompanying the two locations. We have experienced an increase in the frequency of deaths, especially since those who moved here at the same as we did are “aging in place.” We are among them. However, there is probably no better place in which to age in place than here at Eagle’s Trace. Here it is very comforting to live in sickness and in heath, until death do us part.