Age, Illness, Bob Marley, and Scuba Accidents

[scrane]

There should be more to life than merely transforming O2 to CO2 and generating heat. Make the most of your time.

 

[Neilwood]

As I get older, I become more aware of the FACT that life is short and things come up unexpectedly.

This has made me all the more driven to enjoy whatever leisure pursuits that I have and make the most of the time I have. I don't know when my time will be up but I don't want to go regretting not doing a whole list of things. If I make it to retirement, great but I am not putting "bucket list" things off until then - I plan to do them and keep adding more to the list.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Quite a few years ago I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by @Dr Simon Mitchell about fitness to dive. At the time there were a number of doctors who got on the list to do dive physicals who were not divers. A lot of them were doing it for the income stream and very quickly ruled out people for the slightest thing. They didn't understand diving but they did fear liability if they "cleared" someone who later had a problem.

Simon explained there were some things that clearly ruled out diving. He also indicated he was reluctant to deny someone access to the sport he was passionate about without good cause. He said he believed the best approach was a through investigation followed by a discussion that allowed the person to make an informed choice.

I told my husband on the way home I believed that we should all have the opportunity to make our own Informed decisions. I warned him that if a doctor ever said I had to give up diving I would do everything I could to get Simon's opinion first.

I believe we should have the right to make choices for our lives. I believe that since non of us live in vacuums we also have to consider others. They should have the opportunity to make informed choices as well. If there is something that puts me at higher risk of becoming a dive statistic, whoever I am diving with should have the opportunity to make an informed choice as well. IMHO letting my passion for diving over ride my consideration for others would just be plain selfish.

 

[ofg-1]

As with anything, there are various levels of involvement. I had a heart attack at 59, have 4 stents, bad knees and recently a torn rotator cuff. I went diving Sunday, and am going after work tonight. I have friends in the Tallahassee area in their 70's, and still cave diving.

The big difference, you ask. I can find enjoyment from a 40 minute dive as much as I used to in a 3-4 hour dive, perhaps more. I carry smaller tanks, am back to wearing a wet suit instead of dry, and stopped diving anything much over 160 feet deep, although I am headed to Dipolder in a few weeks for a last look.

We get back to expectations. I have a close friend that was a pilot in the Navy for 20 years. He goes out every afternoon and flies his old Cessna 120. He just likes flying, it does not have to be off a carrier at mach2. He enjoys flying.

I may not see the back of the Wakulla room again, or the Room of Dreams at the Nest, but I can enjoy myself while understanding that father time, and the way I have chosen to live roughly from birth, has taken a toll. Just remember what George Burns said about aging. "First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper back up, and finally, you forget to pull it down."

 

[seeker242]

Will you be able to stop doing something you love--whether diving or anything else--if an objective analysis of the facts tells you to let it go?

Sure, skateboarding at 40+ is WAY different than at 20. But it wasn't really "an objective analysis of the facts", it was more like "Wow, falling face first on concrete is much more painful than it used to be"

 

[gypsyjim]

So, if every dive was a crapshoot between life and death, would you choose to give up diving? Cause diving isn't safe.

Every time I swing my leg over the saddle and take my motorcycle out onto the highway I understand that what I am doing involves great risk.
Every dive I make also has some risk.

I have now been doing both for over 45 years, and the risks have not decreased with age. Getting older slows us down, makes healing from injury harder, and does increase some of the risks, but none of us are going to live forever, and I choose to live fully as long as I can.

If I should reach a point where serious health risks become a far greater factor I will obviously have to reevaluate the benefits/risk equation, but I have no intention of not living and enjoying the things I love while I still am alive.

 

[DanBMW]

None of us are getting out of here alive. Enjoy it while you can and at that point you may have a different viewpoint than you do now.

You can rust out or wear out, the choice is yours...... Just try to be thoughtful of others.... The BIG elephant in the room is the fact that most health related fatalities in the US involve the heart and as the baby boomers, who probably make up the majority of divers age, having a heart attack or stroke under water is generally fatal. Be kind to your dive partners..

 

[tursiops]

I don't know what I will do. But I suspect that time is not too far away.

 

[boulderjohn]

I told my husband on the way home I believed that we should all have the opportunity to make our own Informed decisions. I warned him that if a doctor ever said I had to give up diving I would do everything I could to get Simon's opinion first.

Yes, it is important to note that not all doctors are equally aware of all matters medical, and it is important to make sure the doctor telling you what to do with your diving is really on top of things.

I was a high school basketball coach for many years, and our staff saw many an ankle injury. When you see enough of them, you realize that you simply cannot tell the extent of the injury through your own examination--what looks minor may be a break, and what looks major might be only a relatively minor sprain. When we encountered an injury we deemed serious enough to warrant going to a doctor, we quite emphatically told the player to be sure to see a physician that specialized in sports medicine--absolutely do not go to the family doctor. If the injury turned out to be a sprain, a sports medicine physician would have that player back playing for us in no time. If the player went instead to the family doctor, the season would be over before the player was ready to go. Treated properly from the beginning, sprains heal remarkably quickly; treated in the first new days in the traditional methods apparently taught to future family doctors, healing takes forever.

Dive medicine is not part of normal physician training, and you want to see someone who knows what he or she is doing.

 

[boulderjohn]

Be kind to your dive partners.

That is an important issue for me. My last few dives were in the 275 foot range. I certainly don't want a buddy to have to deal with my medical emergency at such a depth, especially if it is a student.