You’re not getting old, Laura—you ARE old. Just not too old.
Making adjustments to stay healthy and fit for travel.
(Listen to the radio version of Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.)
In 1967, my junior year of high school, the Beatles song “When I’m Sixty-Four” played endlessly on the radio. Forever after, 64 seemed like the cut-off between young and old.
Sometime around that year, my Grandpa, in his late sixties, broke his hip, and I remember my dad telling me Grandpa would never walk again because he was “too old to heal.” When my grandpa no longer needed even a cane to get around, proving that he wasn’t at all “too old to heal,” I still understood that he was old—just not “too old.”
The next summer, Simon and Garfunkel’s album “Bookends” was released, and the title song’s words, “How terribly strange to be seventy,” made that age seem dismally, hopelessly old. Now that I’m less than two weeks from turning 74, seventy no longer seems strange, dismal, or hopeless, but I can’t get around the fact that it really does seem old. Even as I notice my body slowing down a bit, I intend to keep taking birding trips as long as my physical and mental conditions are not a problem for me or other trip participants and guides. That means I want to stay as healthy and fit as a 70-something can be. Most of the things I’m doing to accomplish this aren’t new—I started doing much of this when I was much younger, but it’s become more important as I’ve hit my 70s.
HYDRATION
I learned a lot about issues facing older people when Russ and I were taking care of his aging mother.
Long before she moved in with us when she was 94, we noticed that sometimes Helen was vague, forgetful, and showed very bad judgment, while other times she seemed as lucid and on top of things as ever. When we realized the main issue was dehydration, we started reminding her to drink water more often—that was much easier during the times I was staying with her 24/7 and then after she moved in with us. As we get older, we lose our sense of thirst, and she simply didn’t think about drinking water on her own.
I’m considerably younger than she was when we started noticing her dementia, but I have noticed that my own brain is clearer and quicker when I’m well hydrated, too.
Hydration helps with something else, too. I’m starting to suffer from what I call “Old Lady Voice,” in which my voice often gets scratchy and hoarse by day’s end. I usually record my podcast/radio programs in the morning, but when I must record at night, or when I make presentations live or over Zoom in the evening, I want to sound reasonably good, and being well hydrated helps. It also keeps my skin from getting dry.
To make sure I remember to drink enough water, I’ve gotten into the habit of filling my water bottle when I first go up to my desk each morning, making sure I’ve finished the bottle by lunch, and refilling it for the afternoon. When I do my aerobics exercises, I make sure I’ve finished off the bottle for that morning or afternoon already, and fill it up again—I always use up that bottle during my half hour exercising.
Travel can make hydration tricky—I like a window seat on airplanes and don’t like disturbing my seat mates, and I don’t like to make pit stops in the middle of birding, especially where insects, snakes, and other creatures may be lurking or when I’m riding in the bus or van between birding spots. So in the week before a trip, I try to make sure I fill and use at least one extra water bottle each day, getting super-hydrated. Then unless the trip is a long one, I fill my water bottle every morning but don’t worry about a second or third except on days when activity or heat are an issue.
JOGGING MY MEMORY
It’s nothing new for me to have a word “right at the tip of my tongue” that I just can’t remember. It used to make me feel a little ditzy when I stumbled on a word, but when it happens now, the thought of dementia instantly pops into my head. When I was giving a keynote a few years ago, I even spaced on “Pomarine Jaeger”! That wasn’t a bird I’d been talking about—jaegers came up during the Q&A after my talk—but I found it scary. Now whenever I give a talk, I make sure every bird photo I use has the bird’s name in the bottom right.
Before traveling, to make sure I stay on top of things, I prepare a little notebook diary for the trip, giving a 2-page spread for each day. Using the itinerary, I write in where we’re headed that day, any useful details like early starts and special target birds, and where we’ll be staying that night so I know the evening before when I have to have all my luggage ready for a travel day. I keep the notebook in my belt pouch, so whenever we’re in the van, I can jot down notes about the day. I started this system long ago, and depending on how busy a day is, I don’t always fill in details, but it really does help me keep track of where I need to be and when.
MEDICATIONS
I used to watch my mother-in-law counting out her pills every Saturday and putting what seemed like a huge assortment into each compartment of her pill organizer, never imagining that I’d one day be doing the exact same thing, but I’m now taking four prescription medicines each day, along with a baby aspirin, multivitamin, and a couple of supplements. And I of course keep up with my immunizations. It was very heartening to read this week that people who got the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine were not only protected from Covid, or at least its worst effects, but those with cancer also got some protection from the cancer progressing.
Before any foreign trip, I check with my healthcare provider’s travel clinic—they keep up-to-date information about infectious diseases everywhere in the world, make sound recommendations, and keep my immunization card up to date. I keep that card, along with a list printed from MyChart of the prescriptions I’m taking, with my passport.
I only bring my essential medications on a trip, no supplements, but I keep some non-prescription pain relievers, cough drops, an antihistamine, and anti-diarrheal tablets at the ready in my purse or belt pouch. They usually come home unused, but they don’t take up much space.
Rather than bring my usual pill organizer, I have one specifically for travel, with 16 separate numbered, acrylic pouches for my daily medications.
When I’m filling those before a trip, I stick a post-it note with the date on each pouch so I can’t lose track. Then, every night when I’m getting ready for bed, I put the next day’s pouch in my purse so I’ll have it at dinner. Doing this at bedtime ensures that on the rare occasions I forgot to take my medicines with dinner, there’s still time that day.
FITNESS
Back in the 1990s while I was in my 40s, I bought a VHS tape of Jane Fonda’s Complete Workout. Now I have a digital copy.
It includes roughly 20 minutes each of upper and lower body strengthening exercises and 30 minutes of aerobics. I’m the kind of person who loves repetition and doesn’t get bored easily, so I never get tired of her routine. At some point I got out of the habit of doing them, but after my first heart attack, I got better at exercising at least a few times a week, and I up that to daily in the several weeks before I leave on a trip. While I’m traveling I don’t bother.
When I’m home, I spend a ridiculous amount of time at my computer, so I have a desk treadmill. I can easily put in 10,000 steps on a normal day, and more when I’m doing a lot of writing or editing a lot of photos. I set the treadmill for 1.8 or 1.9 miles per hour so it’s hardly a workout—indeed, because my hands are at my keyboard the whole time, my Apple watch reminds me every hour to stand up. But the treadmill keeps me moving.
Russ and I are at the age at which we get a discount on our auto insurance if we take an online class every few years. The last time I took it, it raised an issue I’d not thought of, about how many older drivers have trouble turning their heads far enough around to see properly when backing up or looking out the side windows. I use my car’s backup camera when I’m in reverse, so I hadn’t even noticed how stiff my neck was when I tried to turn my head just 90 degrees in either direction. But sticking with their recommended routine, turning my head to one side as far as I can and holding it there for ten seconds, then turning to the other side for ten seconds, and repeating, it quickly became comfortable going beyond 90 degrees again. That’s become part of my daily routine, especially when I’m doing anything on the computer that has a slow process—it’s a healthy way for me to wait patiently.
PROTECTING MYSELF FROM SUN, INSECT BITES, AND MORE
Russ and I got horribly sunburned at our prom picnic in 1969, and have both been very, very careful about too much sun ever since.
And I’ve had more than my share of basal-cell carcinomas and Mohs surgeries—turns out I have the “ATM mutation” which makes it much harder for cells to repair themselves after any form of radiation. So when I get up in the morning before any day of birding, I apply 50+ SPF sunscreen to my face. I always wear long pants and long sleeves when I spend any time in the sun, and now I usually wear sun-protective gloves (with open fingertips) and a neck gaiter as well. When on a trip, I always wear a baseball cap so I can pull my hair into a ponytail through the back opening. Where it’s sunny, I wear a more protective sunhat right over that.
I hate spraying permethrin on my clothes—there’s simply no safe place to do it indoors, and I don’t want to expose my birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and other critters to it in my yard. But it’s very effective for preventing bites, and mosquito- and tick-borne diseases are scary. So I’ve sent my own favorite tropical clothing to the Insect Shield 1company back in 2016, and some more items this year. The lightweight pants, shirts, and socks I sent in 9 years ago are still working. The new items I had treated this year included fingertip-less lightweight gloves and neck gaiters that protect me from sunburn (and now bugs!), and a gauzy scarf that I keep in a small plastic bag in my daypack just in case bugs suddenly get bad when I’m not prepared. I also had one lightweight, long-sleeved, pretty overblouse treated—that is ideal when we have dinner in a nice but buggy outdoor restaurant. I wash and store these items separate from my untreated clothing—that may be why the treatment has lasted so long.
I’ve long been wearing compression socks on travel days, whether flying, doing a long drive, or riding in a van, but I didn’t used to wear them as a matter of routine during birding trips. But when I went to Cuba in February, my legs swelled a little on the first day despite a lot of walking, due to the heat and humidity. I decided to wear my compression socks the next day, sticking a pair of lightweight hiking socks in my daypack to change into if I got too hot. But despite the heat, my legs were perfectly comfortable, and at the end of the day, I felt great and had no swelling. I didn’t wear them the following day and my legs swelled again. So before I went to Florida and Guyana, I sent two pairs of my compression socks to the Insect Shield company to be treated with permethrin. I am certain that those socks and my treated pants were what saved me from chigger bites when every other participant got bitten at one spot in Guyana.
AVOIDING FALLS INDOORS AND OUT
I’ve been on warfarin (the blood thinner that also serves as rat poison) for almost 6 years now. I don’t have any problems with it at all, but the possibility of a fall, especially hitting my head, is much more dangerous now. Just in case I do sustain an injury on a trip, I had a metal tag made for my Apple watch band that shows I’m on warfarin. If I’m incapacitated, first responders should notice that so they can quickly administer the antidote, Vitamin K.
More and more hotels and motels don’t provide bathmats, which is especially worrisome in warm climates where bathtubs are often slippery. So I bought a cheap vinyl bathmat that I keep rolled up in my checked bag just in case. Most nights I don’t need it at all, but on virtually every trip, there’s been at least one place where it’s proved very useful.
I’m not exactly a graceful person—even in my 20s and 30s, when I was focused on a bird, I’ve occasionally tripped or fallen; once I even backed off a cliff when I was trying to get a better look at my lifer Ash-throated Flycatcher.
But I didn’t start worrying about falls until I got my first long-lens camera, and then the concern was more for the camera than me. But being on warfarin now, I have to be careful on my own account, too, so I pack a hiking stick in my checked bag. I leave it in the van on stops where the terrain is even, but I bring it wherever we’ll be dealing with a steep incline or slippery or rough ground. I always have the wrist strap around my wrist so when I pull up my camera I don’t have to think about dropping the walking stick.
DEALING WITH HEAVY BIRDING EQUIPMENT
I’ve become so addicted to photographing birds that I’ve stopped lugging my spotting scope anywhere.2 So far, I’m still dealing well with my 5-pound camera. Eleven years ago, when my uncle Elliott noticed I was using a neck strap with it, he bought me a cross-body shoulder strap, which served wonderfully for over a decade.
The shoulder strap has one drawback—the camera bounces against my side and against doors and other hard objects if I don’t cradle it in my left arm while hiking or climbing into a car or van. Doing that quickly became routine, but when I was in Guyana, where people drive on the opposite side of the road and cars and vans are designed with the driver seat on the opposite side, getting in and out of the van with the grab bar on the wrong side for me was awkward and difficult for a day or two. It wasn’t until I got home that I learned about the Cotton Carrier system3—a harness that holds the camera firmly against my chest, no hands needed!
I can’t wear my binoculars around my neck with this—they’d hit my camera. I bought their more expensive system, “Binocular and Camera Harness,” but that was a waste because my Canon 8x32s have much too short of a barrel to fit the part of the system that wraps around one binocular barrel, so I had to improvise.
The Cotton Carrier system also comes with a rain cover, but it’s much too small for my 100–500 mm lens. For now I’m keeping a plastic bag handy. It worked fine the couple of times I’ve been caught in the rain, but I’ll eventually make a sturdier cover with waterproof fabric.
My joints are hanging in there, but after several days of intense birding in Cuba, my left hand and wrist, supporting the weight of the camera, started to ache. I powered through but when I got home, I pulled out an old wrist brace from when I sprained it a long time ago. I wore that every day when I was birding in the Dry Tortugas and Guyana, and it’s exactly what I needed.
After two heart attacks and cancer, I have a visceral appreciation for what a gift each day is, and how lucky I am to be able to travel at all. With these measures, I hope I have a lot of birding trips still ahead of me. If Wisdom the albatross can keep going, so can I!
I don’t normally recommend specific brands—I’m no “influencer,” and don’t feel comfortable recommending anything unless I’ve compared it with the alternatives. But I don’t know any other company that provides this valuable service.
I’ve always called my spotting scope Sacajawea because she showed people such great birds and then I took all the credit. Now she’s taken an early retirement and settled in Cuba, where I love picturing her gazing at Cuban Todies and Trogons and sharing them with birders there.
Again, I’m mentioning the brand name because I don’t know of another company that makes such a thing.
wow, laura! thank you so much for writing about getting older and things we can -and need- to do. i just started to feel 'older' the past 2 years.... so i'm going to read this again and get moving! thanks for all you work, laura!
Thanks very much for all this practical information.