Would you want to live to 100?

[Isitstillchristmas01]

I was just reading about former US president Jimmy Carter who has died aged 100. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live to that age. I don’t know what his health was like and how he lived his life in his later years but that would be too old for me. Even if I was relatively mobile and had my faculties, I would have had enough by then. Also imagine how much everyday life would have changed by then. How do you keep up?!

How do you feel about living to 100?

I think so but it depends on a lot of factors. Definitely want to make it to 75. I want to be there for my children and then my grandchildren for as long as possible and I want to experience new things for as long as possible. My parents are both in their mid 60s now.

But don’t you think you’re going to deteriorate between now and 100? I also have a pain inducing genetic condition and assume I will get increasingly worse as I get older. Plus shit stuff as macular degeneration and deafness and losing my marbles! 😁

My grandma (born in the late1900s) apparently never wanted to live past 60, which for working class women in an industrial city, was average. She ended up living until her late 80s, with dementia, an amputee, in a crappy council run home, pretty miserable for the last 20 years, so maybe she was right. But opposite to this, in our town there’s a world famous botanist, out in all weathers on the hills, still lectures, writes, fit as a fiddle in her late 90s, so I think health, independence and financial security are huge factors.

Oh yes. It's a cumulative condition so every year I get a little worse in some way. But that doesn't change my desire to learn everything there is - however impossible a target that is. A lot of people with my condition die by suicide, but genuinely I always think 'but what about this upcoming game/film/book that otherwise I wouldn't see'.
Also the idea of death has terrified me on a an existential level I can't even describe since I was about three and first worked it out.

My MIL is nearly 100, and until the last year or so has been mobile. Now she can get around the house, and goes out if collected and taken home. She has a home help three times a week, but not carers. Mostly she watches TV, but until recently did all her housework and cooked regularly. Her legs have gone, which often happens I think.

Her life is much more limited than it was, but she does ok really. The big thing is that her three children all live fairly locally and visit regularly to do chores and odd jobs, get her shopping and so on, so she has company. I think without them she would struggle. Fewer people have family around them than used to - all of her grandchildren (including my two) live miles away, and with the best will in the world couldn’t visit very often.

If I could be as mentally alert as my MIL and had regular (willing) visitors to break up my day I wouldn’t mind, but the thought of being alone with nobody to talk to scares me.

I would have said this aswell until my mum is now 81. She is as vibrant today as she always has been and is out everyday doing her horses . She has no major health issues and lives a quality of life that she has always enjoyed .

I think lots of us are just realistic about the chance of having what we would call a good quality of life at that age. I’ve known 3 people live to their mid to late 90s and it wasn’t a life I’d want to live. They certainly were not still learning or seeing much, they had to be taken to the toilet and washed by someone, their bodies and minds were failing.

It depends on my mental and physical health.

MIL is 96 and has dementia and limited mobility. I don't want to live into my 90s, let alone 100, if I end up like her.

On the other hand, I know someone who is 99 who has a good quality of like. I don't know what his physical health is like as I haven't met him in person (we are in some of the same WhatsApp groups and there's a weekly zoom that both of us often go to) but he's mentally alert and politically engaged. I'd happily live to 100 if I end up like him.

Just been to visit MIL who will be 97 shortly. Still lives independently in a house. She cooked us a meal from scratch using fresh ingredients and spices. She lives for her garden (although she now has help from a lovely, knowledgeable female gardener and they plan the planting/maintenance together.
Her Christmas has been busy socialising with family and friends which she has enjoyed immensely.
I very much hope she continues as she is and makes it to 100 as that will be one great party!

i don’t know. I sat with my dad for 5 days and nights while he fought death in the grips of dementia. He would not let go it was horrific, it’s left me with PTSD. And I mean physically fighting, trying to get up even though he couldn’t. Trying to scream, looking terified.

He was always the sort of person to say, “if I ever die..” he couldn’t face the fact one day he would. When his own mum died, in a really bad way, riddled with cancer he fought with his brothers when he found out they agreed a DNR. He made me swear I would never put a DNR on him, but I had to. In the last year of his life, he sat in a chair, staring ahead, a 6 foot 3 man weighing 7 stone. No one would have given him CPR, it would have crushed him.

But still, he wanted to live.

No way! I dread ending up
like my DM, who went on to 97 - but had dementia for about her last 15 years.
I’d be very happy with 85 - as long as I’m still independent, with marbles intact.
If I ever get dementia - God forbid! - I pray it’ll be the galloping variety - a couple of years from start to finish. But at least my P of A should ensure no ‘striving to keep alive’.

My friends Mother in Law is 98..and just taken up violin lessons .
She sings in a choir
She's had some children's books published last year.
Goes swimming and walking 3 to 4 times a week.
I suppose depends on your health. At 66 I'm already knackered lol. I'd like another 20 years to see my Grandkids into adult life.

My DH is a gardener and used to garden for a lady who lived till she was 102. Stayed in her own home till the end and was a keen gardener (DH did the heavy stuff). She only gave up in the last year of her life when it got too much, and as soon as she was showing signs of not being able to stay in her home, she died.

Oh that’s honestly one of the parts of my job that breaks my heart ☹️

I remember during Covid having a patient over 100 that died from it and finding out they had no surviving relatives, no nok, no surviving friends and it just didn’t feel right. When performing their last cares I thought ‘nobody knows they’re gone’ and it really upset me to find out that even funeral arrangements would be carried out by either the state or a solicitor as people can nominate solicitors as nok when they have nobody ☹️

If I still have all my marbles, and decent physical health, then yeah, sure!
But if I end up pushing a plastic ball across a care-home table to another person dribbling onto their lap, or being encouraged to join in singing "we'll meet again", then take me outside and shoot me 😂

Definitely not. Based on my mother's quality of life, I think maybe 85ish is my upper boundary.

No

If I last until 85 independently I plan to just take booze and paracetamol one evening to pop it. I don't want to be rattling around forever and don't give a monkeys about d's having children and me becoming a grandma.

I prefer ds to have my midest house and no care home fees.

To be honest I wonder why more people don't do this!

Don’t do that. Paracetamol takes days to finish you off. In which time you will have gone crazy.
Witnessed one elderly woman who had done similar in a hospital ward. She screamed all night, had to be restrained as was trying to get out of a window; my relative had 3 nights of this lady’s agony.

I am with you on taking something to snuff me out, but it needs to be faster acting !

Not unless my mind and body hold out - the former may, the latter, hmm. It's possible I may. My mother is 92, two of her sisters reached their late nineties and one reached 101. Can't say I'm keen on the prospect. I doubt I'd be able to care for a cat or two by then, and I really don't want to be without cats.

I really struggle with the thought of dying since having children... so yes.

If it means living to 100 happily and healthily, I’d be more than willing.

My worst nightmare.

Oh I agree, if I still have a decent quality of life and friends that are alive then I’m not afraid of getting old. But, generationally (X for me) it won’t be Vera Lynne surely, something like Frankie goes to Hollywood and ‘Relax’ that’s we’re all singing in our care homes.🤣

Perhaps there will a pill that has no prolonged side effects to finish us off more speedily than paracetemol.