Old Lad

I have always liked organ music – church organ not the Wurlitzer type. The power of an organ in a cathedral or church is like nothing else. Sadly unless you live near a cathedral it is rare to be able to go to an organ recital and it’s likely that exposure to organ music may be limited to a wedding or a funeral, but even the use of organ music there is in decline. You are more likely to shuffle off this mortal coil at a crematorium to the strains of Sinatra singing “My Way”! I was fortunate that my son who is a talented musician had organ lessons when he was in his teens, so for a time I had the delight of taking him to Carlisle cathedral. Sitting in a darkened cathedral while he was high up in the organ loft and listening to his lesson is a memory I treasure. Sadly there is now a shortage of organists and church organs everywhere are deteriorating.

However I am now frequently engaged in a different type of Organ Recital. This is the discussion that follows as a response to the greeting “How are you”? In younger days this would just elicit the word Fine, or occasionally “Musn’t grumble”, but now it’s likely to trigger a catalogue of descriptions of chronic diseases and the dreaded “tablets”! I suppose it’s an inevitable consequence of being an Old Lad. The statistics on I’ll health in older people are quite stark. Between the ages of 65 and 75 50% of adults are managing two or more chronic conditions. Over 75 this increases to 2 out of every 3 people with a chronic condition.. Arthritis and other musculoskeletal disorders affect a quarter of people over 65 and by the age of 80 it’s. 50%. Half the population over 65 are managing high blood pressure and 20% have Type 2 diabetes.. Nearly a quarter of older adults live with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( what in the old days we used to call chronic bronchitis). So as the saying goes – there’s a lot of it about! I suspect that because of my medical background I get drawn into these organ recitals more than most. Often it’s a description of the problem and it’s treatment with the question “What do you think”? Which reminds me that you never stop being a doctor – I still get asked for opinions in supermarkets by ex patients. I don’t mind, it goes with the territory. I am a great one for tuning into overheard conversations and hear some fascinating organ recitals, many of which are reminiscent of the late Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough in their Cissie and Ada sketches!

There is a serious side to all this in that I don’t think the NHS has geared up to how best to help us oldies coping with chronic disease. Political activity is all about waiting lists and operations and TV programmes seem to only major on severe trauma and heroic surgery. In TV ratings A&E is king, but of course the truth is that a significant number of A&E attendances are elderly people coping with multiple chronic diseases – or as we say in the trade Co-Morbidity.

if your social life is increasingly leaning towards organ recitals I suggest two strategies. Firstly change the subject after 10 minutes. And secondly adopt the stance of a very wise GP who I knew who would patiently listen to his older patients tales of woe and then pat them on the shoulder and say “ It’s just the newness wearing off”!