longevity prospects
Nov. 26th, 2001 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayGiven recent events, my kids have been worried about death and injury (at least, they keep bringing up topics like "how long will you live, Daddy?" or "Wow, 40 is really old, you must not have much time left!") and how long people live. James went through this at about age eight, but David and Kevin have all of this external input triggering their trepidations. All quite understandable under the circumstances.
Five-year-old Kevin told me at one point last week, "you're really old! You have....(pause)... 58 days left!" Which would hypothetically take me to January 16, I guess.:-) Of course, I just heard today that my travel to Honeybee Robotics in NYC (which was originally scheduled for 9/13) is rescheduled for... 1/16. Well, I won't have reservations at the WTC Marriott this time...
Apart from the threat of terrorists (or errant cab drivers, more likely), my own health prospects are quite good. NASA gives its employees a thorough physical every two years, and mine just finished. My cholesterol was down to 146, and my ratio down to 3.0, so I'm a very low cardiac risk. But the examining physician told me not to preen, that unless I was a vegetarian it was mostly due to heredity (although I like to think that exercise and weight maintenance helps). And all of the kidney, liver, thyroid, immune system, and EKG tests came back comfortably normal. Lung capacity tests were 94-130% of normal for my age and gender, hearing was excellent (no more that 5-10dB loss at any frequency band) and vision remained at 20/50 distant and 20/15 close-up (both uncorrected). On the other hand, weight has inched up a bit (to 112% of my ideal) so I need to shed 5-10 pounds to get back into a comfortable maintenance range.
I got my renewal FAA 2nd-class flight medical certificate signed-off, so I can resume flying again. So medically I can still compete in the next astronaut selection cycle, although I'm running out of time age-wise (new selectees are typically in their late 30s, and are hardly ever older than 45).
Five-year-old Kevin told me at one point last week, "you're really old! You have....(pause)... 58 days left!" Which would hypothetically take me to January 16, I guess.:-) Of course, I just heard today that my travel to Honeybee Robotics in NYC (which was originally scheduled for 9/13) is rescheduled for... 1/16. Well, I won't have reservations at the WTC Marriott this time...
Apart from the threat of terrorists (or errant cab drivers, more likely), my own health prospects are quite good. NASA gives its employees a thorough physical every two years, and mine just finished. My cholesterol was down to 146, and my ratio down to 3.0, so I'm a very low cardiac risk. But the examining physician told me not to preen, that unless I was a vegetarian it was mostly due to heredity (although I like to think that exercise and weight maintenance helps). And all of the kidney, liver, thyroid, immune system, and EKG tests came back comfortably normal. Lung capacity tests were 94-130% of normal for my age and gender, hearing was excellent (no more that 5-10dB loss at any frequency band) and vision remained at 20/50 distant and 20/15 close-up (both uncorrected). On the other hand, weight has inched up a bit (to 112% of my ideal) so I need to shed 5-10 pounds to get back into a comfortable maintenance range.
I got my renewal FAA 2nd-class flight medical certificate signed-off, so I can resume flying again. So medically I can still compete in the next astronaut selection cycle, although I'm running out of time age-wise (new selectees are typically in their late 30s, and are hardly ever older than 45).
no subject
Date: 2001-11-27 01:34 pm (UTC)-workingJ