When Ana turned 76, she started joking that her body was older than her passport.
The jokes stopped being funny the winter she needed help just to climb the four steps to her front door. Her knees ached, her back hurt, and a deep tiredness followed her from morning to night. She slept badly, woke up stiff, and by 11 a.m. she already needed to sit down.
Her doctor had a list of words she hated:
high blood pressure, prediabetes, vitamin D deficiency, borderline anemia.
At her yearly checkup he added another:
“frailty.”
“I thought this was just old age…”
Ana lived alone since her husband died. Like many elderly people, she had fallen into habits that felt easy but slowly damaged her health:
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Toast and jam with sweet coffee for breakfast
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Crackers and cheese or cookies for lunch “because I’m not really hungry”
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A frozen meal or take-away for dinner
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Almost no fresh fruit or vegetables
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Very little meat or fish (“too much effort to cook”)
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