Lee Kuan Yew's advice on aging

Last week Kim's mother, already 86, was admitted to hosipital because she suddenly could not sit up due to sever pain whenever she moved any part of her body. Four years ago my mum fell and broke her pelvis and since then become bed riden until she ended her journey and mission in this world two years ago at the age of 83.It was really quite a task to take of care of old folks, especially when they fell ill. I wanted to share our experience in taking care of old people. Coincidentally a few days back Dr Salmah forward to me an article titled " Lee Kuan Yew's advice on aging" which both Salmah and me felt that we can benefit form this article. I thought may be it is a good idea that I post it here to share. It is a four pages article, be patient to read it through. Below is the reproduction of the article, I hope I would not be sued by Mr Lee for doing this.
"Lee Kuan Yew On Ageing :

MY CONCERN today is, what is it I can tell you which can add to your knowledge about ageing and what ageing societies can do. You know more about this subject than I do. A lot of it is out in the media, Internet and books.So I thought the best way would be to take a personal standpoint and tell you how I approach this question of ageing.

If I cast my mind back, I can see turning points in my physical and mental health. You know, when you're young, I didn't bother, assumed good health was God-given and would always be there. When I was about -'57 that was - I wasabout 34, we were competing in elections, and I was really fond of drinking beer and smoking. And after the election campaign, in Victoria Memorial Hall - we had won the election, the City Council election - I couldn't thank the voters because I had lost my voice. I'd been smoking furiously. I'd take a packet! of 10to deceive myself, but I'd run through the packet just sitting on the stage, watching the crowd, getting the feeling, the mood before I speak. In other words, there were three speeches a night. Three speeches a night, 30 cigarettes, a lot of beer after that, and the voice was gone.

I remember I had a case in Kuching, Sarawak. So I took the flight and I felt awful. I had to make up my mind whether I was going to be an effective campaigner and a lawyer, in which case I cannot destroy my voice, and I can't go on. So I stopped smoking. It was a tremendous deprivation because I was addicted to it. And I used to wake up dreaming...the nightmare was I resumed smoking.

But I made a choice and said, if I continue this, I will not be able to do my job. I didn't know anything about cancer of the throat or oesophagus or the lungs, etc. But it turned out it had many other deleterious effects.Strangely enough after that, I became very allergic, hyper-allergic to smoking, so much so that I would plead with my Cabinet ministers not to smoke in the Cabinet room. You want to smoke, please go out, because I am allergic.

Then one day I was at the home of my colleague, Mr Rajaratnam, meeting foreign correspondents including some from the London Times and they took a picture of me and I had a big belly like that (puts his hands in front of his belly), a beer belly. I felt no, no, this will not do. So I started playing more golf, hit hundreds of balls on the practice tee. But this didn't go down. There was only one way it could go down: consume less, burn up more.Another turning point came when -this was 1976, after the general election - I was feeling tired. I was breathing deeply at the Istana, on the lawns.. My daughter, who at that time just graduating as a doctor, said: 'What are you trying to do?' I said: 'I feel an effort to breathe in more oxygen.' She said: 'Don't play golf. Run. Aerobics.' So she gave me a book, quite a famous book and, then, very current in America on how you score aerobic points swimming, running, whatever it is, cycling. I looked at it sceptically. I wasn't very keen on running. I was keen on golf. So I said, 'Let's try'. So in-between golf shots while playing on my own, sometimes nine holes at the Istana, I would try and walk fast between shots. Then I began to run between shots. And I felt better. After a while, I said: 'Okay, after my golf, I run.' And after a few years, I said: 'Golf takes so long. The running takes 15 minutes. Let's cut out the golf and let's run.'

I think the most important thing in ageing is you got to understand yourself. And the knowledge now is all there.When I was growing up, the knowledge wasn't there. I had to get the knowledge from friends, from doctors. But perhaps the most important bit of knowledge that the doctor gave me was one day, when I said: 'Look, I'm feeling slower and sluggish.' So he gave me a medical encyclopaedia and he turned the pages to ageing. I read it up and it was illuminating. A lot of it was difficult jargon but I just skimmed through to get the gist of it.

As you grow, you reach 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and then, thereafter, you are on a gradual slope down physically. Mentally, you carry on and on and on until I don't know what age, but mathematicians will tell you that they know their best output is when they're in their 20s and 30s when your mental energy is powerful and you haven't lost many neurons. That's what they tell me.

So, as you acquire more knowledge, you then craft a programme for yourself to maximise what you have. It's just common sense. I never planned to live till 85 or 84.! I just didn't think about it. I said: 'Well, my mother died when she was 74, she had a stroke. My father died when he was 94.'

But I saw him, and he lived a long life, well, maybe it was his DNA. But more than that, he swam every day and he kept himself busy.. He was working for the Shell company. He was in charge, he was a superintendent of an oil depot.When he retired, he started becoming a salesman. So people used to tell me: 'Your father is selling watches at BP de Silva.' My father was then living with me. But it kept him busy. He had that routine: He meets people, he sells watches, he buys and sells all kinds of semi-precious stones, he circulates coins. And he keeps going. But at 87, 88, he fell,! going down the steps from his room to the dining room, broke his arm, three months incapacitated.Thereafter, he couldn't go back to swimming. Then he became wheelchair-bound. Then it became a problem because my house was constructed that way. So my brother - who's a doctor and had a flat (one-level) house - took him in. And he lived on till 94. But towards the end, he had gradual loss of mental powers...." - to be continued in the next post

How could Bank Negara allow this?

On monday morning I accessed my credit card account through internet. I got disturbed when I saw a bill amount of RM 897 charged by one company A in Bangsar and the transaction date was last saturday (30 May 2009). Kim and I never got out of the USJ area the whole of Saturday neither did we do online purchases; how could I incur such expenses. Furthermore the company's name was new to me. I started to get worried and called up the customer service of the credit card company to instruct them to stop payment on that bill and future charges as well as issue me a new card. Just as our conversation was to end, my wife suddenly recalled that we did a purchase on that day in the warehouse sale in USJ area. We checked the bill and the amount was exactly the same as appeared in the credit card account. On further checking, the customer receipt for the credit card payment was made to company B. I called up company B to seek clarification. It was confirmed that company A belongs to company B. Worrying that double charges could occur later, I asked for a black and white to state the fact but in vail. I' m waiting for the manger to give me better assurance when she came back from leave on tuesday.

Mean while I called up credit card company again, this time I was given a more assuring answer. The credit card company confirmed that the receipt was in the name of Company B but payment was to company A and therefore company A appeared in my credit account statement. This is incredible ! How can i be expected to settle the bill with company A when i have no S&P agreement with it. On paper I'll still owe company B after I settled the amount with the credit card company. How could this practice be allowed by Bank Negara ? Shall I bring this to the notice of Bank Negara as I feel that such acoounting practice will open up for abuse and it is not fair to the credit card holder that his right and interest are not considered and protected?