I remember clearly the instant that old age hit me.
I was 62, going
to a weekday lunch with a friend. We agreed to meet at their office at a school
district.
At the front
counter, the young receptionist called my friend and said they would be up in a
minute.
On the
wall behind the receptionist, I noticed a sign that read “AED Here”.
As background,
around the year 2000, I did some consulting to an Australian company that had an
interesting CD-based (pre-internet) training program for cardiopulmonary resuscitation
(CPR) and Automatic External Defibrillator (AED). It needed to be converted
from Australian English to American English and some of the Australian humor
just wouldn’t work in America.
It was
great going through the details of the medicine, the agencies involved, producing
the American script, and hiring, coaching, and recording American actors to read
it.
Because of
the consulting, I have maintained a more-than-casual interest in CPR and AED’s.
So, when I saw the AED sign, I was
curious if and how the receptionist had trained to use it.
So, I
asked her if she had trained to use the AED.
She gazed
up and must have thought I was as old as the hills. Her eyes grew wide and she had
a shocked and worried look on her face.
“Do you
need it right away?” She said.
You are old
aged the moment a casual question about a medical subject results in a 911
call.
