A centenarian lady

[Guest guest]

Hi All, I hope this is not off-topic, but seemed to homely to let pass.

There but for the CRON go we?

Cheers, Al.

Alan Pater, Ph.D.; Faculty of Medicine; Memorial University; St. 's, NL

A1B 3V6 Canada; Tel. No.: (709) 777-6488; Fax No.: (709) 777-7010; email:

apater@...

Lancet 360, 9342, 26 October 2002

Jabs and jibes

My oldest patient

Johannes Borgstein

I am 100 years old . . . and one year " , she added cautiously, invoking

unknowingly the

infinite series suggested in the Arabian Nights, where Scheherazade attains

immortality, and avoids an early death, by telling one more story every night.

The tales

of Scheherazade convey how life is really made up of a series of incidents, and

open up

a subject so subversive that the Greeks finally considered it taboo--the

infinite. It is a

book my patient will probably never read now, for her eyesight is beginning to

fail, and I

doubt if anyone in her family would have the patience to read it to her.

Sitting up straight as a rod, white hair tied tightly back into a bun, at 103

she is easily

my oldest patient. Her dark eyes, set in an expressive face deeply furrowed by

the

rivers of time, scan around until she locates us in the gloom of the old house.

" She is

lying about her age of course " , says one of her granddaughters as she comes into

the

room and gently reprimands her grandmother; the old lady chuckles at having been

caught in this small vanity. Oldest patient is also a bit of an exaggeration,

for she has

rarely had a day's illness in her life. She had consulted me about her hearing

just

before her 98th birthday; more to humour the family, for she had not noticed any

problems, and could still talk the ears off anyone in the room with perfectly

lucid

conversation and embarrassing family anecdotes.

When I first met her she had walked all the way to the consulting

rooms, on what was probably her first medical visit in half a century,

and had been indignant about my refusal to charge her any fees. I

told her an invitation to her 100th birthday party would more than

cover the costs, and anyway there was nothing wrong, so what was

there to charge. The logic of my decision seemed to appeal to her,

and since then I have received regular invitations to supper. On this

occasion, we had been invited to the feast of Candelaria, to take the

traditional fare of tamales with atole. Tamales are a typical Mexican

delicacy, a maize flour mixture filled with meat, herbs and exotic

chillies, steamed in a maize leaves. The tamales are taken with atole, an

ancient Aztec

drink of thin maize meal flavoured with chocolate, tamarind or guava. Both maize

(elote)

and chocolate (chocolatl) originated in Mexico and were eaten long before

Columbus

set foot there.

The old lady has, however, refused to leave her room for this celebration,

because she

is mourning the recent death of her younger sister, who had died after a long

illness at

the age of 98 years. The rest of the family accept her decision and gather in

the

kitchen. It strikes me that this household would be more at home in one of the

novels of

Marquez or Isabel de than in 21st century Mexico. A fierce

matriarchy composed almost entirely of women ranging from the ages of 103 to 1

year;

men are rarely seen and once they are old enough to walk they seem to be

banished to

some distant part of the house. An occasional boyfriend or brother would

cautiously

look in before making a hurried retreat. I never discovered how many men lived

in the

old house, but it was the women who ran things--walking in and out, talking,

arguing,

cooking, preparing and serving the abundant food, as they moved around each

other in

a complex slow-motion dance. As one woman disappeared another would appear,

seemingly from nowhere, to pick up the conversation where it had left off. A

slightly

surreal atmosphere perfused the evening as it wore on, in this curious little

enclave of

feminism within the vast macho society of modern Mexico. The matriarch of this

household may have remained in her room, but her influence on the family was

always

palpable. If only more of my patients were as intriguing and welcoming as this

formidable centenarian.