How old is old?

Today, I admitted a 97 year old woman to hospital with dehydration due to diarrhoea.

Ninety-seven.

This woman is seriously old.

When I was eight years old, I couldn’t even conceive of being so old that my age had double figures. When I started high school, to me, the fourth years were grown ups weren’t they? When I started medical school, aged 18, I though 60 was old because, you’re nearly retired.

Since starting work as a doctor, my perception of age has changed yet again. If I see a 55 year old patient, I describe him as “young.” A 66 year old retired woman is still “quite young.”

I don’t start thinking of people as being “old” until they’re about 75 to 80.

It’s funny how your perceptions change as you go through life. I think when I was eight years old, I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that there were people who were still alive at 80.

Still, to have lived 97 years makes you bloody old.