My niece Lizzie is finishing her sophomore year in college. A psychology major, she recently asked me to complete an Adult Development survey for one of her classes. In asking me to take it, she warned, “it has some pretty personal questions (about divorce, diseases, and your opinion on life changes as you age), so I can understand if you do not want to par­tic­i­pate in the interview.”

Of course I said I would take it. With a warning like that, how could I re­sist?

It was an interesting exercise, to say the least.

The first questions were about physical changes due to aging. As I worked through them, I would add a comment as to whether I felt myeloma had impacted or accelerated the change and, if so, how. It was only after I had answered a series of these questions that I ran across the author’s note to feel free to comment where I thought cancer had caused physical changes.

As I continued to answer the questions, I found myself wondering whether I was fooling myself about the impact of myeloma on my body. After all, I am 58 now. Some of the changes would have happened no mat­ter what. My hearing is worse due to aging, not to myeloma. I know that myeloma has greatly diminished my muscle strength and energy levels, but what I don’t know is to what extent my age would have done the same. I like to think that age would have been far kinder at this point.

The most insightful question on the survey was about my perceptions of old age. The survey asked: How do you view old age? Has this changed since you were diagnosed with cancer? If so, how?

My answer surprised me a bit, perhaps because I didn’t realize how I felt until I began writing it out:

I don’t think I thought about old age before the diagnosis. I was in my 40s and had thought of old age as something I would deal with later. At the time of diagnosis, the statistical life expectancy was five years. Suddenly old age was out of reach.

I am also not sure (still) what I consider old age. My view has changed since before the diagnosis and has also changed as I get older. I used to think of old age as something that started in the 70s. Now I see old age as starting in the 60s – “young” old age, with “middle” old age being the 70s, and “old” old age being the 80s and beyond. That surprises me: I would have thought I moved “old age” farther out as I grew older.

I know I would have given a different answer if I had taken this survey pre-myeloma, when I was in my 40s. I have a number of friends, both older and younger, who keep kicking “old age” out ahead of them. And here I am embracing it.

My response, undeniably, is a result of the myeloma.

[Note to reader: By “old age,” I am referring only to the physical state of being old, not the attitude of the in­di­vidual. Let’s face it: We all know younger people who seem “older” than ourselves because of their mind­sets and attitudes; we also all know quite elderly people who have a youthful spirit and attitude even in their 80s and 90s.]

As I mentioned in my survey answer, the statistical life expectancy for multiple myeloma was five years when I was diagnosed in late 2004. Five years! That would just get my youngest son a year past high school. Sud­den­ly, making it to 54 (just past five years), let alone “old age,” was up in the air. And while my oncologist im­medi­ate­ly told me to not focus on the statistics but on myself, that five-year mark lingered on the margin of my mind for some time.

Here I am now, 58 years old, about six months from the tenth anniversary of my diagnosis. How can I ever begrudge old age?

I admit it. The thought of “old age” is rather appealing to me. Every birthday I have passed since 2004 is an affirmation of “I’m still here.”

I am looking forward to the next time I see my niece. I want to discuss the survey with her: its purpose, how it would be used, what questions I feel (from my vantage point of 58 years versus her 20) were missing.

I hope I remember to thank her, too. “How do you view old age,” Lizzie asked, cleanly and simply.

How do I view old age? By valuing my aging self.