why old people like me dress funny

I used to wonder why grandmothers wore so many housecoats. You know the kind—they were floral and I’m not sure how they fastened? Zippers? Snaps? Pulling over one’s head?

But now I get it. I can’t fasten small buttons well bc of my neuropathy. i can’t even pull shirts over my head easily. So before I get dressed I consider how hard it is to put on. And when my ankle was still broken, I often slept in my clothes bc it was too hard to take them off.

And pants! I can’t pull them up bc of my neuropathy. Jeans are the hardest. I have to enlist Dan’s help to pull them up in the back. I also have yoga pants with no zippers which are still hard to pull up. So I often have saggy pants.

My lymphedema prevents me from wearing my stylish jackets. My arm is too fat. That’s bad enough but i can’t lift my left arm back very far or above my head. And I always look fatter bc the sweaters and shirts don’t slide easily over my arm—they bunch at shoulders.

I can easily put on terry robes that wrap or dresses with wide necks to go over my head! Sweaters with zippers up front might work.

So all these things are making me crazy. Although fortunately my doc has agreed to lower my taxol to improve my neuropathy. And my fluid in lungs came back clean—no malignancies! But in the meantime, I’m considering buying some housecoats.