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An Interview With My Grandma

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Based on an interview with my grandma, Bien Nguyen who is my father’s mom, she claims to be 77 years old, based on her zodiac animal of a dragon. She does not know her exact birthday and only kept track of the year she was born, based on her lunar calendar animal. My grandma’s chronological age is middle old, but her functional age is young-old based on her performance of still being exceptionally active and going on two-mile walks everyday and swimming three times a week (Berk, 2009). In addition to being exceptionally active, my grandma has always been a swimmer. Although she cannot swim as fast as she used to, she still swims at least three times a week and completes aerobic exercises in the pool. In addition, she loves walking at least two miles every morning when she wakes up at five am. My grandma is still able to perform activities of daily living, such as dressing, bathing, getting out of bed, and eating with no assistance (Berk, 2009). The only health problem that my grandma has faced was hypertension. She counteracts this health problem by exercising everyday and eating healthy meals that consist of a lot of fish, vegetables, fruits, and brown rice. She does have a hunched back, possibly due to a loss in bone density, but does not use any type of stability equipment to keep her body up (Berk, 2009). Also, she does not have the best hearing, but does not have any hearing aids to accommodate that issue. Our family has offered to get her some, but she told us that she would never wear them because she does not like how they look and or feel in her ear. Hearing decreases with age because of stiff membranes, cell death, and less blood supply in the inner ear (Berk, 2009). Also, with the risks of cataracts increasing with age, it did not apply to my grandma. She has the best vision in our family with 20/20 vision and only wears fake glasses for the looks of it. My grandma likes how glasses give her a more sophisticated appearance. With my grandma increasing in age, she came over to America and lived with my parents in 2015 because she has not seen my dad, the second oldest child, since the day he left Vietnam on a second wave boat with six of his other siblings. In addition, my grandma has never met my

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