Thanks for all the replies. When I looked into my family history, I had a lot of my ancestors (on all sides) live to a ripe old age, and one of my grandfather's siblings recently died at 105, so I think I have good genetics.
My parents are in their 90s and are in physical decline. They have never talked about when different things happened to them, and if I ask they say that they seem to have had arthritis (for example) forever. I visit them frequently - in fact my retirement sometimes seems like it is only the 7.5 hour drive to their place, staying a week and driving back for a week. Each year something happens that can cause me not to be at home for more than a week at a time for six months. But it is wonderful that I am retired, and can choose to do this. Life would be impossible if I was still working, not seeing them as much, and constantly worried about them.
We tend to assume that if we set up our habits correctly, we will live long and not get decrepit. My father has never set up these habits, and my mother has, yet they have both outlived most of their generation, and are both now using walkers. Mum is physically worse off than dad, yet she was the one who always walked, watched what she ate and had all the good habits. A cousin of mine (my age) died a year ago yet she did everything right. Medical advice says that we will live longer and better if we have these habits, as a population, but individuals will still be hit by curved balls.
I am reading a financial planning book that had a different take on planning than I have seen, and they were keen on people creating a 10 year plan, and working backwards toward their financial plan. I thought about it, and got a bit depressed (it doesn't help that I'm just back from visiting my parents).
In the next 10 years, my parents will almost certainly die - very, very few people in their 90s live 10 years. If they don't, they will be in a nursing home, which they hate the thought of. Here, you can be assessed, and get an appropriate level of home care which means that you don't have to go to a nursing home because someone comes to you - every day if you need it. The government brought that scheme in 2 years ago, and severely underestimated the numbers involved, but have progressively been funding more places. Yesterday they announced 50,000 more. Hopefully my parents will finally get one, since they have been waiting 2 years. Unfortunately for them, care outside the scheme is difficult to obtain, because all the care givers have been sucked into the scheme.
Each year, I have been giving myself a break by traveling overseas for at least 2 months, and leaving my parents to my brother (who visits them once a year) and my mother's siblings who are all still alive and visit regularly. It has been wonderful - I have visited amazing places. I don't visit my own country even though there are absolutely amazing things here that you can see nowhere else in the world, because I wouldn't get a break. Something would go wrong, and I'd feel obliged to sort it out. Looking at the 10 year plan, would I be able to roam freely, sleeping in the back of my car when I will feel free to do so?
And my life in my community has been on hold. I'm not in the groups I used to be in - it's difficult to do things when you know you might be disappearing at a moment's notice to sort out the latest emergency. And looking at a 10 year plan makes me realise that I may not be capable of doing the things I used to do when I was part of those groups. Part of the plan must be to reconnect in some way. But with the limited time I currently have, maybe I should connect to groups where I expect to be able to continue with them for a long time, and develop friendships. Where physical limitations are less of a problem.
Hence the question.
I was hoping there would be someone who could point me to a list of things that go wrong, and approximately when. I am really pleased that people are telling me their own experiences, it's all interesting stuff. Thanks a lot!