Saturday, March 15, 2008

Does my forehead feel a little warm to you?

I think a bout of hypochondria is finally starting to wane for me. I should be back to feeling invincible again sometime soon.

I guess it's a product of getting older and being exposed to information about health screenings, early detection and warning signs. I know it's a good idea to get checked out for things you might have, but it's psychologically hard -- on me at least.

My uncle's, sister's grandfather's cousin had what so you want to do what?
Checking for possibilities is probably a good thing. It's preventive. You'd be surprised how many older doctors hate the word preventative, which at least in online dictionaries is listed as a variant of preventive. I've had them open conversations with it. "If you ever write the word preventive you should do it correctly." Kind of reminds me of this broken record caller we had in the newsroom.

"You people aren't capitalizing the word pope," he told me once.

"We do if it's in front of a name like John Paul. Or Paul. Just not if it's a stand-alone noun," I said. Couple of weeks later about ten of us in the newsroom were sitting around talking because there was no exciting breaking news to cover, and it turned out everyone had the same conversation with the guy.

I don't know if there's a preventative measure for that kind of behavior, but I do work on crossword puzzles when I'm not digressing. I also sometimes use the less-preferred variation on a word just to be rebellious.

People can have heart attacks at any age
Anyway I can't say that avoiding screenings is a good idea, even if you're pretty sure there's nothing wrong with you, but I do think it's important to try and think there's nothing wrong with you.

It makes living in the now easier. Get too caught up in "what you might have" and it discourages long-range planning as well, which also is not a good thing.

What you might have also makes a lot of people say: "Well, anything's possible, but I think it's unlikely you're having a heart attack."

Christine said that once when I was 30 and had had coffee, a Mountain Dew and the notion that "30-year-olds have been known to have heart attacks."

If 30 year olds can have heart attacks, I can imagine a whole lot of things older guys can have and there's this thing called the Internet where you can read about all kinds of diseases.

9 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

You hit the nail on the head for what I've been going through. I would have sworn I didn't have a hypochondriac bone in my body but since I've had some weird things happen lately I've gotten quite concerend about my health, and part of it is having too much information about what something might be.

Miladysa said...

I know what you mean!

Now I know I have high blood pressure I am aware I have it and therefore I can sometimes worry about it which of course has an effect on my blood pressure! lol

Sphinx Ink said...

For most of my life I was very healthy and didn't think much about how I felt, or worry that something was wrong. As I've aged, and gradually began to develop "conditions"--e.g., hypertension, severe arthritis--I've begun to think a lot more about ailments, both mine and others. My conversations with my lunch-buddy friends at work would have left the 20-years-younger version of me yawning and grabbing at any chance to leave the room. Now, however, it's all of vital interest--because, who knows, what my friends have may be what I develop next....

Every now and then we do vary the topic a bit and get away from our ailments to discussing other things!

Lana Gramlich said...

Personally I figure I could always get hit by a bus tomorrow, so worrying much about health is somewhat pointless. Of course, I say that from a long-standing history of pretty darned good health. Being a black market baby, I think there's been a benefit to not knowing my genetic health history...What I haven't known certainly hasn't killed me...yet. After all, they don't call it dis-ease for nothing!
Hope all's well with you, of course, however!

Shauna Roberts said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shauna Roberts said...

Sorry for the vent last night, Sidney. I've deleted it.

I think some worry about one's health is good in that it gets you to take better care of themselves. Think about how tedious and time-consuming flossing every day is. If people didn't worry about bad breath, cavities, and periodontitis, how would they get themselves to do it?

Erik Donald France said...

Exactly on point.

Being mortal can be a drag.

But, as long as Sid is Alive, all is well in the world :->

p.s. in my Tech Comm. class, students are researching public health issues. Other teachers have them confined to researcing diseases, but I widened it, because the narrower approach is just too depressing and creepy.

Sidney said...

Interesting thoughts, guys. Kind of a reminder we're really all in the same boat.

Shauna, I thought you had good points in both comments and it's true in general I take better care of myself now than I did when I was younger. A lot of days at lunch I get a spaghetti with marinara only. Little fat and lots of lycopene. :-) I have a co-worker just turning 30 and he's still having "Bacon with every meal" weekends. I warn him about it even though he thinks I'm just an old guy with a doomsday complex.

Anonymous said...

And then there's this stupid thing called cholesterol.
I hate it.

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