Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

WHY AREN'T WE TOLD WHY?

A headline in the BBC today says Obesity fuels cancer in many women. As in many of the 'studies', there is no indication of the physiology or number of physical variables involved other than obesity. Did they just take a database and look at it for cancer, age and weight? Did they check for drinking, smoking, immune deficiencies, family history of cancer? Why am I always left feeling that articles like this are a waste of my time?

While I consider myself 'pleasing plump', not grossly obese, in medical lingo I AM obese. Responding to my imminent doom, I immediately signed up for some tips on losing weight by email. (Note: sending emails does not cause weight loss, I tried that. Using tips gained on the Internet might.) I read a profound expression with anticipation: Not surprisingly, the steps to prevent weight gain are the same as the steps to lose weight: Daily exercise, a healthy menu, a long-term commitment and constant vigilance. What a surprise! Now that sounds like a fun lifestyle, doesn't it?

At some point in life one has to make the serious choice: Is living really worth it? After all, the longer you live the more aches and pains you develop, and the more part replacements are required. If you say something reasonably funny or clever, you are looked at like some sort of senior prodigy. (Did you hear what she said and she is such an old lady!!? Isn't she cute?)

A dilemma with weight loss is the apron of hanging flesh that appears. Another is a tendency to avoid of the mirror. This can lead to embarrassing moments with unwanted things hanging off my face or person, unmatched apparel and other social unmentionables. The hanging flesh from the shoulder to the elbow looked good as Dolman sleeve on a sweater sleeve but doesn't quite make it for style on my body.

I recently read an article asking if my body was trying to tell me something. Half the time it is speaking in forked tongue or some other foreign language. Not even my doctor can translate it. I was given an anti-histamine for vertigo which made me almost comatose and unable to function. I later read on the Internet that one of the pills I was taking (perhaps because I had lost weight and needed less of it) was the culprit. I cut it in half, told my doctor who then looked it up on the Internet and said, "I never knew that side effect!"

I guess I'm stuck with that bit: Daily exercise, a healthy menu, a long-term commitment and constant vigilance. There seems no alternative other than 'out of body' experience.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

WISHING YOUR LIFE AWAY

So many of us, during our working lives, wish for the weekdays to hurry by, to get to the weekend; we wish for the time to pass quickly when some dreaded medical procedure will be over, or some other anxiety producing or very boring event will cease. While I have prided myself that I don't live in the past, I realize I have spent too much time 'wishing my life away'.

It is not a problem that I have given up activities that are beyond my bodily strength or endurance. I never wanted to climb a mountain anyway. I used to have a professor who advised, "If you feel the urge to climb a mountain, lie down and the urge will pass." And, it always did. Whenever I perceived any 'mountain', I ignored it and did something else. I now realize that it fits with always being aware of one's parameters. If I don't have to do something and I don't want to do it, that is the winning combination. There is always something else to do that includes only one of those criteria.

The only time I really DO wish my days to pass quickly is when I am ill. That doesn't happen too often, but being miserable, confined to bed with weakness, unable to concentrate on reading, achy, head hurting, I stay in bed and do what I have to do to sleep a lot until my immune system takes over and banishes the bugs. I do not suffer waiting well. I wish the time would pass waiting for people to arrive, waiting for the doctor or dentist who never seems on time though I have to hurry to be there not a minute late, or rituals like funerals in churches where I tire of counting lights, icons and bald heads.

Life is good. I need to find a way to stop wishing it away; there is not that much time left!