Musings of a Restless Mind

Some article linked by Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit was talking about all the health monitors people wear on their wrists potentially giving people too much information about the state of their bodies. It prompted Glenn to quote one of his doctor friends saying, “IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HEALTHY, YOU HAVEN’T HAD ENOUGH TESTS.” Let’s hope his friend was being sarcastic.

After lots of tests, my docs failed two years ago at proving I had a heart condition. All they actually found was that I was low on sodium. That’s right I had cut back on salted foods because “all the right people” said it was bad for me. I had to go back to eating salty foods.

Last year my doc wanted me to have a colonoscopy. I put him off with the home cologuard test, which was negative. He ragged on me again this year, so I finally did, screwing up my diet for a week. They found…, nothing. Doc said, “Come back in 10 years.” I laughed at him. In 10 years, I’ll be 84 and too old to worry about it.

I’m not on any drugs, just a little vitamin D. If I keep letting them do tests, I’m sure they could find something, anything. People find it hard to believe I’m as old as I am, maybe because I have very little gray hair on my head, my mostly bald head, although I do have a gray goatee. I never smoked–anything. Maybe that’s why I don’t have wrinkled skin. I did work in the hot sun when I was young, but then spent 40 years sitting indoors at a computer. I never did drugs, rarely drank, although I confess to getting drunk maybe 8 or 9 times in my early twenties, and I waited until I was 21 to drink.

I frequently quote Harrison Ford’s character from 1923 when a doctor kept trying to dig out a bullet that Ford insisted wasn’t there. It was just an old wound that had opened up. “If I don’t get the bullet out, it could slowly poison you,” to which Ford replied, “I’m 80 fucking years old Doc. Do you think I care about the slow ones? Just sew it up.”

My ex-landlord who I met when he was in his 60’s and who for as long as I knew him had a big pot belly that everybody knows is bad for you, died at 96 a few years ago. So much for conventional wisdom.

I’ve got news for all the doctors out there. I’m going to die…, some day, but today is not that day. I jokingly now say that my goal is to die healthy. I do try to stay out of traffic though. Still, I may get hit by a comet or a de-orbiting space toilet tomorrow. Until then, I plan on writing, and publishing what I write. My first novel just got a bunch of 5-star reviews, and folks said some great things about it, setting a high bar for the next novel I’m working on. The plan is to publish a collection of my short stories in a week or two called That Has Such Creatures, and then maybe 12 issues of my wife’s Hermit & Vulture—a Comic Book That Isn’t while I’m working on my next novel.

To subvert Rousseau, I am, therefore I write. Thanks for reading.