The Examined Life

I’ve yammered about various health issues and concerns in this space previously and y’all have been wonderfully indulgent. As the audience is younger than me, I don’t mind being a canary in the coal mine and providing the occasional non-clinical take on the joys of aging. 

Entertaining as it is to read about enlarged atria and mitral valve regurgitation, let me take a different tack and offer a suggestion: Record stuff. Everything. Every condition, procedure, screening, test, diagnosis. Torn ligaments, swollen prostates, lumpy breasts, blood sugar spikes, heart flutters, uterine fibroids, the unwelcome polyp or two. Put them in a journal, notebook, computer disc, hard drive, video diary, whatever your preferred receptacle. Research your parents and families and their health issues through the years, as best you can, and record them, as well. 

To paraphrase the minstrel Gordon Sumner: Every bone you break, every med you take, I’ll be watching you. The information will benefit not only you, but the youngsters. Health care will become more diverse and specialized as you age. Walking into a doc’s office with a reasonably comprehensive personal and family history will help them treat you and identify potential future concerns. As your kids get older and become responsible for their own health care and consider starting families, their own records and yours will inform them and their doctors. That info could prompt early and preventive screenings and practices. Who knows, insurance might even cover it. Hey, miracles happen. 

Think of a family health history as your kids’ least favorite Christmas present. I say this as a habitual note taker and hoarder professionally who was pretty cavalier, if not negligent, about personal info. I kept box scores and media guides and news files for decades, but often couldn’t pull when I had blood work or a colonoscopy or stress test. Only in recent years have I gotten more diligent about taking notes and keeping records related to me. Some of you may already do this. If so, salute. If not, there’s time. 

Granted, digitized record keeping enables access to years’ worth of tests and treatments quickly and easily, so in some cases one need not carry and pull out the family album. But if you’re referred to a cardiac or gastro or endocrinology doc, there’s no guarantee that their computers, or more likely the staffers who man their computers, will communicate with your primary care doc or whomever did the referring. 

I’ve experienced instances where my local cardiac guy’s findings were unknown to a cardiac specialist I see elsewhere and vice versa, even though they’re in the same (gargantuan) network, and neither’s diagnosis made it to my primary care doc before I saw him for a regular check-up months later. Keeping your own records reduces the chances of falling through the cyber cracks, or at least providing some background if the doc standing before you makes a face as if she was suddenly handed a Turkish train schedule. 

Also, evident midway through my seventh decade is that the disruptor gremlins don’t politely wait in line or take turns, as some of you are doubtless aware. A thyroid issue may arise alongside heart arrhythmia, joining that touch of arthritis in your knees and ankles for an assemblage of delight. Chronicling all of it won’t alleviate the problems but provides a sense that we’re aware and not a dinghy helplessly caught in a squall. We’re essentially security cams or mall cops when it comes to our health, unable to remedy a situation but at least recognize that something irregular is afoot and alert the authorities. 

Which prompts one more recommendation: listen to your body. I get that most of us don’t want to come off as alarmists or hypochondriacs, hustling to the doc for every tweak and ache and ailment. I still tend to chalk up various discomforts as old guy distinctions and tolerate them. But once we cross 50, any condition that lingers is worth exploring. Understand, as well, that some conditions present themselves, others do not. So get screened for the stuff you can’t see or feel right away. Erosion comes for us all. Give yourself a chance to endure it knowledgeably, if not always comfortably. Sedation remains an option, and methods and ingredients may vary.