Health

Throughout my adult life, I have been very reluctant to visit doctors. I suppose that in some regards I have been in continuous denial - as if believing that my health was so robust that I didn't need medical assistance. To illustrate this point - when I was twenty two I broke my left leg at university playing football but it took me two days to hobble to the campus health centre. There the doctor I saw concluded almost immediately, "I think you have broken your leg". Given the swelling, bruising and pain it may have been his easiest ever diagnosis.

At seventy one years old I am proud to say that I have come thus far without any kind of regular medication. Today, at my health check appointment, the bespectacled young doctor whose name was Rebecca asked when I had last had an eye test and I  said that I hadn't had one since I was in primary school - around the age of ten. She was flabbergasted.

By keeping my distance from doctors, I suspect that up until now I have always slipped through the nets of general practice healthcare but today I have the strong impression that they have finally caught up with me. The key concern is elevated blood pressure and as requested I have even borrowed a home testing kit to use over the next few days. Rebecca wanted to see if my reading might be lower when tested regularly at home.

I was making a late lunch after the health check when Rebecca phoned me at home asking me to go in next Wednesday for another appointment where my blood pressure will be tested once again. She had been in consultation with the senior doctor at the surgery after my health check. Alarmingly, she said that in the meantime I needed to watch out for headaches, chest pains and breathlessness and to dial 111 immediately if I experience any of these "symptoms".

I know what is coming just around the corner. I am going to be put on antihypertensive medication that will hopefully decrease my raised blood pressure and I will be on these tablets  for the rest of my life. There's also going to be pressure to take statins which I must admit I currently know little about. It is of little comfort to learn that the vast majority of British men over the age of seventy take medication that reduces their blood pressure and they take statins too.

I may have imagined that I was invulnerable - like some kind of superman  but the truth is that  I am as ordinary as anybody else. The game is effectively up. I want to get older than this - to see Phoebe through primary school, to enjoy more country walks, write more poems, see more places, read more books. Today was the first chime of a wake up call that my instincts had already predicted. It would be foolish not to grab the medication with both hands and take other sensible measures to reduce potential risks and probably lengthen my life.