All
right, so maybe, just maybe I’m a hypochondriac. I admit it. As
much as I hate doing so. I try and maintain a generally positive
attitude when it comes to my overall health, but you know with
friends of mine dropping like flies all around me, sometimes
it’s hard to maintain that train of thought. The papers and the
television don’t help since they are filled with death and dying
or cures to stave off the inevitable. Each new day brings us a
load of contradictory information about what causes us to die
faster. One week, sugar is bad, the next it isn’t. One week they
tell us if we drink coffee, we can expect to live longer, the
next week they report that caffeine shaves years from our lives.
Salt? Who knows? One report says it’s necessary, the other tells
us not to touch the stuff. Who can we trust? I am totally
confused as to what to do with what. You go into a restaurant
and find yourself ordering water…..no salt, decaffeinated and
low fat, if you please. The waiters look at you as if you are
some kind of an alien, which you are. It seems as though it
isn’t enough to just survive growing up, working and raising a
family…now you have to survive a total cornucopia of illnesses,
both real and imagined. It’s a wonder any of us make it though
this life alive.
We cannot seem
to keep up with the huge number of threats to our bodies, which
we are exposed to on a daily basis. About the time we get one
thing cured, four more bad things jump up to bite us and the
process starts all over again. It makes you wonder how the human
race survived this long, doesn’t it?
Case in point.
For several weeks now, I have had a totally upset stomach. For
me this is very unusual. Almost like having food poisoning and
you know how bad that can be. After several days of this, it
doesn’t seem to let up and by now I’m firmly convinced that I’m
in the last stages of stomach cancer. I quietly go about my
daily routine; knowing in my heart of hearts that the big day is
coming and I’ll be checking out before too long. My family wants
to know what’s wrong with me, as I seem to be mopping around as
if I’ve lost my last friend. I’m thinking to myself that it’s
too late to go to the hospital since the pain is getting so bad.
No sense in prolonging the inevitable. Just suck it up, grin and
bear it and go out gracefully. It’s been a good life.
Then about the
time I start thinking I might really want to go to the hospital
and see if I’m dying, I happen to read an article about the
irritating effects of aspirin on your stomach. Now, if you
recall you may have seen those cartoon characters that suddenly
think of something or another and this little light bulb shows
up over their heads. Well, if you’d been around me I’m almost
positive that’s what you would have seen hovering over mine when
I read this article. As it turns out, I had taking a couple of
extra aspirin a day during the previous weeks. Of course, this
was to help ward off any heart attacks as the conventional
wisdom says that aspirin is good for your heart. While this may
be true, it’s bad for your stomach. So, you have a choice…have a
heart attack or have your stomach slowly dissolve. It seems as
if you can improve your health one-way or another but not both
ways. Once I started thinking about my daily aspirin regime, I
cleaned up my act and stopped taking the things. Well guess
what? In about two days, the old stomach is back to normal and
I’m back eating chili and taco sauce. With onions and jalapenos.
So there. I must be good to go for at least another couple of
years or so. Now all I have to worry about is this persistent
heartburn. Wonder what’s causing that?
Most likely
they’ll put something on my tombstone after I’m dead and gone
that reads …
“See I told you
I was sick.”
