Warning to Medical Professionals: This post may contain offensive information about self-care.
DAMN! REALLY, DAMN!
And I call myself a writer. I noticed today the last time I put up this blog was in August. It was hot. Up in the 90s. Now it’s cold. Well, chilly. November.
Given the title of this blog, I guess that means I haven’t had a lot of stuff on my mind. Wish it were so. I have had too much on my mind and most of it was not worth having there.
With that in mind I have spent the past few days sorting things out. I’ve come to the conclusion that once I get past family and a few close friends, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot I give a damn about. Which raises the question, why have I spent so much time drowning in all the stuff I don’t care about and missing out on what I might want to do?
That’s something for a shrink to figure out and report back to me on.
I do know one thing. I have decided to walk away from most of modern medicine. Not that I am not a fan of the miracles we have come up with. It’s just that in my case, I don’t think I need a lot of what I’ve been doing on the health front.
At last count I take five prescribed medicines. That’s not bad for someone pushing 80. But I’ve also been walking around in a lethargic fog. I feel out of body half the time and the other time I feel like going to bed.
I looked up those four meds and each one of them has common side effects of fatigue and dizziness. Got me to thinking, and I hasten to add I did this thinking and acted without consulting a medical professional, who most likely would have cautioned me against doing what I did.
FIRST, DEPRESSION. Had it all my life, tried a variety of meds, meditation, listening to music and going into the great outdoors. It’s still been there which leads me to believe it always will be and given I am old and can see mortality looming, it’s fair to ask if I want to spend the time I have left alert and aware, even if a bit down at times. No doubt my depression med was the biggest culprit. So, gone.
Next was a medicine to relax my prostrate, which is enlarged but cancer free. A few weeks ago I had a procedure where they put a tube into an artery in my risk, snaked it down to my prostrate and shot small particles into small arteries to cut off the supply to the prostrate. The goal? Shrink and eliminate the urge to pee. That means I don’t need that prostate med any longer. Gone.
An allergist had put me on something that was not doing anything, one way or the other, except contributing to fatigue. Gone.
The fourth is a heart med. I don’t have a serious heart issue but a bit of plaque in one artery so the cardiologist gave me a pill to slow that down. Of all the drugs it does not list lethargy and dizziness among side effects, so it stays.
The fifth is a mild pill for anxiety and I thought given I dumped the depression med and have a wife in memory care, something to tamp down anxiety might make sense.
SUPPLEMENTS. Except for B-Complex and a multi-vitamin every day, gone. I was at a business meeting recently and our keynote speaker was a physiologist who, asked about supplements, said “if donating hundreds of dollars to pill makers works for you, OK. But medically, eat the right foods and exercise and a one-a-day is probably all you need.”
Exercise. I checked what an 80-year-old man should be doing, and my workouts are roughly six times that so am cutting them in half. I am not going to obsess about missing a workout and I am not going to obsess about weight anymore.
I suspect some of you are about to say, “are you out of your effing mind?” or words to that effect. Don’t. My choice. I am good with it.
What’s on my mind today is feeling alive and alert. Period. I doubt my last words will be “dammit, I wish I had worried more and lived less.”
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He also writes the intodementia.com blog about his family’s experience with dementia. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].