{"id":627,"date":"2007-03-07T08:56:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-07T08:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2007\/03\/45-thousand-mile-service\/"},"modified":"2007-03-07T08:56:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-07T08:56:00","slug":"45-thousand-mile-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2007\/03\/45-thousand-mile-service\/","title":{"rendered":"45 Thousand Mile Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been feeling under the weather<\/i>, as we like to say in these fair islands. It’s one of the many euphemisms we have for disease, decay and physical failure. I was in proximity to a colleague whose entire family came down with a dreadful affliction – here’s the evidence, if you have a strong stomach<\/a> – and I have been touched by the merest corner of this plague garment, the gentlest whiff of this miasma. Still it was enough to make me croak like a frog and I felt delirious for a couple of days.<\/p>\n

I am on medication for my sensitive thyroid gland, Carbimazole, and one of the side-effects (there’s a misnomer for you if ever there was one – SIDE effects? there are only EFFECTS, wanted and unwanted) of the drug is to reduce one’s white blood cell count. I wonder if this has anything to do with the increased frequency with which I seem to be contracting these brief but annoying bouts of sickness. I am also noticing that every morning, my left index finger knuckle is painful for a while, until I bend it a few times. I’ve never suffered from arthritis – mildly aching knees in the extreme cold is the worst I get at this tender age. Is this a product of the meds, a sign that I need to adjust my diet, the onset of something elderly?<\/p>\n

It occurred to me as I jogged at moderate speed around the park recently, observing the side-stitch in my left chest that sometimes comes from not warming up properly, and hoping optimistically that it isn’t really incipient cardio-vascular failure, that I have been exercising regularly for 20 years. Aside from the fact that it keeps me in a good mood and generally makes me enjoy life more, will it have done anything by now to give the physical body more chances of less failure?<\/p>\n

I have a great dislike of one of the doctors in my local GP’s practise, who treated me once with utter disregard when I was trying to explain my symptoms; but then, given my history, seeking help from any doctor is problematic, and so I tell myself that I owe it to myself to have regular check ups, and not to allow a combination of blind optimism, endemic resistance and deep-seated fears to rule my action in health. This rubbish medic wrote me a referral to go and get a chest scan some time ago, and instead of ignoring the personal stuff and doing the right thing, I made an official complaint about his attitude and still haven’t visited the hospital. What foolishness. As my loving partner tells me every so often, as gently as she can, I am 45, and really I should get myself checked out just in case there is any lack of systemic balance which needs attention. It’s like the 50,000 mile service for a car, she pragmatically tells me. Why wait for it to breakdown, when an investigation now might save me pain, and treatable problems develop into less treatable?<\/p>\n

This fearless love I get from GGF<\/i> is quite marvellous, stimulating me to giving myself the love I need to look under the bonnet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been feeling under the weather, as we like to say in these fair islands. It’s one of the many euphemisms we have for disease, decay and physical failure. I was in proximity to a colleague whose entire family came down with a dreadful affliction – here’s the evidence, if you have a strong stomach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[780],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funky-original","tag-funky-original"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}