Joy of joys, today I finally got in to see the nurse at my GP surgery for my free NHS health check. Those of you who have been concentrating will know that this is my tactic for satisfying Vietnam Business Visa requirements on arrival. They request a ‘medical check’ but don’t specify what that should entail. My lovely GP has come up with a generic letter saying ‘not currently I under treatment blah de blah’ and the plan is that my recent health check results can be incorporated into this.
The NHS is completely wonderful in my book. Granted, I had to wait a long while for an appointment, but it is fantastic that I have had a check without any charge. I am now in possession of information regarding cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI, blood sugar etc and crunched through the NHS IT system I am told that I have a 3.23% chance of a heart attack in the next 10 years. Hurrah, probability is on my side.
The broadly positive results will be captured in the letter, the only downside for me is that I have to suffer the indignity of being weighed and measured. It was not entirely an unexpected bolt from the blue to learn that I am ‘in the overweight category’ to use the non-judgmental phraseology intoned by the nurse (who was very nice actually). On the plus side, astonishingly I am taller than I thought, 5 foot 2 and half inches, a whole inch higher than I knew! It occurs to me that as an adult you don’t ever really measure your height, so I suppose inaccuracies perpetuate. Without wishing to be unduly profound, it does make me wonder what other mistaken ‘truths’ and ‘beliefs’ I’ve hung on to without ever bothering to check. Just goes to show, never assume, always check with primary sources where you can.
If you live in the UK I’d recommend taking up the health check. It was reassuring, but also probably will motivate me to lose a bit of weight. I’m not obese, I’m borderline ‘OK’ but I know I’d be happier if I lost a bit. Also, being presented with the graphic that puts you so firmly in the red category does focus the mind. It also feeds into one of my (I hope ridiculous) anxieties about travelling to Vietnam. The Vietnamese frame is petite and I am scared I’ll feel an ogre in comparison to my svelte new colleagues and friends. I think I’m OK considering, I exercise, I’ve always been a bit ‘pleasantly rounded’ I like to tell myself, cuddlesome perhaps? But, I have to concede, my weight has been creeping ever upwards since I hit 40! Actually, it was like my body began to disintegrate on hitting forty, hate to say it, but it stops doing what it’s supposed to do, and I’ve found since then it is quite possible to wake up with unexplained pains in the morning that can only be attributable to the the relentless march of time. I don’t want entirely to decry the aging process, I do think I’m more chilled than I was and you can get away with more as you get older I think, maybe partly because of caring less and seeing diminishing time ahead. Here’s a good role model for the future:
In any event, I have to acknowledge I’m a terrible comfort eater (though as a vegetarian my diet is healthy, it’s portion control that is my enemy), I’ve been fretting about going away – I want to, but a jump into the unknown is scary – hence I reach for the bread and humus and so on it goes. I have been telling myself that I’ll starve in Vietnam initially because I think it may be hard to get vegetarian food until I’ve got my bearings. Also I really don’t like rice. On the other hand everyone says the food in Vietnam is awesome, and I don’t generally go hungry. The only time in my life I didn’t eat for a whole week was when I had a pulmonary embolism. It was that which made those around me recognise that I was really, really ill!
I digress, NHS health checks are being made more widely available, but I think many surgeries are offering the service to cohorts of patients by age, starting with the older groups. I had no problem at all with requesting one and I’m glad I did. It’s preventative medicine at its best, focuses the mind on what I need to do, and gives me a base line to refer back to – whether I like it or not. Plus it did raise my awareness on some pointers that caught me by surprise, my cholesterol is ‘fine’ but creeping up with age apparently, as a vegetarian it never occurred to me that I’d need to be a bit more attentive to diet in relation to this. Curses. Out with the cheese, in with the pulses. I love beans and lentils fortunately! Even if I don’t lose weight, I remind myself that in the post apocalyptic world, it’s those of us with a bit of fat reserves to fall back on who will hang on in there. Not so much survival of the fittest, more survival of the fattest. Not that I’d particularly like to survive a nuclear holocaust, but that isn’t the point I’m making right now!
Meantime, to raise morale, here are some lovey cuddly things that just wouldn’t be the same if they ditched their body fat. I notice they seem to be aquatic / marine mammals on the whole, I’m Pisces, does that make me predisposed to my silken layer I wonder? Alternatively, maybe I should learn to accept who I am, with all my limitations and imperfections, and as the saying goes ‘If I can’t be a good example, then I’ll just have to be a horrible warning,” (reworked from Catherine Aird)
So back to the pictures, altogether now… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah – enjoy!
Quietly Terrified 