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Salad and booze
Whingeing. I did a lot of whingeing last week. I wasn’t alone. LOML shared my angst and chimed in now and then. It was angst over the upcoming departure of our family physician that brought about the bad case of complaining. We may have ignored the recommendation to keep our alcohol consumption down to two drinks a week. We may have had four drinks—each—last week. Maybe four. I hope a future family physician doesn’t hold our out-of-control drinking against us. Imagine, four drinks last week— EACH. And, if misery loves company, we seem to be surrounded by friends and family who are bumping along without a primary care professional and maybe partaking in a bit more than the weekly recommended number of drinks.
But, let’s talk about imbibing, since the new recommendation is to have two or less “drinks” per week. I come from a mixed background as regards the drinking of the booze. I can’t recall an occasion when I saw my mom knocking one back. I’m sure she did have a wee drink now and then, but I never saw it happen. As a matter of fact, we rarely saw anyone in Mom’s immediate family drink anything more exciting than a strong coffee, a glass of Grandpa’s wine and, on special occasions, a glass of Prosecco. Oh, there were drinkers in her immediate family, but certainly not noticeably so. They lived and breathed the Mediterranean style diet, although my mom did love cookies and hard candies. Mom, and the folks in her family, were short-lived. Most of them only hung around for eighty-plus years. On the other hand, there was my father’s family. Drinking was a given in their family. The Durnings tended to drink whisky, Scotch and, if push came to shove, beer. There was always an occasion for a wee drop. Drinking alcohol was almost an everyday thing. My dad’s family thrived on overcooked meat, starchy vegetables, butter, bread and cookies. Instead of living to a ripe old age, most of the Durning old guard died in their mid to late eighties. That isn’t to say they didn’t have health issues. They all did. However, most of them didn’t believe in going to a doctor, or a hospital, unless an arm or leg was close to being completely severed, or similar. Generally speaking, they didn’t give a good gosh darn about cholesterol (nobody checked), blood pressure (nobody checked), irregular heart beats, coughs, congestion, dental problems or memory loss. They really didn’t. They accepted all of those issues as something that happened as you aged. Let me be clear, though, when my dad’s parents were in their 60s, they looked as if they were twenty years older. Walking with my Nan to the corner store was a slow process with a lot of huffing and puffing on her part. But, they didn’t seem too concerned about the decline of their physical well-being. Like I said, my parents, and their families, rarely saw a doctor. They worked hard. They lived hard. I don’t think many of them had a desk job during their working years. By the time they retired, their bodies were worn out. They felt they’d had earned their Lazy Boy chairs, crossword puzzles and comfy slippers.
And I’m not saying good health care and a healthy lifestyle is overrated, far from it. I am a huge advocate of a healthy lifestyle that includes healthy food choices and lots of focused physical activity supported by good medical care. Good health care and a healthy lifestyle might not have extended my parents’ and their immediate families’ lives, but they would have enjoyed those later years a lot more if they had been healthier, less clogged up, more physically fit and more mobile. As it turns out, most of them had high blood pressure, out-of-control cholesterol levels, some developed dementia and heart problems, most of them eventually had mobility issues due to arthritis and a few of them were diabetic with a soupçon of alcohol-related problems sprinkled here-and-there. Again, I’m in favour of having a primary care provider. If we have a good, accessible health care system, live a healthy lifestyle and have access to a primary care physician or Nurse Practitioner, most of us won’t have to deal with living long lives in a lounge chair complaining about our aching bones and racing hearts.
Today I am excited because I’m seventy something and I’m not lounger-bound. My Nan wouldn’t have liked the clothes I wear, the company I keep, the food I eat and the working-out I do. But she was then and I am now. I am grateful for the longevity genes. I am grateful the blue jeans I wear. The whingeing about not having a primary care physician will continue until the problem is solved.
Pass the salad and pass on the booze.
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