As you cruise into your thirties, you start to notice that possibly you are mortal like everyone else. Nothing specific happening between you and your body, but now and then there are little signs that you are not a teenager any longer. Some things unlike childhood days where you played all day long. You can not multi-sport unless you do it all the time. If you eat as if you are seventeen, you pay a price later in the day or night, or the next day.
One other thing you may have noticed is you start to pay a little more attention to your overall health. You may decide it is time to see a doctor for a first in a long time checkup. Perhaps you really aren’t feeling as good as you used to and you want to find out why. Want to or not, sooner or later you find yourself making that first phone call to the doctor.
Initially when you visit your Doctor, he or she will may some pretty firm ideas on how you are tending to your body. You will be quizzed on what and how you eat, exercise, sleep and a few more intimate questions. It is a good idea to do some thinking about your life style before you are asked these questions. Your doctor can only make decisions on the information you supply. Lying to your doctor, or letting your doctor guess is not the best course of action. Your doctor has heard it all and there probably nothing you can say that will be a surprise or shock.
In my experience we tend to lie to our doctors. We modify our life story as we tell the doctor what we are doing or not doing. If we drink every day, we tell the Doctor we have a few drinks a week. If we live on coffee and doughnuts we modify that to two small cups of coffee and an occasional doughnut. Our fifty step daily walk from our car to the job, or store becomes a twenty minute stroll, or perhaps a daily mile jog.
While it feels good to tell our doctor we are living healthier than we do, it is a mistake to do so. First off your doctor will order up blood tests. These tests are thorough enough to separate fact from fiction of your story. At the very least they are precise enough to raise some doubt about your real life. The downside is, when your doctor questions you again, and you again fudge how you are living, you are painting a picture of your over all health that is not accurate.
It is no secret that we tell little half truths and partial omissions every day. Mostly we do this to keep the peace or save someone’s feelings. We all do it to some extent and we all except that everyone around does it too. There are too places where you need to be brutally honest in what you admit to. The first place is between your ears. If you can not be true to yourself and acknowledge what you know to be true, your life is less than should could be. If you are not truthful with your doctor, your doctor can not be as effective in helping you as they could be if you tell the truth.
As your life progresses from this point on, you will discover there are things you never knew about until now. Suddenly pizza gives you heartburn, and too much sitting makes one knee stiff. You may discover are more serious problem, as in a ‘health condition’.
Welcome to the real world. Like it or not, all of us as we age, discover body problems we never knew we had. We slowly start to fall apart. We share this with everyone who ever drew a breath. Most health problems you will have are not new problems. In fact they have probably been present since the day you were born. Until now they stayed in the background unnoticed. It is a tough thing to accept at first that like everyone else, you are slowly getting older, and eventually like everyone before you, you will get old
Acceptance is taking a positive approach to a life situation you can not change, denial is putting off until tomorrow what is easier to start accepting today. Be truthful to your doctor and yourself when it comes to you. It is natural that sooner or later, something about your body will not work as well as it used to. Do yourself a favor at the Doctor’s office; tell the truth about you.
