17 November 2016

MORTALITY

This is something that we don't think about when we were young and which I tried not to think about for years. I avoided this topic until recently when I was confronted with it, not head on but close.

In recent years, I have been getting pains here and there out of nowhere e.g. knees, sole, fingers, and these are signs of the body ageing and the parts are slowly falling apart. Special precautions have to be taken to ensure that the body adapts to the physiological changes so that overall, I can still function normally. Walking up stairs is challenging these days, so I have to be careful not to fall over.

However, these are physical changes to the body that we can gradually get used to. But nothing prepared me for other health scares. With us in our forties now, I get worried about getting heart attacks, strokes, cancers etc that usually happen suddenly, with or without warning signs. These are medical ailments that are now closer than we would like it to be. What if I get a sudden heart attack? What if I get a rare cancer that strikes one in a million? What are the odds of it happening? It is rare but the possibility of it happening looms nearer with every day, month and year. Should I become paranoid, become increasingly worried about what may possibly happen or just get on with life without nary a care?

I was very scared and worried when some skin tissues were sent for a biopsy on 10 Nov 16 and lost sleep fretting over it until the results came back yesterday on 16 Nov 16. Whilst the results were cleared and stated that the verruca tissues were not malignant, I think it is important not to be complacent about it because the doctor did warn that if the skin wasn't removed now, it could become cancerous in 10 years time.

It is time to look into our medical insurance policies and get ourselves covered and prepared as much as we can afford it.