"Stitch in time, saves nine"....."Look before you leap"......well! as kids we grow up learning so many meaningful phrases which are meant to be internalised and used in our daily life but we give it a shallow treatment and as life goes on we unlearn them very conveniently. One such commonly used and often mentioned lightly(undeservedly) is "Health is Wealth". And to truly understand the depth of the statement is a) to personally experience ill health or b) to see a near and dear one expereince ill health.
Its a sad situation, but don't we all take our our health for granted all the times...and carry with the notion fearlessly that "I am insurmountable.Nothing will happen to me". And this very belief crushes when one not so fine morning you get up and bruise yourself over some silly mishap or slip trying to catch the 9.05 local or worse still catch the flu. Suddenly your life comes to a grinding halt, you get grounded and become dependant for your smallest needs on your dear ones. Besides the feeling of dependancy what hurts more is to see your mom or sis or hubby or dad running around, pampering you and nursing you. Its only thanks to their TLC you get back to your feet in a jiffy in what seems like a life time. And then ofcourse one forgets about such small incidents and life moves on again at breakneck speed. These are just but typical periods which keep happening thru out our lives.
But then there are times when one is faced with life altering and life threatning situations which God forbid may not happen to any one of us.
So just as a reminder to all of us what life may hopefully not hold for us...but like a Life Insurance policy a mandatory fixture in our life's many plans. I am writing this narration albiet boring and serious and at the cost of losing eyeballs.
Health checks a must for all who are in 30's and beyond!It had been many a days that my hubby and me had been thinking about getting a health check up done. It was a priority issue and something we knew had to be done but always got relegated by another issue....becos we either wanted to see a just released really good movie that day or becos we had long time friends meeting us or some other work priorities.. So you see how extremely important we thought our health check up was in our life's scheme of things.
Never theless after the plan was pushed to its limit of endurance, we decided enough is enough.
"When we gotta go, we gotta go! And so we went. It went like this....The day finally arrived, called up the hospital and requested to book the 2 of us for a complete health check up. What I didnt expect that there were plethora of schemes to choose from depending on the budget and each individual's health requirements. Platinum, Gold, Executive, Senior Citizens but ofcourse the last was ruled out...though our body felt like we were in our 60's.
Also, checked the mullah attached to each of the checks and my eyes rolled in disbelief. Its too expensive.
Thats when another thought crossed my mind when it came to health checks..."Oh my god! its such an expensive affair...do we really want to spend so much on something when we know we are hale and hearty."
Why is it that we cringe and find it difficult to spend on our precious health when we don't think twice before readily spending or rather splurging on clothes, eating out on junk food, electronic items, DVD's and other luxuries. This exact sentiment and also many other feelings are commonly shared by all of us when it comes to our dear health.
Life nowadays has become too fast...thats when George Carlin's theory crossed my mind yet again..(excerpts)
______________________________________________
The paradox of our time in history is that,
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a lif e.
We've added years tolife not life to years.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion
More medicine, but less wellness.
______________________________________________
So coming back to our health check, we fixed the date for health checks and very soon the day arrived. Getting up very early and leaving home armed with our "proof of health" in lil bottles for a hospital visit wasnt exactly our idea of spending the week end. And not to forget we had our last meal more than 12 hours back.
When we reached the hospital at 7.30 we thought we would be the first but then we were told we were 5th in line... well, we werent the only fools around looked like. Fools or otherwise was to be proved sooner.
We both went thru the entire battery of tests from morning till afternoon ofcourse interspersed with breakfast and lunch. From one room to another, one doc to another, one floor to another and then finally we were told its done. All we needed to do was to wait for our results.
Apocalypse Now!!! This term wouldnt have been more apt than now. And what a trying wait it was. "Ignorance is bliss" state was soon to come to a bitter end.
We were handed with this huge bag which carried reams and reams of papers neatly filed together what were to be our reports. We were asked to see the physician for what was supposed to be the final stop for the day at the hospital. We were happy that soon it will be out of the way and for good!
We marched with a spring in our step into the doc's room and confidently sat across the lady doc. She greeted us with a warm smile and after the usual round of PC she came down to brass tacks.
She told us she was surprised and happy to see younger people getting health checks done...and we patted our back for that. Then moving to my dear hubby's file she briskly opened it and started perusing the results...she looked like anything but the mouse who belled the cat.
And what followed that remains a blur.....
Of course with the lifestyles we lead and eating habits we follow what the results said was not something surprising but we didnt really expect us to be tagged as "Potential victim of lifestyle diseases".
Its been 2 weeks since then and life has done a complete U turn in terms of what we eat, how much we eat and how much we exercise.
This routine health check which we thought a pain in the neck has in fact proved to be a blessing in disguise. Having got the checks done we now know where we stand, what we need to do and where we need to go from here. And thats definitely not going to be the hospital as a patient for a long time, we promise ourselves.
Fitness is a journey not a destination, it should be continued throughout your life!
Its a sad situation, but don't we all take our our health for granted all the times...and carry with the notion fearlessly that "I am insurmountable.Nothing will happen to me". And this very belief crushes when one not so fine morning you get up and bruise yourself over some silly mishap or slip trying to catch the 9.05 local or worse still catch the flu. Suddenly your life comes to a grinding halt, you get grounded and become dependant for your smallest needs on your dear ones. Besides the feeling of dependancy what hurts more is to see your mom or sis or hubby or dad running around, pampering you and nursing you. Its only thanks to their TLC you get back to your feet in a jiffy in what seems like a life time. And then ofcourse one forgets about such small incidents and life moves on again at breakneck speed. These are just but typical periods which keep happening thru out our lives.
But then there are times when one is faced with life altering and life threatning situations which God forbid may not happen to any one of us.
So just as a reminder to all of us what life may hopefully not hold for us...but like a Life Insurance policy a mandatory fixture in our life's many plans. I am writing this narration albiet boring and serious and at the cost of losing eyeballs.
Health checks a must for all who are in 30's and beyond!It had been many a days that my hubby and me had been thinking about getting a health check up done. It was a priority issue and something we knew had to be done but always got relegated by another issue....becos we either wanted to see a just released really good movie that day or becos we had long time friends meeting us or some other work priorities.. So you see how extremely important we thought our health check up was in our life's scheme of things.
Never theless after the plan was pushed to its limit of endurance, we decided enough is enough.
"When we gotta go, we gotta go! And so we went. It went like this....The day finally arrived, called up the hospital and requested to book the 2 of us for a complete health check up. What I didnt expect that there were plethora of schemes to choose from depending on the budget and each individual's health requirements. Platinum, Gold, Executive, Senior Citizens but ofcourse the last was ruled out...though our body felt like we were in our 60's.
Also, checked the mullah attached to each of the checks and my eyes rolled in disbelief. Its too expensive.
Thats when another thought crossed my mind when it came to health checks..."Oh my god! its such an expensive affair...do we really want to spend so much on something when we know we are hale and hearty."
Why is it that we cringe and find it difficult to spend on our precious health when we don't think twice before readily spending or rather splurging on clothes, eating out on junk food, electronic items, DVD's and other luxuries. This exact sentiment and also many other feelings are commonly shared by all of us when it comes to our dear health.
Life nowadays has become too fast...thats when George Carlin's theory crossed my mind yet again..(excerpts)
______________________________________________
The paradox of our time in history is that,
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a lif e.
We've added years tolife not life to years.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion
More medicine, but less wellness.
______________________________________________
So coming back to our health check, we fixed the date for health checks and very soon the day arrived. Getting up very early and leaving home armed with our "proof of health" in lil bottles for a hospital visit wasnt exactly our idea of spending the week end. And not to forget we had our last meal more than 12 hours back.
When we reached the hospital at 7.30 we thought we would be the first but then we were told we were 5th in line... well, we werent the only fools around looked like. Fools or otherwise was to be proved sooner.
We both went thru the entire battery of tests from morning till afternoon ofcourse interspersed with breakfast and lunch. From one room to another, one doc to another, one floor to another and then finally we were told its done. All we needed to do was to wait for our results.
Apocalypse Now!!! This term wouldnt have been more apt than now. And what a trying wait it was. "Ignorance is bliss" state was soon to come to a bitter end.
We were handed with this huge bag which carried reams and reams of papers neatly filed together what were to be our reports. We were asked to see the physician for what was supposed to be the final stop for the day at the hospital. We were happy that soon it will be out of the way and for good!
We marched with a spring in our step into the doc's room and confidently sat across the lady doc. She greeted us with a warm smile and after the usual round of PC she came down to brass tacks.
She told us she was surprised and happy to see younger people getting health checks done...and we patted our back for that. Then moving to my dear hubby's file she briskly opened it and started perusing the results...she looked like anything but the mouse who belled the cat.
And what followed that remains a blur.....
Of course with the lifestyles we lead and eating habits we follow what the results said was not something surprising but we didnt really expect us to be tagged as "Potential victim of lifestyle diseases".
Its been 2 weeks since then and life has done a complete U turn in terms of what we eat, how much we eat and how much we exercise.
This routine health check which we thought a pain in the neck has in fact proved to be a blessing in disguise. Having got the checks done we now know where we stand, what we need to do and where we need to go from here. And thats definitely not going to be the hospital as a patient for a long time, we promise ourselves.
Fitness is a journey not a destination, it should be continued throughout your life!
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