Highway Miles

 I chose to close out 2023 with a trip to the doctor. I understand that a lot of folks have regularly scheduled appointments with their primary care physician, but this is not a custom that I have personally adopted. The reason for my visit was a somewhat innocuous but nonetheless odd protrusion from my belly that I had somewhat easily diagnosed as a hernia. All by myself. But since hernias seemed to be off the schedule of what I would consider "healthy," and the periodic need for me to tuck my innards back in behind my abdominal wall seemed to be likewise contraindicated, I made the call. Or more specifically, my wife who is far more experienced with creating and scheduling visits to the doctor than I am found an opening for me later that day.

No time to weasel out. 

No time to decide that it wasn't any big deal after all. 

I went. 

"What brings you in today?" asked the very nice lady we had selected as our family doctor some years ago. I was fully aware that there was a smallish element of concern placed on the relative infrequency of my visits. Much of the information she had gathered over the years came as anecdotal from my wife on her much more regular connections with the health care system. 

I told my doctor about my hernia self-diagnosis, which she asked to see. This made sense since she's a doctor and all. 

After a couple of moments poking and probing, she sat back on her stool. "Yep. That's a hernia."

I prepared myself for what I assumed would come next: lab tests, MRIs, more tests and eventually surgery. "So what do you recommend?" I steeled myself for the next steps.

"Nothing." That's what she said. "Unless it's particularly painful or causing you undue suffering."

I thought about the now somewhat mundane task of putting myself back together, and started to understand that this was going to be yet another in a string of things that had started to wear out on my sixty-one year old chasis. Blurry vision supported by prescription lenses, bifocals at that. Blood pressure maintained by a little yellow pill once a morning. No more Coca-Cola keeps the kidney stones away. The Baker's Cyst that kept my right knee from bending as neatly as it used to. And all the other myriad of pieces and parts that had begun to show wear and tear as I begin my seventh decade on the planet. 

So my doctor and I spent a little more time catching up, talking about my mood and my diet and all the ways my life could be just a little easier if I ate better things or exercised just a little differently. I got all kinds of mad props for being in such tremendous cardiovascular shape, and then I got a few more reminders that this is a package deal and the whole bag of mostly water needed to cross the finish line together. 

I left the office feeling better. Imagine that: Feeling better after a visit to the doctor.