Race You to the Fountain of Youth by Martha Bolton & Brad Dickson

Author:Martha Bolton & Brad Dickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schester
Published: 2007-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Health

Fear and Loathing in the Waiting Room

I’d like to get something off my chest—I loathe physicians. Loathe may not be the correct term. I respect many doctors for their professionalism and education, so maybe a more appropriate word is fear. They have all the power in the relationship. If I go to a mechanic and he tells me my brake pads are shot, I know just enough about brake pads to fake a rebuttal. If a doctor tells me my gallbladder is diseased, well, what can I do except don the hospital gown and take my medicine? This is why men avoid doctors as if doctors were the plague, or a wedding. If we suspect something is wrong, we attempt to diagnose ourselves. We go to the library or get online to discover what ails us.

Case in point: A couple years ago I suddenly noticed little red spots all over my body. Being a hypochondriac of mythic proportions, I immediately diagnosed myself as suffering from Red Spotted Fever, spread, of course, by the East African tick found on porcupines in remote sections of Mozambique.

Not wanting to risk infecting others, in lieu of calling the doctor, I dug out the old mask I wore during the anticipated SARS epidemic a few years ago and drove to the bookstore. I immersed myself in a medical encyclopedia and soon discovered that the red spots were something called “cherry angiomas.” They’re an annoyance that suddenly appears when you reach middle age, like the AARP magazine.

I’m not alone. Many men have an aversion to physicians. Doctors should be a vital part of a man’s health and antiaging program. But most men are more likely to ask a cab driver for health and antiaging advice than they are their doctor. (Assuming men even have a doctor. If pressed to name my personal physician, I’d have to say the last doctor I went to on a regular basis was Dr. Mitchell—my pediatrician.)

When men are sick, they rationalize that they don’t need a doctor. We usually blame our malady on “something I ate.” In the ambulance on the way to the hospital with crushing chest pains, a guy will say, “I guess I learned my lesson. That’s the last time I eat two-day-old spaghetti!”

Day three in the cardiac care unit, a guy will confess: “That lasagna obviously did not agree with me, doc. Give me a shot and I’ll be on my way. I gotta be more careful what I shove down my throat.”

Among the most common last words for a man are, “I’ll feel better as soon as this tuna works its way through my system.”

We regularly blame illness on the wrong choice of food or beverage. At a wake for a mutual friend, all the men will exchange knowing glances. “It was the bratwurst.”

This is why men feel they never have to go to the doctor. The answer to most illnesses is to let the offending food work its way through our intestines. Actually, that’s not quite correct.

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