The Life of Corrine
Nothing makes a person think about her health like getting more sick than she’s been in years. I don’t get flu shots because my mom was allergic to them, and it seemed reasonable to think it might be possible that I am, too. When she got a flu shot several years ago her arm swelled to twice its normal size and turned dark red, felt hot to the touch and caused her a great deal of pain for several days. I’ve always given that as my reason for not getting one, I don’t want to risk going through that.
I’m getting over the flu now, the first real flu I’ve had in years, and I’m thinking that next year it might be worth the risk.
While I was spending my days and nights in a recliner, with tissues, cough drops, water and a thermometer handy, with a humidifier blowing into my face just so I could breathe without choking, I started to wonder if I’d been in better physical conditon, would I feel quite this bad?
I’m obese, there’s no hiding the fact. I can’t wear slimming colors or tight pants and fool anybody. Yet, the last time I had anything checked, my blood pressure and blood sugar were fine. My cholesterol was pushing the upper limits, however, and as I sat in my recliner, coughing and moaning and wondering if fit people fought off the flu faster than fat folks, I got to thinking about how I never really took my ‘borderline’ cholesterol number seriously. I wondered if it were higher now, lower, and did it really matter?
A couple of years ago I made fitness a priority, for a while. No fad diets, I just made myself aware of what I was putting in my mouth, and I walked for exercise . The difference it made in how I felt was astounding. And I’ve never kicked myself more for not keeping up with that than when I was recently running a fever over 103 degrees. I thought about how rotten such an acute ailment could make me feel—I was worthless for a solid 3 days—and how rotten I could feel if the chronic stuff that runs in my family started to get a hold of me.
My relatives all seem to suffer from Insulin-dependent diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, gout. Some have one or two, some have them all, and more. And I finally accepted the fact that if I don’t do something about my weight, and my general health, I’m kidding myself if I think I won’t suffer the same ailments that all of my heavy aunts and uncles and cousins suffer with. One cousin I used to be particularly close to, very heavy like me, was warned by doctors for years about the path she was on. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, they would stress that over and over. Yet she never lost enough weight to make a difference, and what she lost, she gained back and then some. Finally, she just gave up.
She’s been taking 3 insulin shots a day for 3 years now. She’s 45. I’ll be 39 later this year. I don’t want to end up like her.
I’m thinking I should be grateful for that horrible flu, as it seemed to make me sit still and feel bad long enough to know that I don’t want to feel bad anymore. I don’t want to be miserable and have aches and pains that, if I work on my health now, I may be able to prevent. I’ve lost tons of weight over the years, enough to make whole people, but never successfully kept it off or made lasting changes. I haven’t yet, at least, but I’m convinced I can if I just lose my all-or-nothing attitude. The same attitude that made my cousin finally give up on her health. I’m not good with moderation, but I’m determined to learn it. I need to believe that if I mess up one meal, or one day, or even a week or a month, that does not undo every good thing I’ve done prior. The next meal, the next month, the next workout, I can keep doing better.
I think this time I’ll truly be able to embrace that idea, because as I sat there in misery from the flu feeling like death warmed over, I started to believe that my life might just depend on it.
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