farmdoc's blog post number 59

Better late than never. Please forgive the cliché. Anyway Australian Men’s Health Week finished last Sunday. Therefore I’m only three days late. Men’s health is an important matter whose profile needs raising. As the website says, though men have specific and often serious health issues, they tend to tough it out and go it alone – and they shouldn’t. Nowadays I don’t treat patients and I don’t work in public health, so the only men’s health I think much about is mine. Sillily I don’t have a GP. It’s said that a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient. Guilty as charged, sir. I see a dermatologist and an ophthalmologist irregularly, and my only other gesture to health proactivity is some screening blood tests once each year. I had this year’s on 2 June. A few days later, the Melbourne Pathology envelope arrived. As I eased it open my heart was thumping – an annual occurrence – and then I sighed with relief. You beauty. No red ink. All okay. In my diary I keep a list of my health problems. Each year the list lengthens. It never shortens. On the current list every item is minor. But at some stage one won’t be minor. It’ll only take one. I hope it’s later rather than sooner. The later the better.