20131226.0558

I will be going to the doctor today for the first time in some years.  It is not good of me to have been neglectful of my physical health, and I very much have been; I recall going to the doctor in The City before I was awarded my doctorate, but not after--and not soon before the degree, either.  Yet I had insurance nearly the entire time I was in The City, and enough offices were open on weekends that I could have made my way to one of them.  That I have until today avoided seeking physician's care is only one of the many ways in which I have been a fool, so I am glad to be limiting the duration of my foolishness--or at least to reduce it in some small measure for a time.

There is nothing wrong with me that wasn't already, so those of you who read this and give a damn about its writer need not worry.  I am simply going in for a checkup--and probably reimmunization, so as to protect the upcoming baby.  I am not among the people who believe that the repeated studies which disprove the causal link between vaccination and autism are concocted by Big Pharma to silence the "truth" that was published in The Lancet and later recanted amid much shame.  I believe it easier and more likely that one person will lie than many in alignment, and if things are so bad that the conspiracy supposed to exist does and has the influence ascribed to it, we are all under its control, anyway.

That I have been neglectful of my physical health, not seeking medical attention as often as I have needed it (and there have been a few times I well ought to have done so) and not doing basic care and maintenance on my body(the regular checkup), is likely a combination of things.  The perception of being too busy is one of them; while I have time off in the work I do now, in The City, I did have a rather...involved workload.  Machismo (or some convenient variant on it) is likely another issue; as long as I can work, I ought to work, and I have boasted about continuing to do my part of The Work while feverishly watching pink elephant people trying to take my shoes.  Against that, the occasional pain in my ass (extending down my leg) or soreness in my left elbow (from an old martial arts injury) is nothing, so why make a fuss about it?  Or so the line of thought goes.

More likely has been fear, the common fear that the doctor will make me do things I do not want to do (those who have terminal degrees cannot usually force others to obey, as I know too well), or the common fear that the doctor will find something grievously wrong (I know that I have some bad habits and that I may suffer greatly because of them).  Both are stupid, the former for the reason I note in parentheses, the latter because it is the case that not knowing about problems does not mean not having problems.  Better, or less bad, to find them while they may still be fixed (or mitigated) than to find them through the experience of suffering their full effects.  And, for those upon whom others depend or will depend, better to know what weaknesses are in place so that some remedy for them can be found, that the dependent do not suffer.