Health matters

"There are health issues which need attending too, nothing serious, it seems like a good time to put the old car on blocks and see where the rust is forming."

So wrote Chris Difford, one half of the Difford/Tilbrook songwriting partnership, in a recent blog post.

Difford is 67. I'm coming up to 63 and in need of a bit of an MOT myself.

Over the next few weeks, at the suggestion of my doctor following a recent blood test, I shall be having scans on my prostate, liver and kidneys.

I’m also due a scan on a lump that was considered benign a few years ago although it’s now twice the size it was.

I believe it’s similar to something Piers Morgan had that afflicts one in a hundred adults. His description of the surgery to remove it was quite gory!

I mention this because, all things considered, I actually feel quite lucky. I may have high blood pressure (putting me at risk of a stroke) and be morbidly obese (a technical term!) but so far I seem to have avoided the heart problems that first befell my father in his fifties when he was diagnosed with angina.

Unlike me he was never overweight. For much of his life he was also fitter and far more active than me.

By the age of 63 however he had undergone two heart by-pass operations. Four years later he had a full heart transplant and although he lived to 84 the last few years were difficult.

Compared to my father then I’ve had it pretty easy so far. Mostly it’s aches and pains including the odd bout of gout and some cosmetic stuff that matters less the older and less vain you get.

The curious thing is that, given my paternal family history (my grandfather died of angina, aged 72) and my diet (which has never been ‘healthy’), my cholesterol level - which can lead to heart problems if it’s too high - is relatively normal.

Perhaps, though, the day of reckoning is closer than I thought.

As well as arranging the aforesaid scans and prescribing statins for the rest of my life, my GP has just doubled the strength of medication designed to reduce my blood pressure to a less risky level.

More worrying, these were his exact words as I left the surgery this week: “I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”

Ouch!