25 November 2021
I was at the Eye Pavilion today for a diabetic retinopathy scan. That’s the one where they take pictures of the back of your retina to check there is no diabetes-induced damage. If the initial pictures don’t work they will put drops in your eyes that can sting and make your vision wonky for a couple of hours. Happily, I didn’t need any drops. My appointment was at 12.00, they saw me slightly late, and I was out by 12.13.
I enjoyed a walk around town, but it was baltic and I eventually got tired. I managed another short walk later this afternoon, though, and was up to 12,000+ steps by 16.30, including up the hill we live on. Knackered now, and an early night beckons.
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I want to come back to something I wrote last night about ‘my genuine unhappiness at what I’ve done to myself and what is happening around me.’ During some discussion on WhatsApp this morning, I clarified that statement as follows:
It all reminds me of when I stopped smoking in March 1984. No one was forcing me to stick a paper tube full of foliage into my mouth and set fire to it, but I was still angry with myself for getting to the position I was in (I stopped successfully and immediately once I had made a firm decision to stop). Similarly in this case: no one forced me to ignore warning signs, but I kept right on feeling t-shirts and waist lines getting tighter. The issues of social pressure and saturated environments are real, but there’s only so far I can go in deferring responsibility.
The research information on sugar and diet (like tobacco and systemic health) has been available for some years had I chosen to (or been motivated to) go look for it, but I didn’t look at it; I just carried on with a vague feeling that I should ‘do something.’ Well, I’m doing it now.
The processed food industry has in the past used the same advertising companies and strategies as big tobacco btw, as have oil and gas companies.
My decision to stop smoking in early 1984 was triggered directly by the death of my dad, age 58, in late 1983. My decision now is caused by my desire not to follow his route to the pearly gates
I thought about this some more wandering around town. Dad was a smoker all of his life. I have no idea what else contributed to his early death, but that wouldn’t have helped. His brother, Alan, also a smoker and fond of a pint, died in his 70s of complications of emphysema. He was also a keen vegetable gardener. Their dad, died aged 68 in the early 1960s of a heart attack. I think he was a smoker too, like most of his generation, and lived in a mining community where the air was always sooty – though he had, to the best of my knowledge, a decent diet based on fresh veg.
Dad’s sister Moira, a Led Zeppelin fan, lived into her eighties, before also encountering heart problems.
it would be wrong to try and draw easy lessons from their lives, not least because I have no idea of the underlying issues, even of my Dad. But it is reasonable to work on the assumption that I should be making an attempt to avoid heart disease, and this means not only exercise but also doing what I can around diet and burning off the excess fats around internal organs, the ones arising in large part from excess sugars. I sort of knew this already, but was happy to ignore it and have another biscuit or some more processed food. That’s why I was/am annoyed: I knew I was going the wrong way and I let it be.
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