"Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts." (Psalm 90:12 CSB)

One week ago today I visited my doctor after some interesting and disturbing physical changes. My vision was changing rapidly, urination at night increased dramatically, and my eating habits were completely out of wack. I found myself losing a small amount of weight while gorging myself throughout the day on a combination of sweet and salty junk. After a few weeks of these curious issues I made the appointment for a "routine" preventive physical, knowing quite well the implications of how I was feeling and behaving.

Doctor listened to my symptoms and put me through the routine parts of the physical. After poking and proding, general health questions and turning my head to cough, he sent me off for blood and urine samples with instructions to return and wait for results on the urine. Turned out my sugar was quite high but he was uncertain what treatment was right for me and he wanted to wait for the blood test results. When Peggy and I went for her "routine" appointments two days later he had me come in for a talk. He brought Peggy with him for our chat, describing some life changes that needed to take place and introducing some equipment and medication that would help get my blood sugar under control.

My Dad was about my age when he learned he had type 2 diabetes. He lived another 11 years, some of them pretty rough as his body betrayed him in a variety of ways. It is sobering to think that his time was short and quality of life was often poor, especially toward the end. From his diagnoses until his death was only about 4000 days.

I want more. The duration and quality of life are of great interest to me. A number like 10,000 is more an expression of my hope to live significantly longer than another decade, with considerably better health. I can imagine living into my eighties or even more with the right kind of care and effort. So I'm thinking about quality issues like diet, exercise, spiritual, personal growth, life's work and other considerations as I look toward the next 10,000 days.

   [ POSTED BY Richard @ 11:23 AM ] [ ]