brush with mortality

Two weeks ago I had to go and see the doctor with severe chest pains. I'd had them for a week and initally brushed them off, but gradually they got worse, and at times the pain was debilitating.

I'm carrying a some excess poundage and so naturally 2 & 2 were put together and a heart related problem seemed the obvious cause. It's at times like these that all of a sudden you come face to face with the prospect of death. No longer an abstract or far off concept it was at my doorstep.

As a pre-emptive step I started taking aspirin, garlic tablets and pro-biotic yoghurt drinks in the foolish hope that I could turn back time. It's funny what you do when you realise how careless you have been.

I am at an age where you can no longer think that these things can't happen to you. 2 of my contemporaries have had breast cancer - so perhaps I should have been more on guard.

Anyway, I went to see the Doctor and after examining me he diagnosed me with costochondritis (Tietze's Syndrome). Not a heart related condition after all, but the inflamation of chest cartilage. It's rare and unexplained condition that hits men between 20 and 40. I've taken anti-inflammatories and the condition has eased but not entirely disappeared.

So what has this experience taught me? Well, I'm eating more healthily and aim to do more sport during the cricket close season. But fundamentally it just made me more aware of the passage of time. I'm now turning my mind to other issues - what do I want to do with my life?, is it time to start a familly?. Both issues have implications that are far from easy to deal with, but more on them another time.