As a teen, I’d never have thought that in middle-age I’d be taking prescription meds each day to manage my health. (For all I knew back in my teens, middle-age was like an impossible dream. It’s easy to fear that where you are is all there is and all you’ll ever have.)
Growing up, I never saw my Dad take even an aspirin. With him, I’m convinced he would never even admit to being sick. I don’t remember him ever taking a sick day. How does that saying go? Pride goeth before a fall.
My Mum should probably have been taking Lithium or something to manage her manic-depression, but she hadn’t gone to see a Doctor since before we’d come to Vancouver in 1975. In the half-dozen years since then, the only substance either of my parents ever medicated themselves with was alcohol – way too much alcohol.
My Dad only paid attention to his Doctor when he was given the ultimatum “If you don’t stop drinking, you’re going to die!”. That dramatic advice impressed my old man. It probably made him feel like the centre of a big drama (specifically, his survival). More importantly, it gave him yet another great story to tell. I can only guess, but what a risky way that was to feel recognized.
By 1984, my Dad had a heart attack and multiple strokes, and would relapse into alcoholism and break his hip falling in a hospital shower. He had survived all his harsh physical ordeals with his mind and personality largely intact and had succeeded with the hard work of stroke rehabilitation, but was physically broken and partially paralyzed for the rest of his life.
We like to describe major events like these as “wake up calls”, but honestly, I don’t know if he ever “woke up” from his alcoholism in terms of taking responsibility for it. In his last five years of life, I think he stayed sober and relatively healthy because alcohol and cigarettes were forbidden in his private hospital. Left unsupervised, I think it’s quite likely he’d have relapsed and probably died. He did finally die in 1989 at the age of 68.
Back in 1977, my Mother was too far gone into her depression and alcoholism to even leave her bed. She’d completely withdrawn from all of us and the outside world, preferring to stay drunk or to appear to be sleeping all the time. She was unreachable, and we probably stopped trying over the course of the year. I never tried to rouse her, or go in and talk with her. The master bedroom was somewhere you just didn’t go.
One day, her liver quit and she was unresponsive. If she’d stayed home like that for another 24 hours, the Doctor told us she’d have surely died in her bed.
Medical intervention for my Mother came with a last-minute ambulance ride to Burnaby General Hospital. She detoxed after a full blood transfusion, and was not the same person afterwards. She’d survived, but alcohol poisoning had given her permanent brain damage. She’d tried to escape her life through alcohol, had almost died, and then had sort of been “remade” with a slightly different mind and personality. She’d had a painful almost-death and partial rebirth into a new life as a long-term resident in Riverview Psychiatric Hospital.
So I guess I never had good role models for taking care of myself or staying healthy. At the age of 46, my mum almost died from her alcoholism. At the age of 62, my Dad almost died from a heart attack and multiple strokes.
Now, at the age of 58, I’m kind of in-between those two ages, but am successfully managing my diabetes and high blood pressure. I’m taking Metformin and Jardiance for my Type 2 Diabetes and Ramipiril to manage my blood pressure. I do blood tests and talk with my Doctor every few months, I eat way more healthy than my folks ever did, and I walk 5000 to 10000 steps at least 5 days a week.
I guess the point of recounting all this is to show you (and myself) that I’m taking better care of myself in both physical and mental terms. In fact, I’ve learned how each of those aspects can affect the other.
By 2014, my diabetes had been largely unmanaged for about four years. I was pretty large and overweight at that time – maybe weighing 205 or more. Back then, I’d also experience some very dark feelings at least one morning each week (usually Mondays), and sometimes tears would just come to me unexpectedly. It felt like my emotions were actually working against me. In the last ten years since then, my diabetes has stayed in control through my meds and my attempts to improve my diet and daily exercise.
Today, I weight 177 pounds and am on-track to lose a few more and to get my blood pressure solidly inside the normal range. I try to get at least 5-6 hours of sleep each night and often walk more than 8000 steps each day. I feel no anxiety, and those black mornings have become very rare occurrences. I feel more calm, more confident, and more happy.
So better physical health can make it easier to improve mental health, and vice versa. My parents never experienced that while I knew them, but I can still learn from their examples.
