THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023 - DOCTORS AND MEDICAL PERSONNEL

 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023 PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF AGING

Psalm 139:14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
 

We all have our spiritual views. Psalm 139 suggests, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

The body is a complex thing (at least in my viewpoint). Get a particular function out of alignment with other bodily systems, and there is trouble.  

Last spring, I was having constipation problems. I wasn’t eliminating bodily wastes.  

Please excuse my next section - I did take human biology - but that was over fifty years ago. 

I eat (for illustration sake, we’ll say I ate some peanut butter, butter, and jelly on a slice of bread.

I swallow

What I eat ends up in my stomach

As I understand, the stomach has some hardworking enzymes and digestive fluids that “attack” that food item. Various nutrients are extracted from my peanut butter, butter, and jelly sandwich and somehow exchanged into the circulatory system (blood vessels that go through my body). I don’t know how the proteins in my sandwich are used to build muscle. I also don’t see how the excess ends up around my waist as fat (but it does).

What is left of the PBJ sandwich is passed on to the rest of the digestive system - liver, pancreas, large intestine, small intestine, colon, and eventually gets eliminated. Whatever I had eaten goes through my body.  

Meanwhile, my lungs take in air and pass tiny amounts of oxygen (and nitrogen and whatever other things are in the air) throughout my body through the miles of blood vessels.

By adulthood, we each have 60,000 miles of blood vessels inside our bodies – more than twice the distance worldwide. Those vessels keep blood flowing, supplying your tissues with oxygen and nutrients and keeping your organs, including the heart, healthy.  

My mind is spinning without an answer - how do you get 60,000 MILES of blood vessels into my six-foot frame? And those 60,000 miles of blood vessels carry oxygen and nutrients around my body. And the blood that gets to my toes has to get back to my heart and get pumped out again.  

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

And I stub my toe - my nerves immediately flash a message to my brain: “OUCH.”  Maybe I cut my toe - and I’m bleeding. So, my circulatory system, nervous system, lungs, and more are all involved with my sore toe.

You have a headache, you have a stomachache, you are overweight. It all works together.

But when you have a problem, you may need professional help. When my blood pressure of 213 over 165 and a pulse of 161 were pumped through my aorta, I was having a problem, and I needed medical help.

So, my fourth aspect of health this week is medical care. Something isn’t right - and the medical personnel are there to make it right.  

For seniors - the likelihood of problems increases with our age. Diabetes, joints, muscles, blood vessels, and digestive systems get messed up.

The message I am trying to pass on (and I don’t think it is making sense) is that you will need regular interaction with health professionals. And that might entail specialists and general practitioners.

They might prescribe medications. Those medications are the result of a lot of research. How does the body know that some medications will lessen the pain of my headache - or that another medication will keep my blood pressure in check?  

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Seniors - as part of your retirement, you need to work on your physical body - and you will need doctors and professional medical people to help you. 

Men are less involved with doctors during their 20s and 30s. Women, especially pregnant women, need regular checkups and specialists to help deliver healthy babies. Seeing doctors is a different relationship as men retire than women reaching retirement and visiting doctors. 

I might think I know how to treat myself medically. Especially with the Internet and websites like WebMD, I might think I can handle my constipation. (And I did, and I changed my whole fiber viewpoint).

Yes, seniors need good nutrition (Tuesday’s blog), regular exercise (Wednesday’s blog), and to get professional reviews from doctors and medical staff.  

And, at least in the United States, Medicare can pick up some medical visits expenses.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Yes, LOVE WINS

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR LIKE YOURSELF

LOVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TO GET REGULAR CHECKUPS AND MEDICAL HELP

LOVE TRANSFORMS YOU - AND MEDICAL HELP CAN ALSO HELP TRANSFORM YOU

KAREN ANNE WHITE, ©, NOVEMBER 16, 2023