Sunday, August 27, 2006

Talking about my mortality (or am I a hypochondriac?)

I have been thinking of my health and mortality lately. Since I caught bronchopneumonia that turned into primary complex tuberculosis back before high school, I have never been that healthy. Sure, I got well after a year of medication but I did not get back to the one hundred percent - it is very rare I feel one hundred percent physically well. I often have headaches, easily catches colds, so weak when I have a flu… the list goes on. I grew accustomed to feeling like this that it now seems normal to feel not normal.
Before college, I decided not to eat too much junk food. It was the advice of the nurse when she took my high blood pressure (I was found to have high-blood pressure) during the medical exam.  Got to watch my health.
It feels I grew weaker every year since I caught primary complex (and I grew weaker and more prone to sickness when I had mumps late in high school). I recently did some pull-ups, I barely made three when I used to do at least seven a few years back. Now, I am a little afraid to try the push-ups. I used to do at least fifty, how much can I do now? If you ask me if I am physically fit, the answer is yes. I am physically fit (even my cardiovascular endurance is fine for someone who had primary complex), but I am not that very healthy.
I don't understand what's happening to my health… it's not really failing but it's not very good, either. Maybe you will suggest it is only psychological (suggesting that I am a hypochondriac?). Maybe… but I really can feel that I grew weaker, that I am not very healthy and am very prone to illness. I do not know the reason (maybe too much radiation from the PC). Am I slowly dying? No, not that … but, then again, according to one joke, "you begin to die after you were born", so in that sense, I am definitely "dying".
But I say that life is precious. Life maybe is hard but it is beautiful and good. As I think of my health and mortality - I realize, healthy or not, we are all "prone to die." A person with no cancer is actually as prone to death as with one with cancer, since, chances are, the healthy person with no cancer might get hit by a bus (morbid illustration but at least I was able to make my point). Mortality is not really determined by your health or statistics.  When it's your time to die, you die. That is why we all have to appreciate life while we have it. But I do believe that true Life comes from God. And even death is no match for the Life.

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