Just Checking

The first time the nurse checked my blood pressure it was disturbingly high, but I pointed out that this was because I'd run to my appointment from the supermarket car park where I'd had to park, the hospital's own being choc-a-block with cars and a dozen more waiting to come in as I drove out in despair to seek a place somewhere else. It was reassuringly normal a few minutes later. I was there for another series of pre-op checks as I have another little issue to be sorted out, along the same lines as I had last year. 

Other health issues have resolved themselves, mercifully. The disturbances to my eyesight have disappeared and (with spectacular assistance) my sight seems again to be as sharp as it ever was in the past. Perhaps, as my optician diagnosed, part of the problem was to do with blepharitis and better ocular hygiene has sorted it out.

These are only minor matters, and many parishioners as well as my mum seem to spend a good proportion of their time at the doctor's if not in hospital. But turning 50 has had a very unanticipated effect. I have the strange sensation that I ought really to be dead, and any time I have from now on, certainly time spent in relative good health, is something of a bonus. It brings with it a kind of lightness and, if not irresponsibility (surely not!), still a sense of proportion, of my relative unimportance in the great flow of existence. A liberation, then. We will see how long it lasts.