Or so it hit me as I sat one recent morning in the waiting room outside a hospital laboratory. Twice a year, for the past three or four years, I had been coming to this place to have blood drawn for a cholesterol test to monitor the effects of medication designed to keep my “numbers” at the proper level.


All very well and sensible. Though I’m not overweight and I try to stick to something approaching a healthy diet, I apparently have a family “history” and my doctor determined a “better-safe-than-sorry approach,” as in, “let’s get on top of this before you’re older, before it’s too late.”


OK, fine. Then why, I thought to myself as I surveyed the waiting area for the second time this year, am I the youngest person in the room?


Everyone around me was at least 30 to 40 years older. I’m 43, soon to be 44. You do the math. While it’s great that modern medicine is keeping people alive longer and enabling people to survive debilitating medical conditions, I couldn’t help thinking what am I doing here? I’m not recovering from a heart attack or a hernia or a hip injury.


I’m not taking 10, 12 or 14 pills to keep whatever ails me at bay; I take two, one for the aforementioned cholesterol and the other for high blood pressure and that’s quite enough, thank you.


I’m not sick. And I’m not old.


Now wait a minute, young man, some of you might say. You’ll be old someday. Yes, absolutely. Most likely sooner than I think. Old happens. And as the joke goes, consider the alternative.


No doubt there are more pills in my future. And more tests. And more paperwork. And lifestyle adjustments. But, I can’t help thinking, not just yet.


I’ve already cut back on my martini consumption — oh, how I love the song of the cocktail shaker — and eat more skinless chicken and “yolk-free” pasta than I ever care to. When I do indulge, it’s when I travel (bring on the room-service eggs Benedict!) or when I go out to dinner (the crabmeat-stuffed filet mignon, s’il vous plait), and that’s not every day.


I try to do the right thing. Really. Then I go to the doctor’s only to find my “numbers” aren’t where they should be and that I’ve gained five pounds. Such is aging.


I can deal with this, until I find out about that person who eats steak and eggs every day, has zero “numbers” and is still kicking at the century mark. Or Sophia Loren, who just turned 72, still looks great, and once famously remarked “everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” That’s my kind of “old.”


And I’ll bet Sophia never had a cholesterol test in her life.




Stephen Kopfinger is a Sunday News staff writer. Contact him at skopfinger@lnpnews.com or at 291-8799. blog comments powered by Disqus