About that risk assessment

There is all this talk these days about what you can do to reduce your risk of cancer, dementia, chicken pox, or the common cold, among a million other things. You know all the advice - eat broccoli, exercise, don't drink, lose weight, exercise, eat margarine no eat butter, drink red wine no white - and all it does is confuse the crap out of us.

Then they start to give people personal risk assessment for an ailment and expect us to believe them. How much conflicting medical advice do you hear on a given day? A lot. Eat red meat and chocolate, no don't, yes, well a little, and the famous words - in moderation. How can you be expected to believe anything?

When you are told what your risk of some thing is - whether being diagnosed with cancer or being hit by lightening, don't you always harbor that little thought in the corner of  your brain that of course they are only talking about other people and not you or anyone you care about. Its always going to affect those other faceless people you don't know.

So why all the surprise when a new study shows that one in five women don't believe their breast cancer risk? I can honestly tell you I was very surprised by both my cancer diagnoses. I thought my back pain was the result of muscle strain and not the permanent debilitating state of the disks in my spine. I thought my aches and pains that turned out to be rheumatoid and fibromyalgia were just normal aging.

Sometimes I think, they were all wrong and I am really a healthy person who can live the way I used to - working full time, having a social life, and going off on adventures regularly that involve beaches, mountains, and the great outdoors.

Seriously, we hear so much conflicting medical advice and then if someone gives us a risk assessment, we are supposed to believe them? I think a risk assessment is like listening to the weather forecast - there is a good chance Saturday will be rainy and it should clear out for Sunday but watch out for a hurricane next week. How do they really know?

Want vs can

As I have been cutting back in my life, I have run into some misunderstandings. There are people who think that I am not doing as many things  in my life due to the fact that I don't want to. But the reality is that I cant do everything I used to do.

I used to go for a daily walk. Yesterday I went for a walk because it hit 60 degrees (finally) on  one of my favorite routes through the conservation land that I used to do easily. When I came home and had to lie down for a bit and was hobbling around for the rest of the day and almost bailed on cooking dinner.

I was at a meeting recently and someone said something about me not wanting to do everything I used to do for the group. They were wrong, I really can't. I think they look at me and think I look the same as I did six months ago but I am not.

Looks can be deceiving. Just because I do not look different, doesn't mean I don't feel differently. I am on more medications, in more pain, have less energy, and have much more difficulty in getting around. I am not a slacker but I just can't do everything I used to.

So before you look at me and tell me that I don't want to do something or I just need to suck it up and do everything I used to do, take a minute to think from my side and don't assume that I'm lazy.