Tuesday, December 05, 2006

a step toward better health or a nervous breakdown?

i don’t think i’ve had an actual physical at a doctor’s office for years. seriously. i am very on schedule with my other appointments, but never being on a team meant never having the full-on physical.

 

well today i’m having a physical. the larson girls are learning that there really is no lifeguard at the gene pool, which means, among other things, it’s time to pay attention to our cholesterol, as my sister’s all have high cholesterol. and i’m sure i do as well. truth be told, i’m horrified to go to the doctor today. i have a mole that needs looking at. i have questionable gland issues (is it a gland on my neck? a lump? an implant from aliens?).

 

and what if the mole is just a mole? i’ll feel better knowing this. however if the mole is not just a mole,  i will, in my “ignorance is bliss” way, wish to many gods to have a  rewind button on my day.

is it better to know the miserable, horrible parts of life? or is it better to float along, hoping every single day that the puffy little cloud on which i float never falls?

milan kundera touches on this idea in the first few chapters of “unbearable lightness of being.” not regarding moles, of course, but he offers up the idea of meaning (without judging one or the other as better) --- is it better to be untouched by pain and misery while being essentially a shell of a person, or to experience being to the fullest, even if it means feeling that misery, that horror, that sadness.

so today i shall step into the realm of being. it’s might just be a mole on my leg. it might not. i guess knowing and feeling that weight is better than the alternative of...well, my leg mysteriously rotting off.

 

 

2 comments:

ungeziefer said...

I, for one, prefer to believe that I will never die. Or, in the unlikely event that I DO happen to die, I will be carried on a winged horse riding on a sun beam to meet Jesus in the Magical Gumdrop Land, where we will hunt deer souls and fish for fish souls all day long, and then skin and eat the souls and then take a nap (when our souls get tuckered out).

So, whatever happens, at least you have that to look forward to.

kari said...

oh husband, you always know exactly what to say!

as woody allen said, the most beautiful words in the english language are not "i love you," but "it's benign."

the 12-hour fast begins now, and in 12 hours they'll check out my cholesterol and my blood sugar. other than that, all is looking alright.