Helping ourselves

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By Dwain Duxson.

Helping ourselves - I had an email from a concerned lady who just lost a much-loved community person to a heart attack. It seems to be that many of these things could be avoided if we got on the front foot more and addressed the preventative side. She wrote this:

“Men do not like getting their health checked. They have to be half dead to go to a doctor, and even then will probably not say they are sick. Even worse they would rarely take steps towards preventative health. Heart check, blood pressure, cholesterol, full bloods, which might throw up red flags. They probably don’t even know they can ask for these checks. You have to ask for them. Even then, the response can be, as I have discovered - Why do you need those tests? The best investment of our health dollar will always be preventative health”.

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She is right; us Rural men are the worst at this type of stuff. Speaking from a personal perspective have forced myself to go and get a yearly check-up and do all the bloods, etc. But this year, I decided to take it a step further and asked the doctor if, to use my words, be put through the heart machine. I wasn’t satisfied that what I was doing was enough

So now I have a referral to get what is called a Coronary Artery Calcium Score. This means in May, I have an appointment to go through “the machine”. As the lady said, prevention trumps all, and cure might mean it’s too late. Reply to dwaind@farmtender.com.au

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