Recently, I received an
email message from my health insurance company. The subject line read, “Guys,
we need to talk.” The email cited a study by the Cleveland Clinic, which
discovered the following: 1. Men hardly ever talk about their health; 2. Men
often don’t get medical help when they need it; 3. Men don’t know a lot about
preventive care; and 4. Men would rather get a prostate exam from Captain Hook
than actually TALK about getting a prostate exam.
OK, I made up that last
one, but it fits in with the main thrust of the study, the fact that most men
truly believe that talking about personal health issues is the second worst
thing to emerge from 20th century society. The first worst thing, of course, is
the notion that this particular question always must be answered: “Yes, but how
do you FEEL about it?”
Let’s face it, guys just
are not wired to be able to talk easily about stuff like that. I know I’m not.
Although, to be honest, I have written about personal health issues in the
past, such as: irregular heartbeat, loss of bone density, getting a
colonoscopy, enlarged prostate, obscenely expensive ambulance ride, skin cancer,
knee surgery, male-pattern baldness, and middle-aged onset ear hair. Yes, it’s
true that I wrote about those personal topics, but I never TALKED about them.
And the only reason I wrote about them is because a weekly column requires 52
topics per year. Since I can only come up with about ten legitimate topics in a
12-month period, the rest end up being my musing on the various things that are
going on in my life. Just a heads up: if the Red Sox and Yankees stay
neck-and-neck in the standings into September, expect at least six more columns
on baseball. Yeah, even I’m dreading that.
Anyway, if I didn’t have
this weekly column, then just like most men in the country, I too would have
remained silent all these years about personal health issues. I guess,
according to the experts, that’s not good. The Cleveland Clinic website lists
the details of the study. Instead of bombarding you with a bunch of statistics
(which are appropriate only with baseball-related columns), I’ll just summarize
by saying the average American male doesn’t get regular check-ups often enough,
doesn’t say anything to anyone when he experiences negative health symptoms,
and thinks way too much about RBIs and way too little about PSAs. (If you’re
not sure what those terms are, RBI stands for runs batted in, and PSA stands
for something-something-something that has to do with detecting prostate
cancer.)
The Cleveland Clinic also
has a flashy marketing campaign called “MENtion it.” Get it? “Men” should “mention
it.” (Some marketing firm got paid how much to come up with that?!) The “it”
that men should mention is any type of pain, discomfort, or other health
symptoms that could turn out to be a real problem.
That’s all well and good,
and to be serious for one moment, it’s sad that there are thousands of guys who
die every year from prostate cancer, heart problems, or an overdose of baseball
statistics (see, I could only stay serious for one moment, which equals one-quarter
of one run-on sentence), who could’ve survived if they saw a doctor at the
first sign of something amiss.
So, fellas, let’s try to
break out of our Neanderthal mindset. It’s OK to mention if something seems
wrong health wise, and it’s certainly a very good idea to get a complete physical
exam at least once a year. Who knows, after telling you your PSA level, the
doctor might want to talk about the Red Sox and Yankees.
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