My heart beats for broccoli
For the past few weeks, I’ve been working for a health organisation in the north of England. It’s temporary work until I find something more permanent either in the nearby area or back home in Ireland. The company provides health services in prisons, both physical and mental, and has a staff of a few hundred people — nurses, doctors, business and administrative staff. It provides health services to local areas and also offers free health check-ups for its staff. I had pondered getting it done but was afraid of what I might find out, and my new colleagues had assure me that it wasn’t as horrific as I believed it would be. Last week I bit the bullet and booked myself in.
The hour-long meeting with the friendly nurse practitioner was in a little room on the second floor of the large three-floored building. The tests included having my cholesterol checked (after the dreaded finger prick, which still stung days later), my lung capacity and strength, blood sugar levels and blood pressure. Weight and height were taken as well to measure Body Mass Index. The results were instant and pleasantly surprising.
I’ve always been slightly overweight, so I expected the scales to be unkind and my BMI to be high, but I was pleased with the other results and so was the nurse who carried out the tests. My old ticker is doing quite well, apart from the White Coat Hypertension I suffer from. For some reason, when I’m within two metres of a blood pressure monitor, I start getting clammy. I can feel the blood surging through my body as the stress builds.
I’ve always been afraid of the doctor and of getting my BP taken. I know that I get high blood pressure when I’m in that situation, and so I get stressed thinking about it and then it goes high again.
In decent nick
So I make sure to tell the aforementioned practitioner that the chances are high that my BP will be in the clouds, but that hopefully, it’s just situational and not something to worry about. Gulp. Other than that my little heart is in decent nick.
My cholesterol was something of a shocker, it was quite low and therefore brilliant; I could sense that the nurse was impressed. However, I couldn’t understand what it was that was causing this low level. I eat too much cheese. I love snacking, a curse (or gift?) that has afflicted most members of my family. I love takeaways. I assured the nurse that I ate like the best of them, but I did admit to being a bit of a broccoli freak — I make sure to have broccoli at least five times a week and there will always be a bushel in my shopping basket at any given time in the supermarket. Could this be the reason my cholesterol is amazing? It might also be the exercise that I (try) to do every week. But whatever it is that I’m doing right, I’m going to keep doing it.
Getting a clean bill of health, or at least a slight coffee-stained and greasy bill of health, can be a great relief. Yes, I could do with losing a few pounds and I’m on track to forge ahead with my plans to eat less and exercise more. I’m determined not to let my newfound health turn my hand towards eating more and reaching for the chocolate. I must resist the descent into gluttony and Romanesque decadence. I will continue down the route of healthy eating and keep my faith in the broccoli I’ve come to see in a new light — a saviour and enabler, helping me to live a life of moderation and meaning.
I guess it’s good to know what the state of our health is, especially as we get older. Things are going to go wrong at some stage, but as long as we can prepare and try to minimise the damage for a long as possible, that’s pretty much all we can do to keep enjoying life. Oh, and eat more broccoli.
■ Christina Curran is freelance journalist based in Northern Ireland.