22) Year's End Review ~ What ❄ A ❄ Year ❄ 2021

December 9, 2021
Thursday 

If you're like me you may only check people's blogs when the image of them crosses your consciousness.  Or, maybe annually, like I do.  Around this time of the year I get to wondering what my friends, colleagues, and mentors are up to and if I haven't had ongoing contact with them I make it a point during the November-December-January holiday season.

Like many people in my age group (demographic, cohort, comrades, etc) I suspect that the urge to contact people at this time of the year began when we left home to go to college, the military, or anywhere far enough from our parents that we could begin to individuate. We "baby boomers" (now 57 to 75 years old) are living longer than any previous generation and that means we are living with medical baggage that a productive cadre of medical researchers, inventors, doctors, and pharmacists has bestowed upon us to keep us from the inevitable withering away...("...all return to the dust"). 

When I hear the stories of my friends and colleagues who are receiving the benefit of the medical advances of the last 50 years it reminds me that:

• Life expectancy is up from 68 due to "...the availability of more effective treatment... to nearly 80."
• The medical practice of transplanting organs or installing artificial organs has become common.
• The "...impact of pharmaceuticals such as antihypertensives and statins has been undeniable for stemming loss of life from the leading killers". 
• Advancements in pre and post secondary care has added prevention and specialized treatment to the breadth and depth of our medical options.
• And many more to name here...

December 23, 2021
Thursday 

So, the holiday and season's greeting cards are finally out (except for any I forgot and will remember when I get same from folks).  Paper cards went snail mail to my relatives and people who we have physical addresses for; email cards went to people I stay in touch with via email; and texts to friends on Facebook or those I only have phone numbers for.

I've had a couple more medical tests for the holidays... blood work and sonogram for my hepatologist and an echocardiogram for my Cardiologist yesterday.  At the echo my BP was 118/56, so that is pleasant to hear!
It is somewhat comforting to hear from various people that either they, or their partners are "going through it" ←[which sounds to me like a positive phrase for people's medical challenges... rather than the more deficit / negative sounding nomenclature] "Going through it" suggests to me that there is an other side... one in which we are adjusted to, healed from, or successfully living with whatever ails us and keeps us in ongoing conversation and consulting with the medical profession.  "You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.*"

Bringing positive thinking and language to your conversations with doctors and the narratives you create about your physical condition is being shown by research to have a beneficial effect "...enables you to cope better with stressful situations, which reduces the harmful health effects of stress on your body."

So, in this season of reconnecting with friends, sharing good tidings, and wishing the best for everyone we care about, we are also hoping to put a healing message out there for the benefit of all who can hear it.  And, as with the current messages about how to respond to the pandemic, this "...message is a call to those whose hour is to awaken, and it is a lullaby to those who are still meant to sleep."** 

*  John Lennon, Imagine.

** Hazrat Inayat Khan