The diary of almost everything

I’m very good at giving other people advice, especially when it comes to their health, because if a friend tells me she has been ignoring a strange spot on her skin, getting headaches more often than usual or postponing a doctor’s appointment for several weeks, I know exactly what she should do. She should stop wondering, make the appointment and let someone who actually studied medicine take a look at it, rather than relying on Google, artificial intelligence or the remarkably reassuring opinion of someone in a Facebook group called Women Who Worry About Moles.

It is sensible advice, I genuinely believe every word of it, and the only slight complication is that none of these perfectly reasonable rules seem to apply once I am the patient.

A spot on my own arm is probably nothing, a migraine that has become a little more frequent is apparently still manageable because the medication works, and anything that has been sitting quietly at the back of my mind for several months can always be monitored for another week. I have no medical qualifications whatsoever, but give me a reason not to call the GP and I suddenly develop the confidence of a senior consultant.

The strange thing is that I don’t avoid healthcare altogether, because whenever somebody else decides that it is time for me to go, I turn into a very cooperative patient. Send me an invitation for cervical screening and I will make the appointment, invite me for breast screening when the time comes and I will show up, and when a local GP practice organised a cardiovascular health check a couple of years ago, in collaboration with a national heart charity, I happily went along to have my cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and weight checked.

Apparently I don’t mind seeing a doctor at all. I simply seem to need someone else to tell me it’s time.

I know that makes very little sense, because at work I make decisions all day long without needing anyone to hold my hand. Yet the moment I have to call about a suspicious mark or discuss my migraines, I start wondering whether I would be wasting everybody’s time. There are people with real problems, after all, whereas I merely have a thing, a spot or a vague concern that has been living rent free in my mind for the past six months.

I suspect the truth is that I am not especially frightened of doctors; I am frightened of what they might tell me. The rational part of me knows that most appointments end with reassurance, a harmless explanation or a very ordinary treatment, but the chance of hearing something unpleasant is never quite zero. Apparently I have convinced myself that not asking the question somehow prevents the answer from existing.

It is essentially the ostrich approach to preventative healthcare, although at least the ostrich gets some fresh air.

This summer I finally decided to behave like the sensible woman I am when giving advice to everybody else, so I made an appointment and even felt rather pleased with myself, in the way adults sometimes congratulate themselves for completing a task they have postponed for three months. Then the GP’s assistant called to explain that the doctor needed to move my appointment because an urgent case had come in, and asked whether I could arrange another date.

A rational person would have said, “Of course, no problem,” and immediately rescheduled it, whereas I briefly decided that the universe had personally intervened to confirm that I did not need to go.

Somewhere, a doctor was dealing with an actual emergency, and I had somehow managed to turn that into medical clearance for myself.

Perhaps getting older plays a part in all of this, because even though I am only thirty-nine, I increasingly notice small reminders that my body and I have entered a slightly different phase of our relationship. Nothing spectacular is happening, but every now and then there is an ache I don’t remember ordering, a spot that appears to be new or a physical complaint that makes me wonder whether it has always been there and I simply never noticed it before.

My metabolism has also stopped finding my eating habits charming, which feels rather unfair considering how many years it allowed me to believe I could eat fourteen bags of crisps without consequences. I exercise, I move and I am probably fitter than I have been in years, but apparently strength training does not provide diplomatic immunity from ageing.

None of these things are immediately alarming, which is probably exactly why they are so easy to postpone. There is no flashing warning light and nobody arriving at my front door insisting that I put on my shoes. There is only the quiet knowledge that I should probably take care of the body I would quite like to keep using for a very long time.

I find it slightly ridiculous that I can be so attentive to everybody else while occasionally forgetting to extend myself the same courtesy. If a friend described exactly this behaviour, I would tell her to make the appointment, stop minimising her concerns and remember that reassurance is also a perfectly valid reason to visit a doctor.

Which is unfortunate.

Because she would be entirely justified in asking why I don’t follow my own advice.

So I still need to make another appointment, and I know perfectly well that the solution does not involve waiting for a fresh invitation, a national health campaign or a handwritten note from the universe. It simply involves picking up the phone and doing the thing I would have told anyone else to do several months ago.

It turns out that the advice I give other people is actually quite good.
Following it has always been the difficult part.

-Sophie Quinn