Health Versus Wealth

One is more important

I have always had goals. Even as a child, I wanted to read novels by third grade. I wanted to be a better show jumper, faster runner, and the best student in my class.

As I got older, the goals centered on life experiences, a career, having a family and children. Later still, the goals were mostly financial.

• Buy a house with a 15-year mortgage, then find a way to pay it off in half the time.
• Be worth at least a million dollars by a certain age and achieve financial independence sometime later.
• Make sure children can graduate from college debt free.
• Still work because I want to, not because I have to.

With planning and self-discipline, I have achieved all of this.

I never had any real goals in terms of my health. Yes, I worked out at times, ran almost every day, and still rode horses on occasion. I still weigh around 123 pounds now, the same weight I had since my twenties. I am resilient and have a calm and steady disposition. I don’t drink and try to eat healthy, and until recently, good health was always a given.

I know as people age, they tend to face more health issues, but I never had any of the problems many seniors face. I don’t have heart issues, arthritis, or diabetes. Then, shortly after my sixty-second birthday, I found out that the pain I had had for a while stemmed from an issue I probably had from birth, and I needed surgery.

Except for having my tonsils removed as a child, I never had any surgery. Even that one I barely remember. I remember desperately fighting the mask and the ether and then getting to eat lots of ice cream. I remember nothing else.

I had natural child birth and a stomach scope once, but without sedation. When the dentists in Germany drilled into our teeth, we didn’t get any kind of sedation either. Therefore, facing “being put under” was foreign to me as this surgery.

People tell me that I am lucky. Many of my younger friends already have knee, and hip replacements, and joint issues. A friend’s three-year old son just had a bone marrow transplant, and another friend’s daughter received a new heart on her fourth birthday.

Perhaps then I have been lucky. My surgery went well, and I am recovering. Now I have to rethink all this, however, and come up with some health goals. I definitely have to cut down on sugar. I love anything sweet: pastries, chocolate, honey.

I also have to get more active again. Mowing my lawn is about my only exercise right now. A few days I looked at a picture of mine after a long run and felt a bit wistful. Did I really run five miles every other day then?

In short, it is true what they say. All the money in the world is worth nothing if we don’t have the health to enjoy it. I just never understood that before, not really anyway. I do now!