Healthy Concern

          This week, I was summoned to the clinic for a periodical blood test to keep track of an illness that I may or may not develop. Though I remember vaguely being told about it, the origins of the diagnosis were lost during the transfer of records from my former home, so I keep turning up for the test, just in case.

          I suppose I shall get a definitive result one day but, meanwhile, an actual health-related incident occurred when I spat out part of a tooth that had come asunder. The broken-off remnant is tiny in comparison to the gap it has left, which, to my probing tongue, feels cavernous and has a razor-sharp edge. The breakage was to be expected, in fact I had anticipated it, given the antiquity of the tooth and my penchant for toasted slices of sourdough, the crusts of which are more dangerous than pork crackling and can slice through your gums as well as lay waste to your teeth.

          I may or may not get a repair done, as there is no pain and the sharp edge will eventually wear blunt. No, the real problem here is finding another type of bread to toast, given that none of the alternatives available locally are to my liking (Cranks wholemeal being the gold standard). So, I’m exploring the viability of making bread myself and, already, a friend has offered up a couple of recipes. The prospect is unappealing, since it will introduce an unwanted chore into my studiously idle hours. Ideally, I will find a method that involves not having to wait hours for the dough to prove – a requirement driven not by impatience but by my innate unwillingness to schedule every detail of life. Another stipulation would be the no-knead method – not that I’m lazy, but my arthritic fingers will protest; as it is, they are aching from the exertions of sanding doorframes in preparation for their coat of new paint.

          Incidentally, the fingerprint detector on my phone no longer recognizes my skin, presumably because most of it has been worn down by repeated, vigorous contact with 120s grit sandpaper. This is a bit of a nuisance because – if I’m wearing a dust mask and/or goggles – the face-detection doesn’t work either and I’m back to inputting a PIN.

          Overall, however, I am in good health (forthcoming blood-test results notwithstanding), something for which I am particularly thankful, having just attended the funeral of an old friend.

          I can’t claim to have been very close to Tony, a big man with big appetites and a cavalier disregard for risk. There was a period, long ago, when we might have grown together, but geography rather precluded it. Still, I am tight enough with at least part of his circle to have stayed in touch and enjoyed his generous, enthusiastic company over the years. He died suddenly, though not unexpectedly. Anyone with basic medical knowledge could have predicted the outcome of such an immoderate lifestyle as his. Nor did it come as a surprise that there was a huge throng of mourners at his wake, given that he lived his gregarious life in the town where he was born. The wake was not mournful, though I did detect among contemporaries, the feeling that Tony could have been with us a good few years longer yet.

          On the scale that runs from well, through unwell, to deceased, I am pretty much at the alive-and-kicking end, where I make some effort to remain. There’s nothing like the passing of an old friend to strengthen that resolve. But Tony’s approach to health and well-being was not, shall we say, as pernickety as mine. He was not the kind of man to fret over the results of a blood test.