Attitude makes all the difference
Friday, October 31st, 2008So I went to see my primary physician, Dr. Putnam, last Thursday morning about my still-injured left rotator cuff. I wanted a referral to a specialist, or at the bare minimum, for physical therapy. He was able to reassure me that my injury was minor, and was definitely not a tear of the muscle. Physical therapy will show me exercises that I can do to help rehabilitate the shoulder.
At the end of my appointment I asked him whether prostate cancer or Alzheimer’s disease are hereditary. My dad recently had a biopsy on his prostate and my grandfather died from Alzheimer’s a few years ago. Dr. Putnam said the closer one is genetically to the disease, the more susceptible one is to inherit the disease.
With regards to prostate cancer, he said that the PSA levels in your blood should be the same from year to year. A normal PSA count is 4 or less. He said if your PSA levels remain unchanged from year to year, and at normal levels, the test is so accurate that it can be said that there is 100% certainty that there is no prostate cancer.
We had a very interesting discussion about Alzheimer’s disease. It typically affects older people, of course. But he mentioned that studies have shown that in those patients who had Alzheimer’s, there were differences in the pathology of the disease among patients who had died with autopsies showing similar levels of the disease progression. In a case of two patients, both had the same progressive stages of the disease. Prior to death of one patient, he was inactive, comatose, no longer remembered people, etc. In the other case, the patient was still active, involved in activities, using his mental capacities, stretching and challenging himself intellectually. The message Dr. Putnam was trying to tell me was the approach to reacting to the disease and the attitude of the patients (and their families).
In the case of the comatose patient, he had given up, and his family “did too much for him”, and he had checked out mentally when things became tough. In the other case, for example, with regards to taking care of the finances, the family had asked the patient to teach his wife about the finances. So even though he was struggling mentally, he was still involved using his intellectual capacities, and his wife became the backup for the financials.
Dr. Putnam spoke about his attitude towards old age and retirement. He said that he never intends to retire, as long as he has his physical capacities. He said that he thinks retirement is not biblical, and I agree with him. We were created for work. Attitude does make all the difference. No matter what our age or how old we are, we should continue to work and serve the Lord. The mistake some older people is that they “check out” of life when they retire. As for me, I’ve challenged my self intellectually for pretty much all my life. I don’t ever see myself where I am not learning something or challenging myself.
Tags: Alzheimers, attitude, retirement
