Can a late convert to wellbeing undo decades of beer and barbecues? In the first of a new series, Phil Daoust has a health MOT – and gets some worrying news about his heart
I am sitting in a consulting room, talking through the results of an unusually thorough health check. The doctor seems happy with most of them, but he lingers on the squiggly lines of my ECG – a chart of the electrical signals in my heart. He’s found something called a “prolonged PR interval”. I’m very happily married to a PR, so this sounds quite pleasant, but then he explains that P and R are points on the squiggly lines, and that I probably have “first-degree heart block”. I feel a little chill.
I guess these are the risks when you try to find out more about your health. But ignorance doesn’t feel like bliss when you turn 60. How much longer have I got, you want to know. How much of that will be fit and happy? And OK, I’m now getting free prescriptions, which is nice, but is that because I’ll be needing more medicine?
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