やっぱり健康がいちばん！Good Health Comes First!
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その1 体調を崩したあと、改めて健康に感謝！
「健康」というものは空気のようなもので、普段はその大切さを自覚せずに過ごしていますが、いったん損ねてしまうとその重要性がひしひしと実感されるものです。このセクションでは、シニア世代を健康かつ快適に過ごすために、５０代や６０代前半の生活のうちに気をつけたいことにつき、紹介したいと思います。内容的には、私が実際に経験したことやほかの人の例で見聞きしたことなどを交えたいと思います。
この夏、私は１０年来ともいえる絶不調で、お盆休みの２日間寝込んでしまいました。全身疲労感、吐き気、高熱が次々と体を襲い、気が付くと１日２０時間、ベッドでペットの犬と共に寝ていました。多分、夏に多い感染性胃腸炎だろうと思い、症状に合わせた薬を飲みました。やっと３日目に解熱しましたが、食欲はないまま、食べ物の味も感じません。それから次第に体調が回復し始め、スーパーマーケットでにぎりのパックを買いましたが、その味がとても衝撃的でした。病気になってから、そのにぎりが初めて味を感じられる食べ物で、何よりも美味しく感じました。私の体調は元に戻るのに2週間以上かかり、改めて健康の大切さを噛み締めました。
ところで、一般の人々は、「ドクターは病気になりにくい」、もしくは、「もし病気になっても一番良い病院で一番良い治療を優先的に受けられる」と思っているような節がありますが、そんな良いことはあまりありません。実際は、人の病気を治すのに忙しく、また自分の判断に人の命がかかっているので責任も重く、自分の健康を犠牲にすることがしょっちゅうあります。自分の担当する手術や外来などはまず休めないので、自分が病気でも仕事をやり遂げることが日常的です。さらに病院には、薬でたたかれても生き延びる強い病原菌を持った患者さんが毎日集まって来ます。ストレスの多い職場と強い病原菌などで、自分の健康にとってはハイリスクな職場となります。その上に、医者は実際に自分が病気になった場合には、つい病気を軽くみて、手持ちの薬を飲みながら仕事を続け、却って病状が重くなったりします。「医者の不養生」というやつです。
もちろん、医者であったり、病院で働いていれば、それなりの利点として、検査や専門の医師による診察や助言が受けやすいことはあります。もし、病院で突然倒れても、周りに沢山専門家がいるので、即刻治療を受けることができます。ある病院で働いている外科のドクターが、最近病院内で心筋梗塞を起こして倒れたそうです。そのドクターは、その日は胸の具合が悪かったのですが、自分が担当する手術を無事こなした後、意識を失ったそうです。早速救急センターに送られ、検査や診断を受け、そして緊急のバイパス手術と進み、救命されたということでした。
これとは逆に、悲しい話もあります。あるドクターは、ひとり当直の病院で当直中に、夕食に食べたエビでアナフィラキシーショックをおこしたそうです。当直室で呼吸困難に陥り、でも医者は自分だけで当直室から助けも呼べず、次の朝冷たくなっているのを看護師に発見された、という話です。誰がどの病院でといった具体的な情報は伝わっていないので、もしかすると、「こうなったら怖いよね。」という、都市伝説ならぬ当直室伝説かも知れません。
Part1 “Appreciation for Good Health”
"Good health" is like the air－We do not pay much attention to it in our daily life, but we realize its importance once we lose it. In this section, I will write about what I think we should take care in our 50s and early 60s, in order to spend our senior life in good health and with comfort. I may also refer to some examples of myself and other people.
During Obon week this year, I had the worst health conditions in the past ten years or so, and I was bound to bed for two days. I had severe general fatigue, nausea and high fever, which made me sleep twenty hours a day with my pet dogs. I thought I’ve got infectious gastroenteritis which is common in summer, and I took some medicine according to my diagnosis and symptoms. It took three days until the fever was gone, but I continued to have neither appetite nor taste of food. While I was getting better, I bought a package of Nigiri at a supermarket, and I could not forget the impact of the taste. The Nigiri was the first food I could taste after I got sick, and it tasted better than any food. It took more than two weeks to recover completely, and I realized the significance of good health.
Generally speaking, people may think "Physicians are unlikely to get sick" or "When physicians get ill, they can have the best treatment at the best hospital." However, these assumptions are not true. Because physicians are very busy treating sick people, with much responsibility of making life-and-death decisions, their health conditions are often compromised. Physicians cannot easily cancel their job of seeing patients or performing surgeries, so they usually complete their job at any cost, even if they are sick. Furthermore, patients with strong pathogens come to a hospital every day. The combination of stressful workplace and strong pathogens makes their working environment a threat to health. On top of that, physicians tend to think light of the disease of themselves. They often continue doing their job with self-medication, sometimes resulting in the disease becoming more serious. That is what we say "A physician often neglects his own health."
Of course there are benefits of being a physician or working at a hospital. Workers at a hospital have easier access to exams or doctors with various specialties. If they suddenly get seriously ill at a hospital, they will be treated immediately because there are many physicians around. Recently, I heard a story about a physician who had a heart attack at a hospital where he worked for. Though he had a chest pain from the morning, he finished a surgery which he was assigned as a chief surgeon, and he fainted. He was sent to the ICU at once, examined, diagnosed, and he had an emergency by-pass surgery, and fortunately, his life was saved.
On the contrary, there is a sad story. I heard that a physician, who was on night duty alone in a hospital, had an anaphylaxic shock caused by a shrimp he had had at supper. He got difficulty in breathing in a room assigned for a physician on night duty, but he could not call or get help, because he was the only physician in the hospital on that night. He was found dead by a nurse on the following morning. I don’t know the details, such as who the physician was or where the hospital in question was. It might be an imaginary story, like "It’s horrible, if something like this happen."
(2019/05/06 15:02:21)
