As life starts to tell you your age, we bring you the awareness to fight back!
The Backdrop to 60th Sense and Health Awareness
On November 21st, 1960, I turned 60 years of age.It shouldn’t happen, I’m too young to be old, but hey, it’s a fact, and there is nothing to be done about that.Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I try not to worry about things I have no control over. I cannot change time, and so it is within my grace to accept and move on with my life as it now is.
The one niggle (or observation) that I do have however, is that I sort of don’t know what it is really meant to be like to be 60.There is so little spoken of a man’s state of being.We are somewhat forgotten in the rush to be politically correct, gender neutral, and equal to all.
And so, 60th Sense is born
Things happen to my body, with an increasingly alarming frequency, and I don’t understand it.I don’t know whether it is ageing, or that maybe I shouldn’t be feeling this way.
Would just eating this, or not eating that, just doing this, or not doing that, change anything about how I feel right now?
You see, the media talks of so many problems we face in our world, but it very rarely talks about what I need to know as a now-60-year-old man.
We are clearly not that interesting, not sensational enough, and barely able to raise a spark, let alone a public flame.
I Had A Vasectomy
About 3 years ago, I was sat waiting for my procedure, yet even at the 11th hour, I was still failing to find the answers to my many questions about what was soon to happen. Instead I had to learn by experience.
As an ageing male, I heard I should worry about prostrate cancer, yet my doctor told me it was all nonsense and just to read up about it on the internet.I have an increasingly alarming state of pain and muscle control when I wake, yet my doctor told me that was ‘just getting older’.Is it truly just about aging, or should I maybe seek to learn a little more about being now-60-years-old?
One Friday, I was listening to a current favourite radio show (Ellis & John on BBC 5 Live). A show where two barely middle aged men exchange banter about life. It’s great that they have this platform, and last week, were actually talking about their producer, who had just had a vasectomy.
The switchboard lit up with men asking to hear more. There clearly is a hunger for this sort of information, but apart from Ellis & John, the fine art of ageing is a secret lost in time.The other problem of course is that Ellis has only just hit 40, and john is yet to reach that grand old age (I believe).
So, could there maybe be scope for a 60-year-old pairing.After all, if I wait for them to turn 60 to get their wisdom of being, then I will be already 80, and my questions will most probably have changed.
I put this out to you, and wonder, are my concerns, questions and doubts just the sign of a mind going grey around the edges, or is there really something missing amidst the 3bn+ pages of advice offered up by the internet? (I don’t actually know whether there are 3bn pages on the internet, but I know it’s a lot!)
Tony GrantNow-60-year-old!
The doctors brushed it aside as a routine procedure with nothing to worry about.The websites told me things that didn’t help, but not the things that worried me.
