The raft of deaths in the last few weeks is benumbing. I wrote this in 2013, I’m forced to add a few words to it and repost it again. Anyone under 40 years of age can abuse their body and play Russian roulette with it. Nature will indulge you. The game changes at 40. When you turn 50, the countdown to mortality begins. It is not called middle age for nothing. No one gets out of here alive but we can live well and comfortably enough into old age when we listen to our bodies and pay attention. Most people who die suddenly, die of pre-existing conditions they ignored, rejected or are afraid off. They think getting help is akin to inviting bad luck and bad diseases. Not true! The nature of these things are random. Some are coded in our genes, some are brought on by lifestyle. Some are unexplained.

If you are over forty years old and you are woman ignoring routine mammogram, pap smear with no baseline biomedical profile done, you are trying to kill yourself by installments. If you are over 40 and a man, and you have not gone to examine your prostate; you have not done the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test, I’m sorry for you and your family. You know yourselves as you read this, I have told you many times. I know you feel shy about this, but neither Bamidele nor doctors are concerned with your “wetin call”. Your “wetin call” no be my problem, it is the bomb that can explode under that is our concern. I want us to reverse ugly trends of low life expectancy and untimely deaths in Nigeria. I want us to increase the life expectancy rate. Don’t join the “I reject it, it is not my portion” crowd of denial. Those words can only come from the mouths of ignorants. Human body is programmed to decay. From my experience, the bolts and knots starts its loosening process once you hit the magical age of forty. Your body starts to change, things do not feel quite the same, although the pace of degeneration can vary with individuals. You can age gracefully and in good health. Please check your blood sugar at least twice a year, check your blood pressure, your cholesterol level, go for your annual physical. Do kidney and liver function tests to catch any problem early. If you smoke or have asthma like me, see your pulmonary surgeon often. See a dentist. Check your vision to rule out glaucoma especially if you are from the north. If you are Fulani, know you are predisposed to blood clots. When you clock 50, go for a colonoscopy, there is no shame to it. your doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists have seen more crooked behind than yours. I know mental illness have a lot of stigma to it. If you hear strange voices in your head or if you feel blue, overwhelmed by melancholy and you feel you are in a dark place all the time, seek help. Talk to a psychiatrist. It is not a shame to take medicines daily. Don’t be deceived by anointing oil and holy water. Get real help.

My female friends are better than my male friends at checking their well being. Stop chasing money, stop overworking. You need wellness to enjoy money. Work cannot leave you, you will have to leave work some day. If you are drinking too much Alomo bitters, or if the Mallam selling the “new awakening” reserves the special one for you. Na im be say wahala dey. Check your blood pressure and sugar level, those things kills a man’s sexual function and some medicines used to treat these conditions do kill libido. Unless you have serious erectile dysfunction, you don’t need enhancers to enter Jerusalem. The truth is that after 45, you can’t enter like before. It is like that. Move on. Report any untoward sign to your doctor, know and understand your body so you can easily notice quirky changes. People who are given terrible diagnosis did not offend God, everything in life is random. We have no idea how we drew the cards. With checks, bad stuff can be found early and treated.

For the religious die-hards. I have a prayer I say for you; Father Lord, you know your humble servant and her friends and families are couch potatoes except for a few body Nazis among them. The only thing active about us father is our imagination. My followers and I do not run, neither do we jog. When we run, your Holiness sure knows something must be chasing us. We beseech thee to grant us the wisdom to check our bodies yearly. Deliver us from bad eating habits, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, excessive consumption of alcohol and indulgence in recreational drugs and harmful substances. May You protect us from bad diseases and bad actions. May You grant us the totality of goodness, from within and from without. I commit my friends and followers to you because I’m tired of calling them out and pestering them on phone over their health. Amen?

To the ladies, the hospitals use nice “tiny” plastic speculum to open the cervix these days compared to the scary ginormous steel probe we were examined with in the past. I admit to skipping a pap smear or two because of the GIANT speculum. Good news, that is for me and for you. Schedule an appointment to see your doctor today! To my male friends, let the doctor examine your wetin call. Check your testosterone.

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