On the whole, I have not been served well by the medical practitioners. Early in 2017, I hurt my right knee while running—I’d been a regular runner for years, running up to ten miles a day. That resulted in knee replacement surgery. The day of the operation and several that followed it, I suffered more pain that I had ever experienced. The surgeon finally prescribed a pain killer. As I found out later, the surgeon botched the job, leaving me unable to fully straighten my leg and with a slight limp. I finally consulted another surgeon who diagnosed improper surgery and recommended that I have it redone. Because the pain had been so great, I refused to have it redone. I still walk with a slight limp. I can no longer run.
The same year, when I coughed up blood, my regular doctor told me it was nothing and not to worry. When it happened again months later, he sent me for a lung x-ray. I had a large tumor in my right lung. Months of chemotherapy and radiation followed. Then a surgeon removed the upper lobe of my right lung. Only later did I realize how close I had come to death. I replaced my regular doctor with one more competent.
Full recovery from the lung surgery literally took years. But because of self-discipline in diet, exercise, sleep, and water consumption, I am today a model of health. I only allow myself two meals a day, and I limit myself in what I eat, stressing vegetables and fruits, very little meat, and no sweets. Every other day, partly because I can’t run any more, I lift weights in a routine that lasts more than two hours. I sleep ten hours a day on average, including a nap every afternoon. I drink eight ounces of water every morning when I wake up and again after my nap.
The result is that these days, my doctors are impressed with how healthy I am. I am the healthiest man my age that I know of. I fully intend to live to be a hundred. Current evidence suggests that I’ll make it with time to spare.
Tom Glenn, Writer 