A Body Built for Sin

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 01/24/2008 2:08 PM | Said & Done

It was only when i lay helpless and scared In a hospital bed that i fully understood the importance of my health. So what had i, an educated and worldly person, been doing All this time?

I recount my story to many different people, and always get the same response: “Yes, I understand, I know.” It’s the very same automatic answer I used to give before I fell gravely ill.

But I never really knew or understood just important it was to inhabit a healthy body. For if I had, I would not have done the things that brought me to the feeble state I was in, lying thousands of kilometers from home, barely able to breathe and at the mercy of a kidney transplant to stay alive.

Yes, I knew what the prescription for being healthy was all about, but I would only follow the routine for a few days – at the most, a month -- before losing interest. For staying healthy meant taking the not so easy road, something I preferred to avoid, and strong commitment, which I lacked in abundance.

I also did not consider my health to be an urgent or pressing concern. To paraphrase a friend: “I’m still young, so health problems will be a long time coming. I want to enjoy life. I will deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow.”

It’s like smoking. Tobacco products carry all those stark warnings for the future, but they fail to dissuade the confirmed smoker. For you don’t take a puff of a cigarette and fall dead, gasping for your last precious breath, on the sidewalk – it takes a few years until the effects of emphysema start catching up with you. There is no sense of urgency.

We also will confidently take note of the relative or friend who is still breathing circles of smoke in their old age, seemingly a picture of health. The devil may care, but we don’t.

Who really is pig-headed and defiant amid already suffere two coronaries due to wayward eating habits, is still suitably brave enough (or should that be foolhardy?) to pick the hotel buffet for lunch, going to town on the oysters, assorted other seafood, cuts of meat but turning his back on vegetables.

“My pills are in my pocket,” he says blithely. I like to do a bit of my own convenient rationalization. Despite my high sugar level, I will still take a bite of sweet cakes at gatherings. My justifying inner voice tells me, “It’s OK, it’s only now and then.”

That definition would mean only once a week, when I in fact head out to such gatherings much more than that. There are 360 days to a year, and I spend about 150 of them dining out. That is a lot of now and thens! It took me reaching my lowest point – only able to walk a few steps before becoming breathless, my bodily functions slowly grinding to a halt -- to realize how my selfish, egotistical choices also affected those around me. I was not the only one paying the price for letting go of myself.

For we are not self-contained robots living apart from others. My health crisis not only hurt me, but also my parents and siblings, who were left sick with worry. Frankly, it also drained both my and my parents’ resources. I had to put off my plans to take an advanced degree because the funds were diverted to paying hospital bills.

My workplace also was forced to seek a replacement for the many days when I could not make it to the office, and was left to start from scratch with someone new. It also had to shoulder its share of my medical bills.

If I had been the head of a household, I also would have put my wife and children through the hell of worrying about me, and the insecurity for the future. If my time really was up, then their tough times would have just been beginning.

Hopefully, you can meet the challenge to be healthier in this new year, which is still only three months old. Next time you look up at a cigarette billboard, read the warning slowly and carefully think it over. Next time you reach for your favorite cholesterol-laden snack, dangle it on your fork for a moment, and consider the future.

Whatever your choice, please, whatever you do, don’t tell me you understand and you know. You don’t.

+Samuel Mulia