I watched my father suffer from various circulatory and cardiovascular related breakdowns as he approached the ripe young age of 65. He spent the next five and half years of his life in and out of hospitals and had one bad procedure after the next, and one series of throwing clots after the next, and one more bag of heparin after the next, and then more blood draws for more tests, and then it was on to congestive heart failure, and then hemo dialysis, and then infection after infection followed by I.V. antibiotics that made his teeth rot out, and then non-contrast CAT scans but ooops and sorry we used dye this time so he has to come back tomorrow (YOU MORONS IT WAS ORDERED NON-CONTRAST BECAUSE HE'S A DIALYSIS PATIENT!!) and then a semi permanent central line in his chest wall to be replaced by a tesio cathedar on the other side and then more surgery to replace the infected tesio because the fistula or shunt in his arm won't seal properly and he bleeds out and off of the dialysis machine (okay three times to replace the tesio but that's not unusual is it??) and then finally ... after all that and a lot more ... finally he gave up when they told him they were going to have to amputate his left foot because there was no circulation there and no chance of it returning. He told them politely but firmly no. They said but....and he cut them off and told them NO! They said we'll come back and talk to you about it again tomorrow but we really can't wait too long to do this because... and he cut them off again and said, "You will wait as long as you have to because I told you bastards NO!"
His suffering ended that very next morning. I can only hope that he was comfortable and pain free at the end but aware of what was happening. I hope he was able to be at peace as he took his last breath because after all of the suffering he endured as his body broke down he certainly earned the dignity of being able to die in peace. Although we said good bye to him the night before we did not think it would be the end. None of us were with him when he died and that makes me sad.
His suffering was primarily lifestyle induced. He smoked. A lot. He drank. A lot. He had a high fat, high salt diet. He was by any classical measure morbidly obese. He loved to sit on the couch and watch TV. All of those are past tense as he died this past December at the age of 70. I miss him dearly. I wish he would have quit smoking years ago when he had his first heart attack and the cardiologist told him that he would "keep having these fender benders until one day without notice he'd be declared totaled". But he didn't stop smoking. And he didn't change any other aspect of his life style even after each of his children told him that it was selfish of him to cheat us out of those later years of his life that we would love to share with him. I miss him. I miss him dearly but that's not going to bring him back. I wish he would have changed but he lived his life doing what made him happy.
I will not meet that end. I will not suffer the long slow demise that took my father. I will by the grace of God be able to enjoy the later years of my life by being an active person of age. I will be the one when I'm 79 saying that I don't want to play golf with the 55 year olds because they are old.
I will be the one at the age of 84 playing the round of 18 in the morning then complaining on the tfp later in the day because my buddies didn't want to play another in the afternoon. I will be the one at the age of 90 working in my gardens around my house after I have painted the deck. I will enjoy my later years because of the good clean living and healthy choices I make today.
My motivation is simple:
I love life too much to not want to enjoy it as long as I possibly can.
Simple daily changes you can make by becoming physically active can add emormous amounts of energy and an inproved outlook to your life. One simple rule about your nutrition which is the fuel that runs your body's engine: Nothing tastes as good as being in shape feels and nothing feels as good as knowing that the good choices I've made today will last a lifetime.
P.S. Not to mention that the ladies like a fit and trim guy and with my hairline I need all the help I can get