Lies hurt.
When we speak of improving our health very little attention is paid to the lies we ingest. We are told lies about the importance of our health.
Black Men do not take care of their health and we pay the price via high blood pressure, diabetes, stress and a host of other maladies.
Brothers please take care of your health.
We are all very valuable.
Nobody is at their best when they are primarily responding to pain and physical discomfort.
Our pain and discomfort are often places we are encouraged to deny, overlook and allow to go unattended. I have often put myself in physical danger believing there was something to be proven to those who said they “cared”. This nonsense carried over into adulthood and sexual relationships with men wherein I neglected to speak up and chose a lie over what made the most sense.
Culturally sanctioned by the larger community and supported by the smaller and highly oppressed subcultures of which I am a member, the message is clear: our health is not important.
Recently, I had major infections in two of my organs and Jaundice in my eyes.
Several individuals weighed in with their arm-chair-mother-wit diagnosis (it’s work-related stress) others dismissed my symptoms as cultural in an effort to lessen my concerns regarding my pure exhaustion, night sweats and chills.
Until I made the decision to address what ailed me nothing changed.
When I saw the Doctor, he freaked and immediately ordered me to an urgent care unit.
The larger question still looms: Why did I wait so long?
Why did I believe that it was ok to be sick as I told friends and family (off and on) for two weeks?
How many men do the same stupid shit and end up sicker than I was or worse yet, dead?
What can be done about it?
I will take an almost psychotic approach to maintaining my health.
I will also listen to the world’s best and 24 hour available doctor, my body.
I will not allow folk to write off my thoughts and symptoms because they need me to be “ok”.
My health and well being is not a burden or something to be gotten around to.