Blokes can sometimes tend to think they are invincible.
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Some men can sever an artery or fracture a limb and still look you in the eye saying “she’ll be right, what do I need to see a doctor for?”. Sometimes the discovery they are not invincible and they are not superman comes all too late.
Men’s Health Week ran last week through until June 16, but there’s always time to talk about your health.
Grant Plecas from Cancer Council Southern NSW was an active sportsman and father of five when out of the blue at the age of 39, he found himself in deep trouble. His describes his heart attack “like someone was pressing a big clamp on my chest and I couldn’t breath”.
Like many, he didn’t see the doctor, but urges others not to make the same mistake.
“That’s how I always was. I never visited the doctor very much because of that reason, ‘oh, I’ll get through it … i’ll just battle through this’,” he told Fairfax Media.
“There’s a reason why doctors are there, there’s a reason why you need to talk about [your health] and go and see the doctor. Because when you’re there they might check on the flu but there’s a heap of other things that might be going on in your body that they need to keep an eye on.
“You might not talk about it with the boys down the pub … or when you’re out to dinner with friends, you don’t talk about that stuff. But if you keep regular with your doctor that conversation [about your health] comes up and makes you conscious of it.”
His advice for other men is simple.
“Men think they’ve got to be the leader and the big strong one for their house or their family or even their work. It’s good to think that but you can’t be that if you’re not healthy. If you don’t look after yourself, sometime or somehow it’s going to impact your life and you’re not going to be what you want to be,” he said. “Like a car, keep yourself serviced, keep yourself checked in for your family and your friends.”
In line with the idea of keeping yourself serviced, Men’s Sheds across the country, including at Wallaga Lake-Bermagui, last week conducted health checks and seminars entitled Spanner in the Works?
The federal government-supported program plays upon the idea that men often pay more attention to the health of their vehicles than their own – an attitude that heavily contributes to the fact that men die on average five years earlier than women.
Don’t leave it too late.
