During a recent visit to Victoria, I decided to go for a run along the seawall. It was an insanely gorgeous day, all blazing blue sky, clear light and soothing waves -- the kind of day that winds up and punches you in the gut for living in Toronto, or anywhere else in the world, really, except Victoria.
Along the way, I passed a number of people, all out for a bit of exercise. It was a Monday afternoon, but the path along Ogden Point, a nearly kilometre-long breakwater that juts into the ocean like a giant arthritic finger, was packed. Hardly surprising in one of the tourism/retirement capitals of Canada (they don't call it "home of the newly wed and nearly dead" for nothing).
I passed a lot of old people. Old people on bicycles. Old people on in-line skates. Old people walking briskly carrying squash racquets. Old people sprinting past me. There was even one old guy -- I swear -- who wobbled past on a unicycle.
Whatever these people have, I thought, I want it. And fast. I just turned 30 and already my bones are starting to creak. My hips are tight from sitting, my shoulder is out of alignment from typing at a computer every day, and lately my body has become a bit more, er, bodacious, the result of too many restaurant dinners and too few runs along a seawall.
At my book reading later that evening, I met a vigorous woman in her 80s. I asked what her secret was.
"I haven't been to a doctor in 20 years," she said.
I can't say I was too surprised.
Most healthy people I know almost never go to the doctor. I certainly don't. Much as I'd trust her in a crisis, my GP is rushed and harried. She always wants to write me prescriptions. I feel badly taking up space in her office for my minor aches and pains, and yet I know I must address these complaints.
Instead, I pay for monthly acupuncture treatments (my therapist is a former surgeon from China). Sometimes I consult a personal trainer for physiotherapy advice. I go to yoga for stress relief and I get regular massages. Once in a while, I consult a holistic nutritionist about my diet.
I first realized I wasn't alone in my reluctance to use traditional health care for minor problems during a warm-up chat at my running group meeting. (Runners talk injuries like bankers talk money: that is to say, constantly.)
One woman was just back from being cracked by her chiropractor. Another was undergoing thrice-weekly shiatsu for her Achilles tendon. Another was considering having her energy manipulated by a reiki specialist to alleviate the pain in her knee.
In spite of our collective injuries and complaints, none of us had been to see a doctor in months. And why should we have? We are healthy people after all. Doctors are for the sick.
Walking around Victoria, I saw signs of this new two-tier health care everywhere I went: yoga studios on every corner, organic cafés, Ayurvedic health centres where people are encouraged to try healing the herbal, holistic way. Maybe it sounds flaky, but you can't argue with results.
Take Dave, another senior who attended my reading. A fit-looking man I would put at seventysomething, Dave-the-beekeeper (as he introduced himself) arrived from Saltspring Island with a jar of homemade organic honey in hand. He's also not a fan of doctor's orders. He told me that he stays healthy by lifting thousands of pounds every day, moving his bee houses here and there. He also runs his own firewood business, chopping, stacking and selling wood.
"Young people in their 20s, they come to buy firewood and they have big bellies out to here," he said, arcing his hand over his flat (no doubt washboard) stomach. "I have to load the wood onto their trucks because they can't lift a thing."
I'm impressed by people like Dave who, in this age of health-care hysteria, have opted to take physical well-being into their own hands. I'm not preaching Christian Science doctrine (though there is something to be said for the power of prayer and positive thinking), but rather a more preventive form of health care.
If you need evidence, just head to Victoria and take in the view. Old people carrying Pilates mats. Old people on skateboards. Old people with pedometers strapped to their biceps, measuring out their daily 10,000 steps. Old people looking, for all intents and purposes, like young people. Except for an extra wrinkle or two, and who goes to the doctor for a wrinkle? A wrinkle never killed anyone.
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