It just goes to show that most of us probably don't know what potential problems might be lurking within us as we get older and we would all be well advised to find out. Phil was only 64 and would usually play football twice a week, work permitting, indoor 5-a-side on Mondays and outdoor 6, 7 or even 8-a-side on Fridays depending on how many of our group are available and I was always involved in the latter. He also swam roughly 3 Sunday mornings out of every 5 doing 50 lengths. For his age, you'd probably say he was as fit as a fiddle which is why to be struck down as he was, was such a huge shock. There are plenty in our Friday football group in worse shape than he was and it's a salutary lesson for all of us, maybe even me in particular as I'm the oldest.
As for cholesterol, a few months ago, my wife asked me to have a PSA blood test which is to detect possible prostate cancer but they said they'd test for cholesterol at the same time, which made sense. Thankfully, the PSA test was negative (it was only precautionary anyway) but they said my cholesterol was higher than it should be which is probably because I've been vegetarian for over 50 years and cheese plays a significant part in my diet. I'd been put on statins about 10 years ago and the side effects were a real nuisance and occasionally quite painful so I told them I didn't want statins again and they prescribed me something called Ezetimibe, which sounds like a Nigerian footballer. Well, after 3 days of taking them and almost constant diarrhea, I quickly binned them and will have to ask them if they have another alternative.
