You're Old! You're Going to Die!!

Over the last few years as my age has advanced entropy has started giving me signs that I should prepare for my eventual demise.  Each time I look in the mirror there's a little more silver in my hair.  My eyesight has deteriorated by a slight, but noticeable, amount.  Lines are a little deeper and skin slightly less elastic.  All in all its been a gentle and not particularly intrusive method of pointing out to me that the second law of thermodynamics has started gearing up for the end run.


Then my federal government basically screamed "Hey!  You're old and you're going to die!" in my face.  To be fair the government was trying to help me whereas entropy is trying to kill me which only goes to highlight the importance of the way the message is delivered. 


Apparently aware that my fiftieth birthday is just around the corner my government has seen fit to send me a letter about bowel cancer.  The message went (and I may be paraphrasing a little here);

"Now that you can no longer avoid the bony hand of death the time has come for you to pay a little more attention to the way you would prefer to die.  When you reach your current age the number of ways you can die increases exponentially.  What you would have once considered an enjoyable night out is now a catastrophic death march.  There are so many cancers lining up to have a shot at your hapless body cells that we can't even list them all without cutting down more trees than remain in the Amazon.  That's before we get on to high blood pressure, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, pneumonia and heart disease.  Frankly it wouldn't surprise us if you dropped dead before you finished reading this letter.  But don't worry!  Your government is going to send you a bowel cancer testing kit.

Apparently I should look out for this in the mail.  Why they didn't send it along with the letter I don't know unless they figured there was a good chance that if they waited a few days they might not have to send it at all.  I also don't know why, out of all the myriad of things lining up to take a shot at my age compromised immune system the government has singled out bowel cancer.  Someone with a nasty suspicious mind might come to the conclusion that the government accidentally over purchased bowel cancer testing kits and is now looking for a plausible way to dispose of the surplus.

I'm not ungrateful for the government's proactive involvement in my death.  I'm pretty sure neither of my parents got a bowel cancer testing kit when they turned fifty (worst present ever).  My parents belong to that sad deprived generation who are going to have to die without government assistance.  I can only assume that bowel cancer is the hidden killer de jour.  You know hidden killers.  You can't turn on the television without learning about some new hidden killer which is going to lay waste to the human race.  It appears that anybody who dies of something blatant and obvious is a statistical blip that can be safely ignored.  It's hidden killers that are the real, well, killers.

The letter attempted to end on an upbeat note pointing out that with early detection this hidden killer could be turned into a hidden minor inconvenience which would have been encouraging if the entire tenor of the note up until that point hadn't focused on my physical deterioration and imminent demise, possibly by the end of the week.

Since the government has gone to all the effort of disclosing that it knows where I live and how old I am I shall show willing and dutifully take the bowel cancer test, hopefully I pass.  If my usual experience with doctors is anything to go by the reaction of my doctor to the test will be something along the lines of,
"No, your bowel is fine.  But there's something else that we just want to take a look at while you're here..."