In most ways, as an older Black American male, I probably have an unusual background in terms of personal health. For over sixty years, except for knee surgery after an athletic injury, I had very little interaction with the medical establishment, save annual check-ups, flu shots, and periodic boosters. In my adult life I can only recall having a couple, three at most, courses of antibiotics. I may have had one or two other medications prescribed. If so, I cannot even recall what they were for, and I rarely used over-the-counter medicines.
I had an active, physically challenging life full of athletic exertion, outdoor activities, reasonable risk-taking, and even a couple of life-or-death type scenarios. For all that, I enjoyed remarkably robust health, my interactions with doctors and other members of the medical fraternity being, with rare exceptions, business-like, fairly painless, and thankfully brief.
That said, my own good fortune in matters related to health have not necessarily been reproduced among other members of my family. A long list of worrisome health markers lurk within our genome. Both of my parents were severe diabetics, wheelchair-bound double amputees who died far too early after years of struggle with that illness and a laundry list of other chronic ailments including heart disease. A sibling manifested severe mental illness in early adulthood, a shadow by which she was haunted all her foreshortened life. As with most families, unusual patterns of cognition and peculiar, idiosyncratic behaviors are not unknown among my kith and kin, accounting to some degree for an unusually robust intellect and noted creativity, but also a tendency toward moodiness and melancholia. In fact, as a young man, I used to light-heartedly warn women whom I dated that a mild form of mental illness ran in my family. I was only half joking.
All this is to say that well into my 60’s, I enjoyed a run of good health that was remarkably flawless, greatly limiting my interaction with the health care system. From a distance I observed my parents’ and other family members’ trials and tribulations. I even helped an ex-wife write a book based on her experiences as a chronically-ill caregiver to her mother.
All that changed in early 2020. My introduction to real life as a Black man in the American health system began with an ordinary trip to the dentist. That experience and the research it compelled me to undertake with respect to the health status of black men in our society is what triggered the launch of this blog (see “My Story”). The social uproar surrounding the murder of George Floyd and others provided timely and relevant context. This blog is a record of observation and opinion, intended to be provocative and challenging. I hope it contributes to a broader discussion and deeper assessment of the American health care system, particularly the severely degraded status that system has reserved for Black men.
Comments