I believe in my last post I may have mentioned that I recently had my cholesterol levels measured, and that I scored ‘super excellent’. My work’s put on a ‘health expo’ where all week, you can get stuff like that checked. I also scored very well on blood pressure, blood glucose, and BMI (ok, not very well on BMI. Just well.)
So with all ticks next to ‘ideal’ on my scorecard, I was feeling like a pretty hot specimen, until I decided to get my lungs checked. Oh deary dear.
Lung function is measured using a test where you wrap your lips around the mouthpiece of a little hand-held device, breathe in as hard and fast as you can, exhale as fast as you can, hold the exhalation for several seconds, then breathe in sharply again. It took several goes as the nurse kept saying, kindly but disbelievingly, “Can you exhale a bit faster this time? You didn’t blow out all the air that time.” I felt like a real dunce by the time she was satisfied.
Then the computer did something enormously clever with the results and spat out a one-page report which the nurse patiently took me through. The report showed the minimum, average and maximum expected scores for a healthy woman of my age, height and race. (Would you believe, race makes a difference? Apparently we Caucasians have the biggest lungs of all the races. I beat my chest upon receiving this piece of information. Rarrrrr! Big lungs!) I scored just a little below average. And remember, we’re talking below average for healthy people.
So how unprepared was I for the last line? I have a lung age of thirty six!!!!!!!!! And I’m only 29! I nearly went into cardiac arrest! (She should have checked my inhalation speed then – I’d have been off the charts!) The nurse meanwhile seemed supremely unbothered and seemed to think I should be happy about this result! She even had the cheek to say that thirty six isn’t that much older than me! I mean, helloooo???!!!!!
I asked her what I could do to improve the situation, expecting her to tell me to take up running or something (I have no intention of doing any such thing, but it would be nice to know there was something I could do if I could be bothered) but she told me, pityingly, that once you’ve damaged your lungs there’s not much you can do about it.
Damaged lungs? This is me we’re talking about, not some fifty-five year old, coal mining chain smoker. Check the damned equipment! I demand a re-count! I’m the owner of 4.09mmol blood cholesterol and 4.7 blood glucose. Don’t tell me my lungs are middle aged!
Of course the real question of the hour is, what have my lungs been doing that the rest of me hasn’t? Have they been taking holidays in China behind my back? Do they have a secret 40-menthol-slims-a-day habit that I don’t know about? Does my house have a leaky gas fire like you read about in the tabloids?
Did all those rebellious fags* behind the bike sheds at school really mean so much?...Children, take heed!
Sorry for all the exclamation marks. But suddenly I feel…short of breath.
*Fags = UK slang for cigarettes
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3 comments:
They had NO explanation for your ancient lungs? JUST KIDDING all you 36 year olds!
Anyway, that's weird.
Ok thanks, now I'm worried about all the passive smoking and...er...well other type of smoking's effect on my lungs!
You know I'm hypochondriac! I want a lung function test. STAT.
I think tests like that are very good for scaring you into healthy living. I wish I'd had one when I was younger. Though now I don't touch cigarettes anyway, so I'm not sure there was any point.
On a slightly related note, my boss had a flexibility test recently and it said he had the flexibility of an eighty four year old! He's only about 45. Think how mortifying THAT would be.
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