Apart from protectors and god-like creatures, there are also evil-beings in Chinese myths, Si Xiong 四凶, or the Four Evils, which are one of the most famous.
The Four Evils ( Four Perils) are Tao Tie饕餮, Hun Dun混沌, Qiong Qi穷奇, and Tao Wu梼杌.
I tell my patients they will be facing the same four evils during their golden years.
I want you to live until 100 years
Can all human beings live up to 100 years or even 120 years? The answer is a sounding YES. And I must say immortal life or at least longevity of life is always a living-being ultimate aim.
Qin Shi Huang ( 秦始皇) ‘First Emperor of Qin’,(18 February 259 BC – 10 September 210 BC), was well known to fear death. He desperately sought the fabled elixir of life, which would supposedly allow him to live forever.
Unfortunately this elixir of life is non-existent in real world.
As a practicing physician, even though I couldn’t make patients immortal but at least I hope they can live healthily up to 100 years old.
4 evils to face when you are old
The very first day when a human being is born, he/she is destined to grow old and die one day. We have to accept this fact of life.
For a practicing doctor, I am trying my best to keep my patients healthy and live as long as possible.
90% of the time eventually all of us are going to get one of these 4 evils when we are old and die from the complications,
- Ischemic heart disease ( coronary heart disease)
- Stroke
- Infection
- Cancer
By preventing these 4 evils from taking your life during your golden age, doctors and scientists have done thousands of studies to prove the benefits of various drugs. Unfortunately, patients tend to listen to Google, Yahoo, Facebook, neighbors, relatives, traditional practitioners, or even fortune-tellers for medical advice!
They ignore medical facts and prefer listening to dubious advertisements and advice given by non-professionals.
Herbal medicine, supplements, direct selling tablets become favorites of all times in Malaysia, Singapore, and the rest of the World.
At the end of the day, only doctors are going to attend to your needs when you are frail and sick. It is easier to give all kinds of medical advice without responsibility.
Doctors practice evidence based medicine
Doctors practice evidence-based medicine. I give advice based on evidence or at least consensus agreed by the authority.
To prevent these 4 evils during your golden years, I advocate some remedial measures for my patients.
1) Ischemic heart disease
Ischemic heart disease is strongly associated with smoking, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, advancing age, gender, and race. You can use this calculator to assess your risk of getting a heart attack in 10 years.
You can’t decide who your parent, gender, and race are, but you certainly can manage other risk factors such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and cholesterol levels.
Unfortunately, laymen like my patients, sisters, or even my mum prefer to listen to medical advice they get from social media, whatapps, or Google.
” Cholesterol medications will damage your liver!”
” Diabetes drugs are the ones causing kidney failure!”
” Doctors are being used by drug companies to sell expensive drugs!”
All drugs carry possible side effects but they are recommended to you because evidence shows benefits outweigh risks. It will be insane for a person not to drive a car or ride a motorcycle if he/she finds out that 7000 motorcycle fatalities happen every year in Malaysia!
2) Stroke
Hypertension is the number one risk factor for stroke. My elderly patients tend to believe hypertension is the process of aging. They argue with me that it is alright to be hypertensive when they are old.
How often do you hear young patients getting a stroke? The prevalence of hypertension increases with advancing age, such that as much as half of individuals aged between 60 and 69 years are hypertensive, and this increases to 60%–70% in people above the age of 70. That the reason behind why there is a high prevalence of stroke among elderly patients!!
Hypertension is easily treated! Do not confuse diastolic pressure with systolic pressure. Even you have a low diastolic pressure, you need to get treatment because it is the systolic hypertension that will kill you!
3) Infection
Infectious diseases account for one third of all deaths for those who are 65 years and above.
I highlighted to my patients, when we were young, parents brought us to be vaccinated for various diseases-measles, hepatitis B, mumps, rubella, etc, but we tend to forget the equal importance of vaccinations in the elderly.
Common infections such as bacterial pneumonia and influenza do kill and vaccinations are easily accessible and cheap.
No point saving that MYR200-300 for the vaccinations and spend thousands of dollars in ICU care daily. The hospital will be happily charge you with inflated antibiotics price and ICU care!
4) Cancer
Cancer unfortunately would be the most unpredictable and cunning evil among all.
I do not have an answer for you on how to avoid getting all types of cancer but a healthy lifestyle and proper vaccinations again might minimize your risk. You can do the following,
- get a hepatitis B vaccination because hepatitis-induced liver cirrhosis can lead to cancer
- avoid smoking because smoking is associated with lung cancer and I know that non-smokers do get lung cancer as well
- get HPV vaccination because HPV ( Human Papillomavirus) is associated with cervical cancer
- eat a healthy diet
- protect yourself from Sun
Even though you can’t avoid this evil, you might want to pick it up as soon as possible so that early treatment can be done.
There are a few types of cancer that you can talk to your doctor about early detection and screening.
These cancer include,
- breast cancer
- cervical cancer
- colon and rectal cancer
- lung cancer
- prostate cancer
Conclusion
Your years of hard work and saving to be financially independent would be wasted if you do not take care of your health.
Achieving FIRE without a healthy body to enjoy would be the stupidest thing to do!
Taking regular medications to stay healthy is like running a marathon, you would never know who the winner is until the last 500 meters of the race.
Not taking your medications in short term would not make a difference! Chronic illnesses would kill you slowly but not instantly.
My ultimate aim of treating patients is hoping all of them outlive his/her peers with a sound mind, 4 moving limbs, and a big fat pocket!
