At the beginning of the year, I finally booked myself in to see our family GP after a lump near my glands had been annoying me for a number of months.
I also took with me a blood test script that had been pinned in my office for nearly two years. After having a good poke and prod of my neck, Doc diagnosed that he couldn’t really see any concern about said lump but asked to check out the rest of me while I was corralled in his clinic. It didn’t take long to find something else wrong.
Down on my puku he spotted a reasonably small abdominal hernia which he suggested should get fixed, if I wanted to, as it wasn’t going to get any smaller by itself.
He also reminded me to get my long overdue bloods done so I trundled off next door to get a needle in the arm.
Now, probably like many men my age (mid-40s), I have long held the opinion that my health is pretty good.
I eat pretty well, drink on occasion and lead a very active life on a hill country farm which serves me far better than any gym membership.
So, I was a bit shocked when I got my blood results back and the numbers were not good.
As we all know in farming, the data doesn’t lie and my cholesterol figures in particular were way higher than recommended.
The notes also went on to say I needed to reduce my intake of animal fats if I wanted to reduce my risk of CVD.
Not knowing what CVD was I asked Dr Google and was taken back once again when it told me it meant Cardiovascular Disease.
This was a real wake up call for me and should be a reminder to all farmers. We spend much of our lives dealing with numbers and data in our businesses yet presume that the same figures that correspond to our health are good without actually knowing.
So, I booked myself in for my hernia surgery (which went very smoothly) and set about trying to implement changes in my life so that when I go back for my next blood test, the numbers will be reducing.
Then as part of my newfound awareness of looking after myself I stumbled across Dr Tom.
For those that don’t know, Dr. Tom Mulholland is a former emergency department doctor, who decided too many Kiwi’s were becoming ill from preventable diseases.
He set out to become the ambulance at the top of the cliff, by turning a retro Chevy ambulance into a pop-up medical clinic, and is travelling around New Zealand testing people for pre-diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol and talking about smoking as part of a “Walk the Talk Wellness Tour” supported by PGG Wrightson.
I watched an incredible video he had filmed about a farming father, husband and son who had passed away suddenly and left huge holes in the lives of those left behind.
Thinking about my own family – and my less than ideal test results – I made contact with Tom and asked if his wellness tour might be heading through the Rangitikei any time soon.
Less than two weeks later he was sitting at our dinner table with my family and some local farmers having a chat about his mission.
He talked about his own story before doing some very low-key blood pressure testing and introducing us to his brainchild, the KYND app for health and wellness.
This is a risk assessment tool that measures health and wellbeing.
It is constructed by a series of questions, that provides users with scores for their physical (BODY), mental (MIND) and social (LIFE) health.
KYND measures things such as blood pressure, fatigue, anxiety and stress levels and uses a simple traffic light warning system to identify red (warning), amber (needs work) and green (doing good) areas.
It is a very simple system to use and once downloaded provides a means of measuring all these vital areas of our health and monitoring changes as they happen.
I would recommend all Kiwis need to have the KYND app on at least one device in their lives; Tom’s mission is to get 10,000 farmers to download it.
It is free, it is easy and probably most importantly the information it provides you is accurate and you can’t escape from it. And if you want Tom to come and visit your farm, just give him a call. He is a genuine good bastard that is doing an incredible job raising awareness about the most important aspects of our lives; our health.
As farmers, we are naturally kind in many aspects of our lives.
We are kind to our animals, we are kind to our families and we are kind to our communities.
But sometimes we need to be kind to ourselves.
