New Thing #19 – Have a full body MOT

Not as much of a crowd pleaser this week, more a personal triumph. After 28 years of abusing this fine, physical, oil-painting of a body, I finally relented to umpteen demands from my doctor and mother and booked myself in for a full body MOT. As new things go, this one was a biggy – it could throw up all manner of problems, issues, growths or concerns – and I have no shame in admitting I was a little nervous.

I’ve always liked the idea of having an MOT on your body. It strikes me as odd that we can pay a fortune to have our cars caressed and manhandled in the most intimate manner to track down even the smallest bit of rust or rattling, and yet we’re happy to let our bodies crumble without even a cursory glance in most cases. And if you’ll allow me to dwell on the car metaphor just a little longer, whilst Usain Bolt may be the Aston Martin DB9 of the human world, I’ve rather let myself go and now resemble more of rusting, wheezing 1970 Ford Cortina. So, as I hurtled towards the end of the first third of my life, I figured it was about time I got myself checked out.

After a fair bit of internet research, I managed to book myself onto an office-based health check scheme for an alarming amount of money. Ideally I wouldn’t have done this in the office, or indeed around anyone I know, but needs must and if I had to have my body fat checked in front of the nice girl from HR then so be it. The consultation seemed pretty comprehensive and covered checks for all the major nasties from Diabetes to cholesterol to body fat.

Yes...this is actual wee

The first hurdle inevitably came in the pre-test pack, which included a ludicrously detailed questionnaire (why on earth did they need to know what I ate for breakfast?) and a suspiciously empty vial. Sure enough, the forms demanded that I not only fast for four hours before the consultation, but also find the time and nerve to wee into a laughably small vial. The fasting would be tricky but weeing into a tiny little vial in the office would just be silly.

The morning of the test, I filled up on bagels and coffee (which didn’t go down well with the doc) and put on a clean pair of pants. Two hours before the test, I bundled myself into the only toilet cubicles on my floor and after many near misses and a very moist toilet seat managed to fill up the vial as per the instructions. Humiliated, and mildly disgusted, I legged it to my appointment clutching the warm pot of my own urine. New thing? I’m not sure I liked this one.

The test itself was actually a fascinating and truly enlightening experience. My doc, Gareth, talked me through the entire process and explained exactly what he’d be testing for. After reassuring me that he would not, as some colleagues had hilariously suggested, be doing the “cough and drop” he started by doing some routine weight and height measurements (6’5” and 100.3KG, fact fans). It was then onto the slightly more complex tests for body fat, cholesterol and diabetes which all involved holding freezing cold bits of metal to my body for some reason.

More tests followed, including a very brave Gareth sticking a bit of card into my wee pot. It culminated in a finger pricking session which allowed a surprising amount of my blood to be smeared over a variety of little machines. The whole process was fascinating and Gareth was a willing tutor, talking me through every test and remaining laudably calm in the face of my barrage of questions.

I’m not going to lay bare the gory details of the results, but fair to say I was pleasantly surprised at how healthy I was considering exercise for me is football once a week and a jog to the pub afterwards. I even apparently have an “above average amount of good cholesterol” whatever that means. This is balanced out of course by the “high” levels of bad cholesterol which apparently is a result of the bagels, pizzas and jogs to the pub. Who would have thought?

Gareth checks my blood pressure. Good job I have no biceps.