Take Good Care of Yourself

I'm not dying -- at least not right now-- and so there's no need for me to give my final words of advice to future generations, i.e. my son. But still you never know, and so I'd like to spend this time passing along some pearls of wisdom gleaned over the 72 years I have been alive. It all boils down to one sentence: Take good care of yourself.

We all know the basics: Don't smoke. Get enough sleep. Eat well. Exercise. But the most important one is don't have a heart attack requiring stents to be implanted and a year on Plavix, a.k.a. The Drug From Hell. Trust me, you never want to be on Plavix, or as it is known to its close friends and my pharmacist, Clopidogrel. An anti-coagulant used to prevent blood clots, it causes bleeding and bruising at the least provocation, so that within weeks after starting it you look like you have either been run over by an 18-wheeler or you've gone a few rounds in the ring with Floyd Mayweather.

Last night, half awake, I got up to get some water and tripped on a bedroom slipper on my way to the bathroom. Fortunately I only stumbled into the wall, my arm taking the brunt of the impact, and got back to bed in one piece. But this morning it looks like a baseball had been sewn inside my elbow during the night. This now matches the purple and green bumps on my right hip, my left thigh and both knees, all earned by innocuous, barely noticed and only partly remembered interactions with hard surfaces. This happens to all of us daily, way more than you notice if you are a normal person not on Plavix.

So I repeat: Don't have a heart attack! (See paragraph two for instructions.)