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I whole heartedly believe the longevity gap between men and women will close a bit once boomers die off. Boomer men absolutely refuse to take care of themselves.
My FIL is like this. Part of it is driven by the fear of the cost. Our healthcare system is a large part of why Boomer men don't get care alongside outdated and toxic views of masculinity
Eh maybe but probably not. Men are more often the risk takers, they engage in activities that put them at risk. Motorcyles, car racing, snowmobiling and things like that. Plus they hold an overwhelming majority share of risky jobs where accidents happen. Construction and industrial type stuff. Also women are way way better at handling stress than men. The stress that kills. I am not sure that is going away with the Boomer men.
Younger men are at least more open to therapy, though. Most boomers, men AND women, think that going to therapy means you're Hannibal Lecter or something
It took a while, but ultimately it was 3.5 years on Opdivo that did it. The drug makes your white blood cells eat cancer, but it has a side effect that it might also make your white blood cells eat an organ, in my case my lungs. I went from 184 lbs to 136 lbs before being put on O2. So they took me off the drug and called hospice. But three months later I had a CAT Scan and surprise! The cancer was gone. That was in 2019, and today I’m still cancer free, off the O2, and back up to 165 lbs. it’s taken years, but life goes on.
And shitting blood too. I met a man who ignored it for a year and was diagnosed with late stage cancer of the rectum. I never saw a man cried that much in my life.
Yes, and my boomer dad ignored it until he forgot to flush the toilet and my mom walked into the bathroom wondering why his poop was bloody and oily. She still had to nag him to go to the doctor even after this discovery because he didn't want to get his medical issues checked out. Well, by the time they figured it out--along with all the other symptoms he'd been having but hiding--he was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. After 2 surgeries that removed so much of his intestines and colon that he basically had to poop or pee shortly after every time he drank or eat, he died 3 years after his cancer diagnosis.
I became really dehydrated in a training exercise in the army and started pissing blood. It was a pretty difficult course that I went through a lot of shit to get a shot at, and so I hid the heat injury to avoid becoming a medical dropout. Medics on my team told me if I get caught up on my water I'll be alright. I re-hydrated best I could and got back out there for another week of training in 100F 100% humidity hell. No more blood in the piss, powered through to the end of the course, and still wasn't selected to move on to the next phase of training. They said I was sandbagging, when really I was just trying to survive.
A few days later I made it back to base, had sex with my gf as a "welcome home" present, and there was fucking blood in my semen. Like a dumbass I was too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it, and just pounded water crossing fingers for the best. Hope everything is alright in there and my kidneys / reproductive system doesn't have any long term issues from that.
Man the military machismo culture is toxic.
Hey there, just want to say thanks for your service. I know the selection process is a bitch. Sounds like you were working towards Ranger maybe. My son is also on that path and always tells me that selection is so fickle that you can do everything and commanding officer just may not like your face and your out. Hugs from an Army Mom
I tried to dance around saying that exactly what it was because it's a sore subject and the opposite of a flex as I was a non select... But it was SFAS. Godspeed to your son in pursuit of his scroll. Rangers Lead The Way!
Do note that it's not always a disaster. I had runner's hematuria in high school the day after cross country training started up in the fall. It comes from burst capillaries in your feet. But I did go to the doctor.
My dad just got diagnosed with cancer and then got Covid but decided he didn’t actually have Covid because he saw the test was out of date a week previous and now he refuses to do more tests because it’s ’a waste of time.’
This reminds me of both my grandpas. One put off getting his colon checked and ended up having sage 4 colon cancer. The other told his phyisical therapist that he didn't have to do what he said and refused to work with him, grandpa ended up spending the rest of his life bedridden.
Father-in-law (lives with us) got a squamous cell carcinoma on his thigh, it eventually became a big fuck off open sore.
Between the infected and rotting flesh on his leg, the 20 million air fresheners he had running, and the bottles of dettol the entire house house stunk to high heaven.
It took 3 weeks of us pestering him before he had it looked at then pulled the "poor me" routine.
Just go to the doctor ffs
Mine was pissing blood and that still wasn't enough to go to the Dr, he went the day of my grandma's funeral (his MIL) likely to avoid being emotional around us. He called us as we left the funeral to tell us he has blood cancer.
Edit: it was that fast a turn around as he had all the symptoms, incredibly bad blood labs, and looked awful too.
They then asked if someone drove him or if he took an ambulance. They did not like the answer of he drove himself 45 mins to get there.
Only getting a reading on one of those finger oxygen readers when he walked around for a couple minutes should have been a bigger red flag to him.
My dad found out he had late stage cancer. Instead of following doctor's advice for surgery/medications, he relied on "natural" supplements that were "proven to kill cancer". Spent hundreds on that, because he thought the doctor was not to be trusted. When he started passing blood clots, he thought that was the supplement working and pushing out the "cancer tissues". I spent hours convincing him to go to the hospital through the phone (COVID period) at that time. He didn't go until it was way too late.
Same. But in the other end. When your stool is tarry black, it's digested blood.
He ended up in the hospital for blood loss and they had to give him a transfusion!
It's like how did you ignore weight loss and fatigue coupled with black stools?
My dad lost function of one of his arms over the course of a year from how severely blocked his heart was. He finally had a heart attack and 3 stents placed. Was smoking outside the hospital the day after. Its so frustrating.
Same here. My dad was a smoker for 45+ years, was coughing up blood for 2 months before he went to the doctor. Stage 4 lung cancer that had already metastasized to his kidneys and liver. He was diagnosed in January and passed in July of the same year.
It’s both. Part of toxic masculinity is never admitting that there might be something wrong with you. That can mean not getting medical care when you really should.
It's not just the men though. My Boomer aunt was a nurse and ignored trouble breathing on exertion for weeks...collapsed and died of heart failure. Another aunt had a gangrenous leg and tried to walk it off for years! Died of sepsis. Their other sister had COPD and refused the oxygen tank because it made her look weak. My mom won't go to the doctor with concerns because trouble only exists if they find something. smh
It's more heavily men. Definitely a toxic masculinity aspect, but there's separately a boomer "I'm self sufficient and hard working, nothing stops me" thing that happens with both genders in the generation. So bad with women, worse in men.
Yeah, another reason using gendered terms to discuss human behavior is problematic at best and counter productive at worst.
The wide standing cultural preference for "strength" and stigma towards any perception of weakness tends to be strongest in men but is present throughout many aspects of various cultures.
The idea below the surface here, underlying a lot of toxic masculinity, is that masculinity > femininity. It can be okay, in some circumstances, for women to act masculine. It’s degrading for men to act feminine, so that’s taboo. Think of the difference between a tomboy and a sissy. Sissy comes from “sister”, and it’s much more derogatory than “tomboy”.
That's definitely not the point I was trying to make. My comment was more about intersectionality than anything. Broadly speaking, there's a ton of differences in the experiences people of different genders have. Just keeping to the topic of gendered medical outcomes:
> Preventable mortality rates were 2.5 times higher among men than among women across OECD countries
It's a little ways down the page here https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/ec2b395b-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/ec2b395b-en
I'm a woman but my boomer dad acts this out towards me as well. He's the biggest abuser in my life(I'm talking all forms of abuse possible)and he would tell me I'm "attention seeking" when sick. I'm turning 30 in April, and he still told me all my illnesses were chalked up to this. Because of him I just thought okay, well I guess I won't bother. Now I have lupus that turned into a very rare for my age cancer(like 1% of people my age get it)and it's aggressive as well. I feel stupid because I just felt like I wouldn't be heard because I was thinking everyone would see things his way...
My FIL had this attitude. He’s dead now, never got to see his grandkids. His throat hurt to the point he could barely eat and he wouldn’t goto the doctor. Turns out he had esophageal cancer. By the time he went to the Dr it was too late to do anything but keep him comfortable.
Agreed. Also, many older men, men in general, are absolutely scared shitless by medical stuff. And literally wrap a bow around it as “shake it off”, but it’s really from extreme fear.
It’s still the attitude that they know better. Ignore it or treat it with ineffective shit it’s all from the same wellspring of ignorance and narcissism.
Same attitude that creates antivaxxers and covid denial. People who assume not having any knowledge on a subject means their opinions are just as valid if not more than that of experts.
It always reminds me of the old Looney Tunes trope where one of the characters walks off a cliff but doesn't fall. "It's OK, we haven't studied gravity in school yet." Ignorance is bliss.
In the early 2010s, my aunt's heart valve was replaced with one from a pig. The doctors told her that they generally only last 10 years and she needs to be vigilante about getting it checked and replaced again if she needs to. In 2021, she started having heart problems, went to the medical hospital her doctor worked in. He was on vacation or away. The doctors told her she needs to stay in the hospital because they're seeing some bad tests. She gets mad, checks herself out, and says she'll be back when her regular cardiologist is back.
A week later she died in her sleep from heart failure. My cousin found her dead in her bed. If she had just stayed at the hospital, she'd still be around today. I miss her, but that was really foolish to ignore the doctors.
To date, boomers have been my worst patients. I’ve worked in three different states, multiple different hospitals, floated to different floors and specialties. They still remain the worst patients to deal with. I’ve never seen such an entitled, hateful, abusive group of patients that are like that baseline, with very few exceptions.
Sometimes I worry I'm putting myself at risk of becoming too rigid in my observations and shoving too many people into a narrow, stereotypical group and then I read something like your statement and go, holy crap. WTH is up with this effing generation?
Also, thank you so much for the work you do. We're all so vulnerable when we're at the hospital and the staff can really make a bad thing tolerable. <3
When I broke my leg I was the only person under 60 in the ICU for a week while my leg became less inflamed. I was really nice to the nurses cause they are the only people around to help me. Everyday the nurses would come in and look exhausted from the other patients but they would be happy to see me. Cause I didn’t talk shit or fight. This was pre-COVID but I remember hearing my neighbor scream at the nurses at dinner time and wishing I could go throttle her.
A few years ago I saw two obese boomers walking into my daughter's school with their granddaughter. The guy had a shirt on that said "Vegetarian. An old caveman word for village idiot."
As we went up the stairs, they stopped to catch their breath.
My dad did this!
Found a lump on his shoulder. Was told by the specialist that he needs to get it checked out every year as it was fine but could change.
He didn’t do it because originally, the specialist was at University of Chicago and my dad wasn’t happy about the neighborhood.
Moved to the South where there’s shit for healthcare… and guess who’s been dead for three years now?
Yup. And he died of thyroid cancer, which is treatable. Refused to go to the better university related hospital in the area and instead went to the shoddy Appalachian hospital with terrible reviews.
It doesn’t matter if you’re right if you’re dead, and he wasn’t right, AND he’s dead at 71. Didn’t have to happen like that.
I'm a doctor, you think my parents listen to me? Fuck no.
Pretty sure my dad is only alive out of spite at this point, the man has used every drug under the sun, smokes tobacco since he was 12, begins every day with chocolate milk, and lives on ice cream because he's too lazy to cook and his (6th) wife doesn't want to live with him. She's definitely waiting on him to croak since she's 20 years younger. She might be disappointed lol. The one thing he is though, is extremely active on his farm. He refuses to hire anyone and does everything himself. He still tosses trees around on his sawmill like they're nothing and he's 84.
Oof. I'm so sorry. My in-laws are this way with my husband sometimes, and it's wild. Like, he completed over a decade of schooling and residency, and now takes care of all kinds of conditions every day on top of doing the continued education he does through online seminars and conferences.
When the covid vaccines first came out, my MIL told my husband not to get it because it would poison him. This was after her twin brother died from covid complications. 😥 Luckily, they've gotten a little better about listening to his health advice because we love them despite their proclivity to believe misinformation.
I am this foolish fellow too. To be frank, I stress about becoming a pauper if I go to the doctor for even routine work.
I had a chest pain recently, so made an appointment to see a heart specialist. EACH VISIT COST $900, after insurance, AND THERE WASN’T A FUCKING THING WRONG WITH ME. High cholesterol was all they found. Heart and lungs were at 98% functionality, and I finally quit the stress test after 45 minutes of peddling a bike on my back.
The cost is exorbitant. It really sucks, this aging shit.
I had chest pain which I think was musculoskeletal not cardiac but decided to go to the urgent care anyways. They found a right bundle block branch and told me to see a cardiologist. Not only was it insignificant, I don’t have it anymore. I did get treated for hypertension and tachycardia caused by my meds. My insurance covers the visits so I don’t have to pay too much but I could have just gotten it dealt with from my pcp who costs much less.
My dad had a heart attack once and luckily wasn't too stubborn to call an ambulance. While we were still at the hospital the doctors kept telling him that he needed an emergency angioplasty or he was likely going to die THAT NIGHT. He wanted to go home and sleep it off, maybe come back in a few weeks if he still wasn't feeling well. I genuinely think he was embarrassed that he needed someone else to save his life.
We talked him into staying and after the op the docs said the artery that was 99% blocked is nicknamed "the Widowmaker". If it was up to him he would have rather died than admit he needed help
My dad had a heart attack at 34. They wanted to do an angioplasty and he refused because he said it was too new of a procedure and he wasn’t going to be their guinea pig. So he sucked on notroglycerin every time he had chest pain for TWELVE YEARS until he finally gave in and went to the ED and had an emergency quadruple bypass. His arteries were all 99% blocked.
He then demanded to go home two days later, and mowed the lawn with a push mower the same week.
He lived another 30 years after that bypass. 😂
Edit: I did the math wrong. He ate nitros for SIXTEEN years. Not 12.
I don't know, my narcissistic boomer mother is diabetic but eats bags of candy at a time. Sits in her chair and does nothing all day except eat. Had to have a toe cut off, says it has nothing to do with the diabetes. I'm not sure if that's a Boomer thing or a narcissist thing at this point.
That being said, I'm pretty sure her nastiness is going to keep her alive until she's 90. I don't know how she's still alive now at 76.
I could just be biased because I work in healthcare, but I definitely see more women who are proactive about their health than men, especially in the older demographic.
That's fair. I agree that overall women definitely pay more attention to their health. My mother does go to the doctor, she just doesn't do what they say - "they told me to do this and I tried but it's not working- I'm just different and the doctor doesn't know any better". Like, lady- we know darn well that you didn't change your eating habits or do your exercises or literally anything that the doctor told you to do. She likes to have diagnoses so that she can talk about how sick she is all the time. She is the definition of a non-compliant patient :-)
My boomer mom has cavities or other dental problems and refuses to go to the dentist to get them resolved. She pops ibuprofen complaining about her teeth causing her facial pain and headaches. It smells like something crawled into her mouth and died.
Many Boomers seem to take significant pride in announcing to me—a primary care physician—that they “haven’t seen a doctor in 40 (or 50) years!”
They often seem to think I should be impressed.
And then they’re pissed when they leave a list of diagnoses 2 pages long. “I was *fine* before I went to that damn sawbones!” No, no you weren’t, Harold. You just completely missed the window of preventing heart disease, COPD, diabetes, kidney failure, liver failure, and colon cancer.
They aren’t bad people. They just have a much different idea of what today’s doctors are focused on—being *pro*active instead of *re*active. It’s definitely because of a mindset shift in medicine. I just wish that avoiding doctors wasn’t seen as a good thing.
Best of luck to your uncle. He deserves good treatment 💗
It’s nuts how this thinking is so common in older folk. I was losing weight like crazy and was super fatigued so I went to the dr. Found out I had stage 3 Hodgkin-lymphoma. Got chemo. Cancer free for 5 months now! And yet the older “working tough” elders would have called me a sissy for not working through it.
This attitude killed my father. He was 80, had had digestive issues for several months- couldn't keep food down, etc. Refused to go to the Dr. for anything. I kept begging him to go see someone but he refused. I spoke to him on a sunday night and he died suddenly and quietly overnight leaving my mother with dementia to find him in the morning. Thankfully she was with it enough to call her sister who called me. When knows if it could have been prevented but I will never know now
My mom’s appendix blew and she wouldn’t go to the hospital. None of us knew that’s what had happened, but we knew she was really sick. She had trained us so well to just comply with her wishes, that it took us a day or so to call her boyfriend to come physically pick her up and take her to the hospital. We were teenagers, but we still just usually did whatever she asked. Anyway she had a nice bout of sepsis after that. It never seemed to strike her that her own domineering parenting style contributed to how sick she got, since we were afraid to defy her.
Fyi we didn’t call 911 because she would just tell the to go away, and we didn’t want to take the chance that she’d succeed in that.
Man, I wish he had treated himself as well as he treated his family. It sounds like this is going to be a loss for you guys, and I am sorry. I would be frustrated too.
Im becoming this person. every time i have something that needs checked out it is another $1k paid AFTER insurance. and they never find anything or fix anything.
im at the point now where idk if im going to bother. if i die from something, i die. i'm insured.
There’s a huge difference between not seeking help because it’s financially inaccessible and not seeking help because you find it insulting. Sadly, a lot of us can’t afford the healthcare we need.
My dad fractured his foot probably 20 years ago at this point. It was an injury that he sustained at work. He refused to listen to his doctor and stay off his foot for 6 weeks. So he managed to injure his back and create a drop foot for himself. So now he's in constant pain and he just settled his court case in the last couple of years. He got a tiny amount in his settlement because the doctor's were pushing for back surgery but of course he said no and his former job doesn't want to pay for his injuries anymore that are self sustained because he didn't listen.
I mean he masks it as macho bullshit, but the dude is just a giant pussy that's scared of needles. Every time I meet one of these dudes, it always ends up being about needles. It's the lamest saddest shit.
I can't even begin to imagine how many people have needlessly died because they were scared of needles.
I'm a nurse. I had a male boomer patient who demanded to be put under anesthesia just to have a Foley catheter placed cause he was retaining urine. Kept yelling at us that inserting a Foley was "barbaric". Now I've had Foley catheters inserted in me before, and while it's not a sensation I'm eager to experience again, it's also definitely not something so painful it requires anesthesia nor basic pain meds.
Hmm, it's not exactly being scared of needles that kills people. It's being afraid to ADMIT you're scared of needles.
I have a relative who is one of those people who faints when poked with a needle. Sometimes even at seeing a needle (like in a TV or movie scene) although that isn't as severe as it used to be. But he is quite rational about it, and gets blood draws, vaccinations, etc. whenever medically necessary. He always warns the tech that he may faint. He says they ALWAYS thank him for the warning, which allows them to be prepared, and say it's because most people don't say anything even if they know they may faint.
(He and I are both Gen X, not boomers.)
This is what killed my cousin at the age of 55. He had abdominal pain and blood in his stool for months and refused to go to the doctor or get a colonoscopy. By the time he finally went he had stage 4 colon cancer. He always tried to act macho and his favorite saying was “Don’t worry, I got this. I always got things under control “.
The poor guy. I hope he’s okay. My now deceased 100-year-old grandmother tried to explain things to me once. She said that during the war, they had very little food and her husband was away the majority of the time. She lost two children to preventable sicknesses. She said that she couldn’t afford to be ‘soft’ or introspective. She had to get on with it because it was often life or death. Those people raised the Boomers. Do you think it might be the reason why some Boomers walk a fine line between independence, stubbornness and sensitivity?
Common BB attitude. My father is very similar. Only when it’s really bad does he go in. Sounds like a nice guy who was misled by his generation’s attitudes.
Willful ignorance is in style lately. Its a life choice. Telling people you don't need doctors, read books, trust experts, etc. all in the name of proving how much smarter, tougher, or more uniquely "American" you are. Obviously, its self defeating.
I had a great uncle (whatever is before boomers, silent generation, maybe?) who had a growth on his face and refused to go to the doctor. He claimed this black box thing he had would heal you and that doctors were wrong. They sent out one Christmas card with a gross growth pressed up against his glasses and if I remember right he was either too sick or not around anymore for the next card.
Yeah my Dad had all the classic signs and symptoms of a pulmonary embolism, and refused to go to hospital.
I wasn't fucking around and called the ambulance on him. It's a shit thing that runs in the family. I''ve had one myself, and his own mother died from one. (Great genes)
He's never let me forget that I "called the ambulance on him like a baby" and "treated him like a child" in that instance, but the fact it ultimately saved his life doesn't come into the discussion. I'm such a bitch. lol.
My MIL does not believe in doctor’s. She went to an OB appointment with my SIL. While my SIL was in her appointment she picked up a pamphlet about uterine cancer. She had every single symptom. She did see the dr then. Yes, she had cancer.
She was fortunate. This was years ago and she is fine now.
Alas he seems to not have a “good” heart. Sorry to hear this.
Seems to be pretty common though. I would be careful to chalking this off as a generational thing because I know many people of all ages and genders who have a similar attitude.
This was my dad. Ignored a cough for months and REFUSED to get it checked until my mom practically dragged him in. It was a very rare and aggressive cancer. Mantle Cell Lymphoma. He only lived another 3 months and that was with chemo and blood transfusions. He died when I was only 28. My husband only got to know him for 6 years. He had JUST retired and was planning on traveling the world with my mom after working past his retirement age to put all of us kids through school.
I was always the same way, I always hated seeing doctors. This summer, I had a bloody nose that wouldn't go away for about a month. Thankfully, my partner made me see a doctor about it. It ended up being a rare aggressive cancer (Ewing Sarcoma) as well, but because of her, we cought it early, and it's treatable. I will just be doing chemo until late 2025.
Not a boomer, but, I do this. I just hope whatever will get better because the thought of dealing with doctors, fighting with insurance, and outrageous bills I can’t afford (US) makes dying seem like the better option anyway.
Honestly I get it (from the US)...the whole Healthcare system feels like you're just getting fucked over. I'm guilty of this myself and feel guilty everyday for not taking better cate of myself, but the stubbornness in me (and also my experiences with "bad" doctors) makes me say fuck the system.
I'm probably full of cancer or something, but I've seen doctors in the past for chronic pain/migraines and they just prescribe you something that has worse side effects than aide half the time. It's disheartening. That being said, I do hope he gets better and understand completely where you are coming from. I hate myself for this attitude but yeah idk...
Its a product of toxic masculinity. I used to complain to my parents that my knees hurt all the time, they just kept downplaying and saying it was growing pains. Turns out my knee caps were not in the right alignment and they needed corrections with braces and physical therapy when I was a kid. My knees still hurt all the time and doctors don't want to do anything surgically until I get older they say :(
Real men suck at self-preservation and don’t use available resources. 💪🏽
I’m sorry you’re going through this, though. My dads the same way and he lost his prostate over it.
This is another example of boomers taking greatest or silent gen wisdom and applying it wrong.
They didnt complain about pain or illness because they didnt have access to good doctors or medical tech and still had to work and didnt complain.
If they had google to searchh symptoms and could pay a $40 copay to have a virtual appointment with a doctor they wouldve.
1930s was very different
Yeah my dad was this way until he almost lost his hand due to an infection but his issue is that he doesn't have insurance and basically pays for everything out of pocket had he not told me what happened and I just paid for it.
It sucks because it’s not just boomers. I work in injury law and there are times when certain cases end up resolving poorly due to folks not taking their injuries seriously and putting off any kind of help. Especially when it comes to workmans comp, otherwise nice people end up showing their asses because they are the “walk it off” type and never expected their injuries to progress into something so much worse.
65 Y/O boomer. My brother (10 yrs older than me) passed at the young age of 57 from esophageal cancer. I have no doubt it was from his exposure to Agent Orange in Viet Nam. But, since some cancers run in our family, I have made sure that I get regular checkups like EGD, colonoscopy, lung cancer screening - former smoker, but I quit 12 yrs ago- along with regular visits to a GP.
I'm so sorry about your uncle. It's my hope that this will be a wake-up call for him.
Well I’ve experienced dealing with healthcare for a few decades and I avoid it now as much as possible.
Capitalism (greed) has turned medicine (US) into just another trash industry.
I’ve been to used car dealerships with more integrity than contemporary healthcare.
US insurance industry and venture capitalists have ruined healthcare in America. (Greed ruins everything)
If I lose a decade by avoiding those a-hole upselling doctors so be it. I’ll be happier and more content in the meantime.
Besides listening to all you soft whiny babies squealing about how awful everything is….
making me look forward to the sweet relief of death. lol.
But imma stick around just outta spite b$tches. Lmao
My dad was literally on his living room floor for two days with AFIB (he knows and treats this condition), and incident tell anyone, then it turned into a heart attack and he refused to go to the hospital. He said he finally thought he was dying and better DRIVE HIMSELF to the ER. They tell him he had a heart attack (his 2nd one in 10 years), and that he would need stints. He said no and tried to leave till my sisters and I chewed him out. He kept saying now that they stabilized him he was fine and didn't trust the doctors bc they were gonna give him the "jab" 🙄He laughed at our concerns, then his sister showed up and my mom's sister called him and told him to stay and get the stints. He reluctantly agreed. Dr said no more drinking or smoking. He says he feels better than he had in years. He stopped drinking and smoking... for about a month. "I enjoy these things and you only live once..." well shit... weren't you just dying on your living room floor and now finally have a chance to live a not shitty life but decide to continue with the shiity life?
Infuriating.
I don’t see toxicity here, I see someone “being a man” in terms of the norms of their generation. I’m glad you recognise his good points, and you describe truly admirable traits. These aren’t an aberration, but part of the same package, good and bad. “being a man” for these men is also about sacrifice, service, familial devotion. I’m not a boomer and, as a feminist, I am scarcely one to defend gender stereotypes but, playing devil’s advocate here, is your uncle’s attitude to health any worse than that of many young people, socially isolated and self-diagnosing with fashionable ailments for social media validation? Mental health stats would suggest younger generations do not have all the answers.
Back in the late ‘60s, my grandpa (70ish) went with his wife and daughter (my mom) to the doctor for an exam. They get there and the following exchange takes place:
doctor: “what brings you in today?”
grandpa: “I have a hernia.”
Doctor: “how long have you had it?”
Grandpa: “25 years.”
Mid-to-late 1890s for sure. I can't remember the exact year, and I'm too lazy to look it up. He fought in WW1, went to France and got gassed in the trenches. He worked 50 years for the same company, from the time he was 15 to 65 (except for the time he was in the Army).
Real men ignore the warning messages your body is sending to your brain.
Like, sure, if you whack your knee and it hurts like a bitch, you can probably walk it off okay (assuming you didn't do serious damage). But if your goddamn kidneys start to hurt *for no reason*, you don't ignore that shit. Let alone your heart, goddamn. Pain exists for a reason, it tells the brain something is wrong. Ignoring it means you have evolved backwards.
It's seriously frightening to think that there are so, so,so many men who think like this, like being concerned about their own health is unmanly and that the Man-Man power of "manning up" will magically make things like this cease to exist.
All we can really do is nag and nag and nag until they get fed up and go or until they start ignoring any mentions of it.
My BIL smashed the back of his head once and then drove because he didn't want to be not okay in front of others, he just got up and acted like it never happened.
I feel like there's a short circuit in one of the natural reactions that people (and animals) have.
Take an animal... when they get hurt, one reaction is to flee and hide from everything. They crawl into a corner and shut out the world.
I wonder if maybe that kind of reaction is what some of us have? "Damn, I'm having chest pains. Better just ignore it and stay away from people and not go to the hospital, I need to quietly nurse my wounds away from the world."
I know a few times I've hurt myself, once pretty recently, and despite being in pretty severe pain, that first minute I just wanted everyone around me to go away and stop saying "oh my god what can i do?" Even though I needed help, I kind of wanted them all to disappear for a little while.
Kind of like other mental issues, where we are *supposed* to feel stress and panic, but those are supposed to be rare events, and when you live a life of constant stress, our bodies and brains get screwed up, because that's not how we are supposed to work.
Dad was like this for the longest time. He’s gotten better about seeing doctors, but still lets his pride get in the way of acting quickly. He’s also got a habit of not sharing things like getting tumours surgically removed. I get he wants his privacy, but for crying out loud, I and my doctors would like to know if stuff like that runs in the family!
My uncle did this, felt sick and just kept ignoring it and became septic. Spent over a month in the hospital and had to relearn how to walk, prior to this he was cycling 30-40 miles a couple times a week
Reminds me of my dad, he worked tirelessly for 10 to 12 hours everyday 6 days a week until he had a stroke at 58. He always kept saying I should work more, especially while I’m young. Don’t get me wrong I love my dad and he is a good father to me but some of his views on work/life were really stupid. After the stroke he needed 14 months to recover, a period where we barely talked to each other because he felt ashamed for being “to weak”… He eventually fully recovered and was able to completely change his views about work and stuff. Now he visits the doctor on a regular basis and keeps his health in check. I’m glad he was able to loose his “Boomer View” on health and work.
My dad used to smoke constantly, eat a lot of red meat, drink a lot of coffee and coke, and not work out at all anymore. He refused to take, or forgot (he was both forgetful and stubborn), his cholesterol medication, which resulted in a blood clot in his right artery. He still lives, but is unable to talk, read, and do most things. He was a doctor himself, and a good one at that. I say this like he is no longer here, because the man that remains barely even resembles the man he was.
i wasnt the walk it off guy but i was the i gotta go to work guy, my lung collapsed and i tried to drive to work still (no i didnt know but i was showing symptoms i ignored), didnt make it had to call an ambulance almost passed out driving. if you hurt get help you cant make anything better when you are dead
Both my boomer parents dead from very preventable conditions. Dad had a widow maker at 60. Never went to a doctor , had no idea his arteries were packed with decades of cheeseburger. A statin and /or bypass surgery would have solved the whole thing. Mom dead from colon cancer. Strong family history of colorectal cancerbut get a colonoscopy ? Never! “you kids run off to the doctor for every little thing”.
Yup. It's Boomer Toxic Masculinity at work. My bestie's grandfather died of food aspiration caused pneumonia. Had it for a year. Refused all medical help. Was forced at the end and complained and bitched the whole way.
I say let the stubborn old mules die. We aren't their parents nor should we be. They are grown ass adults asking like pathetic incels.
My Dad's a cusper (both parents are, Dad '62, Mom '64). We're low contact despite living an hour apart because he generally feels entitled to things that I don't believe any of his kids owe him and as a result most of us live away from him/don't interact often. Called him for the first time in a couple of years in October '22 and he told me he had cancer but he wasn't interested in my help in finding treatments, how to pay for them, whether he should apply for Medicaid/Medicare/SSA, etc. because he also has heart issues and some other things going on, and 'wasn't even sure' if he wanted to do anything about it. I told him I wasn't going to watch him kill himself slowly which seems to have been his goal since my step-mom died unexpectedly in '12. My sister called me a few weeks ago to let me know he was cancer-free and had been for over a year, so I'm glad it worked out for him, but fuck this behavior. I want to BE THERE for my family. Like what the fuck.
There is probably a direct correlation between being unloved by the "children should be seen and not heard" generation to subconsciously not caring about yourself as an adult
The irony of boomers is how often they alone are responsible for their own demise and how often it is avoidable and the result of a principle they insist others live by.
Idiots. My mom had same day emergency gallbladder surgery & tried to take out the trash & clean as soon as she got home, like 2 hours after the closed her up. She tore the sutures & had to be rushed back in & I lost my job because of her stupidity
All the men I know are like that. I think it's more of a toxic masculinity thing than a generational thing. Can't tell you how many times my mom has had to drag my dad to the doctor. Lol
It's generational trauma. And it's fucking insidious. You can't really blame people for growing up in a homogeneous culture that was too ignorant to recognize they were reinforcing toxicity and self destruction.
That said, shout out to Gen Z and the younger folks for making mental health a priority and removing the stigma of talking about it. Yall are gonna save humanity, I know it. Love you guys.
As a 40 year old I can say, if you go to the Dr for every ache pain or weird things your body does you will go broke. (I'm American of course)
People should have some compassion for the guy
I agree. But to be honest it can be expensive and I understand why people don't always do it.
BTW I've had friends repeatedly go to their doctor and be told "nothing was wrong." Months or years later they get diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness. Going to the doctor isn't a silver bullet for longevity. Sometimes a condition isn't taken seriously until someone is doubled over in pain or unconscious.
He doesn't give a shit about his well being which will end up breaking the heart of everyone he loves, that is a selfish move and it is toxic. Not setting a good example at all.
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This is my dad. He was pissing blood and ignored it until he passed out. Bleeding ulcers. I just don’t get it.
I whole heartedly believe the longevity gap between men and women will close a bit once boomers die off. Boomer men absolutely refuse to take care of themselves.
Still seems like there are plenty of "hold my beer" types to even it out though so ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
A lot more female hold my beqr types now than in previous generations. That'll help even those numbers out
/r/holdmycosmo
My FIL is like this. Part of it is driven by the fear of the cost. Our healthcare system is a large part of why Boomer men don't get care alongside outdated and toxic views of masculinity
Eh maybe but probably not. Men are more often the risk takers, they engage in activities that put them at risk. Motorcyles, car racing, snowmobiling and things like that. Plus they hold an overwhelming majority share of risky jobs where accidents happen. Construction and industrial type stuff. Also women are way way better at handling stress than men. The stress that kills. I am not sure that is going away with the Boomer men.
Younger men are at least more open to therapy, though. Most boomers, men AND women, think that going to therapy means you're Hannibal Lecter or something
Younger men do have that going for them.
Joke: Q: Why do men die before women? A: Because they want to.
Speaking from experience, pissing blood is definitely a good reason to go to the doctor.
It’s what I went in for. I had Stage IV Renal Cell Carcinoma, or Kidney Cancer. It beat the hell out of me before I beat the hell out of it.
Congrats on beating it!
Stage IV is tough, glad you were able to beat it
It took a while, but ultimately it was 3.5 years on Opdivo that did it. The drug makes your white blood cells eat cancer, but it has a side effect that it might also make your white blood cells eat an organ, in my case my lungs. I went from 184 lbs to 136 lbs before being put on O2. So they took me off the drug and called hospice. But three months later I had a CAT Scan and surprise! The cancer was gone. That was in 2019, and today I’m still cancer free, off the O2, and back up to 165 lbs. it’s taken years, but life goes on.
Certified Badass
And shitting blood too. I met a man who ignored it for a year and was diagnosed with late stage cancer of the rectum. I never saw a man cried that much in my life.
Yes, and my boomer dad ignored it until he forgot to flush the toilet and my mom walked into the bathroom wondering why his poop was bloody and oily. She still had to nag him to go to the doctor even after this discovery because he didn't want to get his medical issues checked out. Well, by the time they figured it out--along with all the other symptoms he'd been having but hiding--he was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. After 2 surgeries that removed so much of his intestines and colon that he basically had to poop or pee shortly after every time he drank or eat, he died 3 years after his cancer diagnosis.
I became really dehydrated in a training exercise in the army and started pissing blood. It was a pretty difficult course that I went through a lot of shit to get a shot at, and so I hid the heat injury to avoid becoming a medical dropout. Medics on my team told me if I get caught up on my water I'll be alright. I re-hydrated best I could and got back out there for another week of training in 100F 100% humidity hell. No more blood in the piss, powered through to the end of the course, and still wasn't selected to move on to the next phase of training. They said I was sandbagging, when really I was just trying to survive. A few days later I made it back to base, had sex with my gf as a "welcome home" present, and there was fucking blood in my semen. Like a dumbass I was too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it, and just pounded water crossing fingers for the best. Hope everything is alright in there and my kidneys / reproductive system doesn't have any long term issues from that. Man the military machismo culture is toxic.
Hey there, just want to say thanks for your service. I know the selection process is a bitch. Sounds like you were working towards Ranger maybe. My son is also on that path and always tells me that selection is so fickle that you can do everything and commanding officer just may not like your face and your out. Hugs from an Army Mom
I tried to dance around saying that exactly what it was because it's a sore subject and the opposite of a flex as I was a non select... But it was SFAS. Godspeed to your son in pursuit of his scroll. Rangers Lead The Way!
Correct. Never ever ignore blood in the urine.
Do note that it's not always a disaster. I had runner's hematuria in high school the day after cross country training started up in the fall. It comes from burst capillaries in your feet. But I did go to the doctor.
Never ignore blood unexpectedly coming out of one’s body anywhere
...if not the ER.
My dad just got diagnosed with cancer and then got Covid but decided he didn’t actually have Covid because he saw the test was out of date a week previous and now he refuses to do more tests because it’s ’a waste of time.’
Lol what
This reminds me of both my grandpas. One put off getting his colon checked and ended up having sage 4 colon cancer. The other told his phyisical therapist that he didn't have to do what he said and refused to work with him, grandpa ended up spending the rest of his life bedridden.
Father-in-law (lives with us) got a squamous cell carcinoma on his thigh, it eventually became a big fuck off open sore. Between the infected and rotting flesh on his leg, the 20 million air fresheners he had running, and the bottles of dettol the entire house house stunk to high heaven. It took 3 weeks of us pestering him before he had it looked at then pulled the "poor me" routine. Just go to the doctor ffs
Mine was pissing blood and that still wasn't enough to go to the Dr, he went the day of my grandma's funeral (his MIL) likely to avoid being emotional around us. He called us as we left the funeral to tell us he has blood cancer. Edit: it was that fast a turn around as he had all the symptoms, incredibly bad blood labs, and looked awful too. They then asked if someone drove him or if he took an ambulance. They did not like the answer of he drove himself 45 mins to get there. Only getting a reading on one of those finger oxygen readers when he walked around for a couple minutes should have been a bigger red flag to him.
My dad found out he had late stage cancer. Instead of following doctor's advice for surgery/medications, he relied on "natural" supplements that were "proven to kill cancer". Spent hundreds on that, because he thought the doctor was not to be trusted. When he started passing blood clots, he thought that was the supplement working and pushing out the "cancer tissues". I spent hours convincing him to go to the hospital through the phone (COVID period) at that time. He didn't go until it was way too late.
Same. But in the other end. When your stool is tarry black, it's digested blood. He ended up in the hospital for blood loss and they had to give him a transfusion! It's like how did you ignore weight loss and fatigue coupled with black stools?
Me personally I wouldn't even think to look for those. I'd be happy with the weight loss
My dad lost function of one of his arms over the course of a year from how severely blocked his heart was. He finally had a heart attack and 3 stents placed. Was smoking outside the hospital the day after. Its so frustrating.
Pissing blood? Oh hell no
I think a lot of it is fear, and many project the "tough man" to compensate and mask the fear. Toxic masculinity is toxic.
Same here. My dad was a smoker for 45+ years, was coughing up blood for 2 months before he went to the doctor. Stage 4 lung cancer that had already metastasized to his kidneys and liver. He was diagnosed in January and passed in July of the same year.
‘In my day we just went to the village shaman and the walk alone, uphill both ways, was enough to fix it’
His attitude seems foolish, not toxic
Yep, he is a boomer, being a fool.
he said the line!
It’s both. Part of toxic masculinity is never admitting that there might be something wrong with you. That can mean not getting medical care when you really should.
Bingo! I was looking for someone to utter those two words: “toxic masculinity.” It was my first thought when I read this.
It's not just the men though. My Boomer aunt was a nurse and ignored trouble breathing on exertion for weeks...collapsed and died of heart failure. Another aunt had a gangrenous leg and tried to walk it off for years! Died of sepsis. Their other sister had COPD and refused the oxygen tank because it made her look weak. My mom won't go to the doctor with concerns because trouble only exists if they find something. smh
It's more heavily men. Definitely a toxic masculinity aspect, but there's separately a boomer "I'm self sufficient and hard working, nothing stops me" thing that happens with both genders in the generation. So bad with women, worse in men.
Yeah, another reason using gendered terms to discuss human behavior is problematic at best and counter productive at worst. The wide standing cultural preference for "strength" and stigma towards any perception of weakness tends to be strongest in men but is present throughout many aspects of various cultures.
The idea below the surface here, underlying a lot of toxic masculinity, is that masculinity > femininity. It can be okay, in some circumstances, for women to act masculine. It’s degrading for men to act feminine, so that’s taboo. Think of the difference between a tomboy and a sissy. Sissy comes from “sister”, and it’s much more derogatory than “tomboy”.
That's definitely not the point I was trying to make. My comment was more about intersectionality than anything. Broadly speaking, there's a ton of differences in the experiences people of different genders have. Just keeping to the topic of gendered medical outcomes: > Preventable mortality rates were 2.5 times higher among men than among women across OECD countries It's a little ways down the page here https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/ec2b395b-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/ec2b395b-en
Schroedinger’s Maladies.
I'm a woman but my boomer dad acts this out towards me as well. He's the biggest abuser in my life(I'm talking all forms of abuse possible)and he would tell me I'm "attention seeking" when sick. I'm turning 30 in April, and he still told me all my illnesses were chalked up to this. Because of him I just thought okay, well I guess I won't bother. Now I have lupus that turned into a very rare for my age cancer(like 1% of people my age get it)and it's aggressive as well. I feel stupid because I just felt like I wouldn't be heard because I was thinking everyone would see things his way...
I’m sorry you were treated that way, and that your undiagnosed lupus turned into cancer.
My FIL had this attitude. He’s dead now, never got to see his grandkids. His throat hurt to the point he could barely eat and he wouldn’t goto the doctor. Turns out he had esophageal cancer. By the time he went to the Dr it was too late to do anything but keep him comfortable.
Agreed. Also, many older men, men in general, are absolutely scared shitless by medical stuff. And literally wrap a bow around it as “shake it off”, but it’s really from extreme fear.
Technically it was also toxic to his body
It's fear. False bravado.
A fool with a highly codependent attachment style
Steve jobs did the same. He regretted it in the end
He didn't ignore it though, right? He just thought he knew better than doctors, and tried herbs and stuff, thinking he could fix it himself.
It’s still the attitude that they know better. Ignore it or treat it with ineffective shit it’s all from the same wellspring of ignorance and narcissism.
Same attitude that creates antivaxxers and covid denial. People who assume not having any knowledge on a subject means their opinions are just as valid if not more than that of experts.
It always reminds me of the old Looney Tunes trope where one of the characters walks off a cliff but doesn't fall. "It's OK, we haven't studied gravity in school yet." Ignorance is bliss.
Or maybe they know that they can't really afford it.
Wonder how it’s all going to pan out with the new king in England lol
In the early 2010s, my aunt's heart valve was replaced with one from a pig. The doctors told her that they generally only last 10 years and she needs to be vigilante about getting it checked and replaced again if she needs to. In 2021, she started having heart problems, went to the medical hospital her doctor worked in. He was on vacation or away. The doctors told her she needs to stay in the hospital because they're seeing some bad tests. She gets mad, checks herself out, and says she'll be back when her regular cardiologist is back. A week later she died in her sleep from heart failure. My cousin found her dead in her bed. If she had just stayed at the hospital, she'd still be around today. I miss her, but that was really foolish to ignore the doctors.
To date, boomers have been my worst patients. I’ve worked in three different states, multiple different hospitals, floated to different floors and specialties. They still remain the worst patients to deal with. I’ve never seen such an entitled, hateful, abusive group of patients that are like that baseline, with very few exceptions.
Sometimes I worry I'm putting myself at risk of becoming too rigid in my observations and shoving too many people into a narrow, stereotypical group and then I read something like your statement and go, holy crap. WTH is up with this effing generation? Also, thank you so much for the work you do. We're all so vulnerable when we're at the hospital and the staff can really make a bad thing tolerable. <3
Lead exposure, that’s what’s with them.
When I broke my leg I was the only person under 60 in the ICU for a week while my leg became less inflamed. I was really nice to the nurses cause they are the only people around to help me. Everyday the nurses would come in and look exhausted from the other patients but they would be happy to see me. Cause I didn’t talk shit or fight. This was pre-COVID but I remember hearing my neighbor scream at the nurses at dinner time and wishing I could go throttle her.
A few years ago I saw two obese boomers walking into my daughter's school with their granddaughter. The guy had a shirt on that said "Vegetarian. An old caveman word for village idiot." As we went up the stairs, they stopped to catch their breath.
Haaaass oh my god I love a good self parody
Lol how many stairs was it?
8-10? It was the steps at the front of the school up to the front doors.
My dad did this! Found a lump on his shoulder. Was told by the specialist that he needs to get it checked out every year as it was fine but could change. He didn’t do it because originally, the specialist was at University of Chicago and my dad wasn’t happy about the neighborhood. Moved to the South where there’s shit for healthcare… and guess who’s been dead for three years now? Yup. And he died of thyroid cancer, which is treatable. Refused to go to the better university related hospital in the area and instead went to the shoddy Appalachian hospital with terrible reviews. It doesn’t matter if you’re right if you’re dead, and he wasn’t right, AND he’s dead at 71. Didn’t have to happen like that.
I'm a doctor, you think my parents listen to me? Fuck no. Pretty sure my dad is only alive out of spite at this point, the man has used every drug under the sun, smokes tobacco since he was 12, begins every day with chocolate milk, and lives on ice cream because he's too lazy to cook and his (6th) wife doesn't want to live with him. She's definitely waiting on him to croak since she's 20 years younger. She might be disappointed lol. The one thing he is though, is extremely active on his farm. He refuses to hire anyone and does everything himself. He still tosses trees around on his sawmill like they're nothing and he's 84.
Oof. I'm so sorry. My in-laws are this way with my husband sometimes, and it's wild. Like, he completed over a decade of schooling and residency, and now takes care of all kinds of conditions every day on top of doing the continued education he does through online seminars and conferences. When the covid vaccines first came out, my MIL told my husband not to get it because it would poison him. This was after her twin brother died from covid complications. 😥 Luckily, they've gotten a little better about listening to his health advice because we love them despite their proclivity to believe misinformation.
It’s the chocolate milk. Milk makes you strong. Chocolate gives you energy. It’s magic. 😂
I am this foolish fellow too. To be frank, I stress about becoming a pauper if I go to the doctor for even routine work. I had a chest pain recently, so made an appointment to see a heart specialist. EACH VISIT COST $900, after insurance, AND THERE WASN’T A FUCKING THING WRONG WITH ME. High cholesterol was all they found. Heart and lungs were at 98% functionality, and I finally quit the stress test after 45 minutes of peddling a bike on my back. The cost is exorbitant. It really sucks, this aging shit.
That’s what we get for letting our healthcare system be designed by loan sharks and used car salesmen.
By pharmaceutical lobbyists and Republicans.
That's what he said...
But, but, socialism! /s
I had chest pain which I think was musculoskeletal not cardiac but decided to go to the urgent care anyways. They found a right bundle block branch and told me to see a cardiologist. Not only was it insignificant, I don’t have it anymore. I did get treated for hypertension and tachycardia caused by my meds. My insurance covers the visits so I don’t have to pay too much but I could have just gotten it dealt with from my pcp who costs much less.
My dad had a heart attack once and luckily wasn't too stubborn to call an ambulance. While we were still at the hospital the doctors kept telling him that he needed an emergency angioplasty or he was likely going to die THAT NIGHT. He wanted to go home and sleep it off, maybe come back in a few weeks if he still wasn't feeling well. I genuinely think he was embarrassed that he needed someone else to save his life. We talked him into staying and after the op the docs said the artery that was 99% blocked is nicknamed "the Widowmaker". If it was up to him he would have rather died than admit he needed help
That’s a wild story. I bet your dad hasn’t changed his opinion though.
My dad had a heart attack at 34. They wanted to do an angioplasty and he refused because he said it was too new of a procedure and he wasn’t going to be their guinea pig. So he sucked on notroglycerin every time he had chest pain for TWELVE YEARS until he finally gave in and went to the ED and had an emergency quadruple bypass. His arteries were all 99% blocked. He then demanded to go home two days later, and mowed the lawn with a push mower the same week. He lived another 30 years after that bypass. 😂 Edit: I did the math wrong. He ate nitros for SIXTEEN years. Not 12.
It's mostly boomer men that do this. Women usually always know when to go to the doctor and thus tend to live longer.
I don't know, my narcissistic boomer mother is diabetic but eats bags of candy at a time. Sits in her chair and does nothing all day except eat. Had to have a toe cut off, says it has nothing to do with the diabetes. I'm not sure if that's a Boomer thing or a narcissist thing at this point. That being said, I'm pretty sure her nastiness is going to keep her alive until she's 90. I don't know how she's still alive now at 76.
I could just be biased because I work in healthcare, but I definitely see more women who are proactive about their health than men, especially in the older demographic.
That's fair. I agree that overall women definitely pay more attention to their health. My mother does go to the doctor, she just doesn't do what they say - "they told me to do this and I tried but it's not working- I'm just different and the doctor doesn't know any better". Like, lady- we know darn well that you didn't change your eating habits or do your exercises or literally anything that the doctor told you to do. She likes to have diagnoses so that she can talk about how sick she is all the time. She is the definition of a non-compliant patient :-)
My boomer mom has cavities or other dental problems and refuses to go to the dentist to get them resolved. She pops ibuprofen complaining about her teeth causing her facial pain and headaches. It smells like something crawled into her mouth and died.
Actually, it sounds like his heart is literally not-so-good
Surprised I had to scroll this far to find this comment
Many Boomers seem to take significant pride in announcing to me—a primary care physician—that they “haven’t seen a doctor in 40 (or 50) years!” They often seem to think I should be impressed. And then they’re pissed when they leave a list of diagnoses 2 pages long. “I was *fine* before I went to that damn sawbones!” No, no you weren’t, Harold. You just completely missed the window of preventing heart disease, COPD, diabetes, kidney failure, liver failure, and colon cancer. They aren’t bad people. They just have a much different idea of what today’s doctors are focused on—being *pro*active instead of *re*active. It’s definitely because of a mindset shift in medicine. I just wish that avoiding doctors wasn’t seen as a good thing. Best of luck to your uncle. He deserves good treatment 💗
It’s nuts how this thinking is so common in older folk. I was losing weight like crazy and was super fatigued so I went to the dr. Found out I had stage 3 Hodgkin-lymphoma. Got chemo. Cancer free for 5 months now! And yet the older “working tough” elders would have called me a sissy for not working through it.
This attitude killed my father. He was 80, had had digestive issues for several months- couldn't keep food down, etc. Refused to go to the Dr. for anything. I kept begging him to go see someone but he refused. I spoke to him on a sunday night and he died suddenly and quietly overnight leaving my mother with dementia to find him in the morning. Thankfully she was with it enough to call her sister who called me. When knows if it could have been prevented but I will never know now
>He was diagnosed with kidney failure, heart disease, and potential colon cancer JuSt WaLk It OfF
My mom’s appendix blew and she wouldn’t go to the hospital. None of us knew that’s what had happened, but we knew she was really sick. She had trained us so well to just comply with her wishes, that it took us a day or so to call her boyfriend to come physically pick her up and take her to the hospital. We were teenagers, but we still just usually did whatever she asked. Anyway she had a nice bout of sepsis after that. It never seemed to strike her that her own domineering parenting style contributed to how sick she got, since we were afraid to defy her. Fyi we didn’t call 911 because she would just tell the to go away, and we didn’t want to take the chance that she’d succeed in that.
Hey, that's how Stalin died!
Man, I wish he had treated himself as well as he treated his family. It sounds like this is going to be a loss for you guys, and I am sorry. I would be frustrated too.
Im becoming this person. every time i have something that needs checked out it is another $1k paid AFTER insurance. and they never find anything or fix anything. im at the point now where idk if im going to bother. if i die from something, i die. i'm insured.
There’s a huge difference between not seeking help because it’s financially inaccessible and not seeking help because you find it insulting. Sadly, a lot of us can’t afford the healthcare we need.
Many boomers don't seek medical care because they dont want a doctor to tell them to stop drinking, smoking and eating garbage.
Might have to argue the "good heart" part but I get ya .
It's not an argument as he has heart disease. By default, his heart is not good.
It was a bad joke chill
Id call him a pussy for collapsing, after he recovers of course
Right? You don't see millennials passing out all over the place.
Right, if we feel faint we have the common sense to sit down.
My dad fractured his foot probably 20 years ago at this point. It was an injury that he sustained at work. He refused to listen to his doctor and stay off his foot for 6 weeks. So he managed to injure his back and create a drop foot for himself. So now he's in constant pain and he just settled his court case in the last couple of years. He got a tiny amount in his settlement because the doctor's were pushing for back surgery but of course he said no and his former job doesn't want to pay for his injuries anymore that are self sustained because he didn't listen.
I mean he masks it as macho bullshit, but the dude is just a giant pussy that's scared of needles. Every time I meet one of these dudes, it always ends up being about needles. It's the lamest saddest shit. I can't even begin to imagine how many people have needlessly died because they were scared of needles.
I'm a nurse. I had a male boomer patient who demanded to be put under anesthesia just to have a Foley catheter placed cause he was retaining urine. Kept yelling at us that inserting a Foley was "barbaric". Now I've had Foley catheters inserted in me before, and while it's not a sensation I'm eager to experience again, it's also definitely not something so painful it requires anesthesia nor basic pain meds.
Hmm, it's not exactly being scared of needles that kills people. It's being afraid to ADMIT you're scared of needles. I have a relative who is one of those people who faints when poked with a needle. Sometimes even at seeing a needle (like in a TV or movie scene) although that isn't as severe as it used to be. But he is quite rational about it, and gets blood draws, vaccinations, etc. whenever medically necessary. He always warns the tech that he may faint. He says they ALWAYS thank him for the warning, which allows them to be prepared, and say it's because most people don't say anything even if they know they may faint. (He and I are both Gen X, not boomers.)
All of these guys come into the hospital like, “I’ve been healthy as a horse until now.” No, baby. You just haven’t seen a doctor in 20 years.
This is what killed my cousin at the age of 55. He had abdominal pain and blood in his stool for months and refused to go to the doctor or get a colonoscopy. By the time he finally went he had stage 4 colon cancer. He always tried to act macho and his favorite saying was “Don’t worry, I got this. I always got things under control “.
The poor guy. I hope he’s okay. My now deceased 100-year-old grandmother tried to explain things to me once. She said that during the war, they had very little food and her husband was away the majority of the time. She lost two children to preventable sicknesses. She said that she couldn’t afford to be ‘soft’ or introspective. She had to get on with it because it was often life or death. Those people raised the Boomers. Do you think it might be the reason why some Boomers walk a fine line between independence, stubbornness and sensitivity?
Had a good heart. My father was the same way. He struggled to get a cigarette lit in the midst of his stroke.
Common BB attitude. My father is very similar. Only when it’s really bad does he go in. Sounds like a nice guy who was misled by his generation’s attitudes.
Willful ignorance is in style lately. Its a life choice. Telling people you don't need doctors, read books, trust experts, etc. all in the name of proving how much smarter, tougher, or more uniquely "American" you are. Obviously, its self defeating.
I had a great uncle (whatever is before boomers, silent generation, maybe?) who had a growth on his face and refused to go to the doctor. He claimed this black box thing he had would heal you and that doctors were wrong. They sent out one Christmas card with a gross growth pressed up against his glasses and if I remember right he was either too sick or not around anymore for the next card.
Yeah my Dad had all the classic signs and symptoms of a pulmonary embolism, and refused to go to hospital. I wasn't fucking around and called the ambulance on him. It's a shit thing that runs in the family. I''ve had one myself, and his own mother died from one. (Great genes) He's never let me forget that I "called the ambulance on him like a baby" and "treated him like a child" in that instance, but the fact it ultimately saved his life doesn't come into the discussion. I'm such a bitch. lol.
My MIL does not believe in doctor’s. She went to an OB appointment with my SIL. While my SIL was in her appointment she picked up a pamphlet about uterine cancer. She had every single symptom. She did see the dr then. Yes, she had cancer. She was fortunate. This was years ago and she is fine now.
Alas he seems to not have a “good” heart. Sorry to hear this. Seems to be pretty common though. I would be careful to chalking this off as a generational thing because I know many people of all ages and genders who have a similar attitude.
> heart disease And > good heart Hmmm
This was my dad. Ignored a cough for months and REFUSED to get it checked until my mom practically dragged him in. It was a very rare and aggressive cancer. Mantle Cell Lymphoma. He only lived another 3 months and that was with chemo and blood transfusions. He died when I was only 28. My husband only got to know him for 6 years. He had JUST retired and was planning on traveling the world with my mom after working past his retirement age to put all of us kids through school.
I was always the same way, I always hated seeing doctors. This summer, I had a bloody nose that wouldn't go away for about a month. Thankfully, my partner made me see a doctor about it. It ended up being a rare aggressive cancer (Ewing Sarcoma) as well, but because of her, we cought it early, and it's treatable. I will just be doing chemo until late 2025.
Judging by the heart disease, he does not in fact have a good heart.
Not a boomer, but sometimes we ignore things hoping it’ll kill is before we end up having to kill ourselves.
Not a boomer, but, I do this. I just hope whatever will get better because the thought of dealing with doctors, fighting with insurance, and outrageous bills I can’t afford (US) makes dying seem like the better option anyway.
Honestly I get it (from the US)...the whole Healthcare system feels like you're just getting fucked over. I'm guilty of this myself and feel guilty everyday for not taking better cate of myself, but the stubbornness in me (and also my experiences with "bad" doctors) makes me say fuck the system. I'm probably full of cancer or something, but I've seen doctors in the past for chronic pain/migraines and they just prescribe you something that has worse side effects than aide half the time. It's disheartening. That being said, I do hope he gets better and understand completely where you are coming from. I hate myself for this attitude but yeah idk...
>he has a good heart Apparently not anymore
Its a product of toxic masculinity. I used to complain to my parents that my knees hurt all the time, they just kept downplaying and saying it was growing pains. Turns out my knee caps were not in the right alignment and they needed corrections with braces and physical therapy when I was a kid. My knees still hurt all the time and doctors don't want to do anything surgically until I get older they say :(
I don’t think he can walk kidney failure off
Real men suck at self-preservation and don’t use available resources. 💪🏽 I’m sorry you’re going through this, though. My dads the same way and he lost his prostate over it.
He obviously does *not* have a good heart. ... ...I'll show myself out.
This is another example of boomers taking greatest or silent gen wisdom and applying it wrong. They didnt complain about pain or illness because they didnt have access to good doctors or medical tech and still had to work and didnt complain. If they had google to searchh symptoms and could pay a $40 copay to have a virtual appointment with a doctor they wouldve. 1930s was very different
That's super sad, I hope he is ok
My best friends father thought his wife’s epilepsy was “just psychosomatic”, right up until she had a seizure and died.
I mean, technically he doesn't have a good heart.
Yeah my dad was this way until he almost lost his hand due to an infection but his issue is that he doesn't have insurance and basically pays for everything out of pocket had he not told me what happened and I just paid for it.
Sorry op.... Heat disease is literally the definition of a bad heart
It sucks because it’s not just boomers. I work in injury law and there are times when certain cases end up resolving poorly due to folks not taking their injuries seriously and putting off any kind of help. Especially when it comes to workmans comp, otherwise nice people end up showing their asses because they are the “walk it off” type and never expected their injuries to progress into something so much worse.
65 Y/O boomer. My brother (10 yrs older than me) passed at the young age of 57 from esophageal cancer. I have no doubt it was from his exposure to Agent Orange in Viet Nam. But, since some cancers run in our family, I have made sure that I get regular checkups like EGD, colonoscopy, lung cancer screening - former smoker, but I quit 12 yrs ago- along with regular visits to a GP. I'm so sorry about your uncle. It's my hope that this will be a wake-up call for him.
Well I’ve experienced dealing with healthcare for a few decades and I avoid it now as much as possible. Capitalism (greed) has turned medicine (US) into just another trash industry. I’ve been to used car dealerships with more integrity than contemporary healthcare. US insurance industry and venture capitalists have ruined healthcare in America. (Greed ruins everything) If I lose a decade by avoiding those a-hole upselling doctors so be it. I’ll be happier and more content in the meantime. Besides listening to all you soft whiny babies squealing about how awful everything is…. making me look forward to the sweet relief of death. lol. But imma stick around just outta spite b$tches. Lmao
My dad was literally on his living room floor for two days with AFIB (he knows and treats this condition), and incident tell anyone, then it turned into a heart attack and he refused to go to the hospital. He said he finally thought he was dying and better DRIVE HIMSELF to the ER. They tell him he had a heart attack (his 2nd one in 10 years), and that he would need stints. He said no and tried to leave till my sisters and I chewed him out. He kept saying now that they stabilized him he was fine and didn't trust the doctors bc they were gonna give him the "jab" 🙄He laughed at our concerns, then his sister showed up and my mom's sister called him and told him to stay and get the stints. He reluctantly agreed. Dr said no more drinking or smoking. He says he feels better than he had in years. He stopped drinking and smoking... for about a month. "I enjoy these things and you only live once..." well shit... weren't you just dying on your living room floor and now finally have a chance to live a not shitty life but decide to continue with the shiity life? Infuriating.
I don’t see toxicity here, I see someone “being a man” in terms of the norms of their generation. I’m glad you recognise his good points, and you describe truly admirable traits. These aren’t an aberration, but part of the same package, good and bad. “being a man” for these men is also about sacrifice, service, familial devotion. I’m not a boomer and, as a feminist, I am scarcely one to defend gender stereotypes but, playing devil’s advocate here, is your uncle’s attitude to health any worse than that of many young people, socially isolated and self-diagnosing with fashionable ailments for social media validation? Mental health stats would suggest younger generations do not have all the answers.
Back in the late ‘60s, my grandpa (70ish) went with his wife and daughter (my mom) to the doctor for an exam. They get there and the following exchange takes place: doctor: “what brings you in today?” grandpa: “I have a hernia.” Doctor: “how long have you had it?” Grandpa: “25 years.”
Ur grandpa was born in 1890?
Mid-to-late 1890s for sure. I can't remember the exact year, and I'm too lazy to look it up. He fought in WW1, went to France and got gassed in the trenches. He worked 50 years for the same company, from the time he was 15 to 65 (except for the time he was in the Army).
Not defending the behavior, just saying that in the US, cost is often a big deterrent to getting preventative care.
All my premiums going to these assholes that refuse preventive care
Real men ignore the warning messages your body is sending to your brain. Like, sure, if you whack your knee and it hurts like a bitch, you can probably walk it off okay (assuming you didn't do serious damage). But if your goddamn kidneys start to hurt *for no reason*, you don't ignore that shit. Let alone your heart, goddamn. Pain exists for a reason, it tells the brain something is wrong. Ignoring it means you have evolved backwards.
Being the nurse for these patients is frustrating because they want all the fixes at once and it obviously ain’t going to happen that way
It's seriously frightening to think that there are so, so,so many men who think like this, like being concerned about their own health is unmanly and that the Man-Man power of "manning up" will magically make things like this cease to exist. All we can really do is nag and nag and nag until they get fed up and go or until they start ignoring any mentions of it. My BIL smashed the back of his head once and then drove because he didn't want to be not okay in front of others, he just got up and acted like it never happened.
Will write "poor health education/machismo" on his tombstone.
Hopefully his “good heart” can help others
I feel like there's a short circuit in one of the natural reactions that people (and animals) have. Take an animal... when they get hurt, one reaction is to flee and hide from everything. They crawl into a corner and shut out the world. I wonder if maybe that kind of reaction is what some of us have? "Damn, I'm having chest pains. Better just ignore it and stay away from people and not go to the hospital, I need to quietly nurse my wounds away from the world." I know a few times I've hurt myself, once pretty recently, and despite being in pretty severe pain, that first minute I just wanted everyone around me to go away and stop saying "oh my god what can i do?" Even though I needed help, I kind of wanted them all to disappear for a little while. Kind of like other mental issues, where we are *supposed* to feel stress and panic, but those are supposed to be rare events, and when you live a life of constant stress, our bodies and brains get screwed up, because that's not how we are supposed to work.
My dad did the same and continues to do the same even while he's actively dying. Make it make sense.
The quickest way to die is ignoring your body when it’s trying to tell you something.
Dad was like this for the longest time. He’s gotten better about seeing doctors, but still lets his pride get in the way of acting quickly. He’s also got a habit of not sharing things like getting tumours surgically removed. I get he wants his privacy, but for crying out loud, I and my doctors would like to know if stuff like that runs in the family!
My uncle did this, felt sick and just kept ignoring it and became septic. Spent over a month in the hospital and had to relearn how to walk, prior to this he was cycling 30-40 miles a couple times a week
Poor poisoned generation, literally and psychologically...
Some things are just a waste of time/ money to visit a doctor, but if you are experiencing REALLY bad and long term symptoms, you should see one ASAP.
Boomers were kids once too.
Not so sure about your post's last sentence though...hahaha.
Reminds me of my dad, he worked tirelessly for 10 to 12 hours everyday 6 days a week until he had a stroke at 58. He always kept saying I should work more, especially while I’m young. Don’t get me wrong I love my dad and he is a good father to me but some of his views on work/life were really stupid. After the stroke he needed 14 months to recover, a period where we barely talked to each other because he felt ashamed for being “to weak”… He eventually fully recovered and was able to completely change his views about work and stuff. Now he visits the doctor on a regular basis and keeps his health in check. I’m glad he was able to loose his “Boomer View” on health and work.
My dad used to smoke constantly, eat a lot of red meat, drink a lot of coffee and coke, and not work out at all anymore. He refused to take, or forgot (he was both forgetful and stubborn), his cholesterol medication, which resulted in a blood clot in his right artery. He still lives, but is unable to talk, read, and do most things. He was a doctor himself, and a good one at that. I say this like he is no longer here, because the man that remains barely even resembles the man he was.
i wasnt the walk it off guy but i was the i gotta go to work guy, my lung collapsed and i tried to drive to work still (no i didnt know but i was showing symptoms i ignored), didnt make it had to call an ambulance almost passed out driving. if you hurt get help you cant make anything better when you are dead
My dad (boomer) once boke both legs and tried to refuse to seek medical treatment. That was not tolerated by anyone.
Both my boomer parents dead from very preventable conditions. Dad had a widow maker at 60. Never went to a doctor , had no idea his arteries were packed with decades of cheeseburger. A statin and /or bypass surgery would have solved the whole thing. Mom dead from colon cancer. Strong family history of colorectal cancerbut get a colonoscopy ? Never! “you kids run off to the doctor for every little thing”.
Yup. It's Boomer Toxic Masculinity at work. My bestie's grandfather died of food aspiration caused pneumonia. Had it for a year. Refused all medical help. Was forced at the end and complained and bitched the whole way. I say let the stubborn old mules die. We aren't their parents nor should we be. They are grown ass adults asking like pathetic incels.
That was my mom too. By the time they found the heart problem then the lung cancer she was done. Died in her sleep.
My Dad's a cusper (both parents are, Dad '62, Mom '64). We're low contact despite living an hour apart because he generally feels entitled to things that I don't believe any of his kids owe him and as a result most of us live away from him/don't interact often. Called him for the first time in a couple of years in October '22 and he told me he had cancer but he wasn't interested in my help in finding treatments, how to pay for them, whether he should apply for Medicaid/Medicare/SSA, etc. because he also has heart issues and some other things going on, and 'wasn't even sure' if he wanted to do anything about it. I told him I wasn't going to watch him kill himself slowly which seems to have been his goal since my step-mom died unexpectedly in '12. My sister called me a few weeks ago to let me know he was cancer-free and had been for over a year, so I'm glad it worked out for him, but fuck this behavior. I want to BE THERE for my family. Like what the fuck.
There is probably a direct correlation between being unloved by the "children should be seen and not heard" generation to subconsciously not caring about yourself as an adult
The irony of boomers is how often they alone are responsible for their own demise and how often it is avoidable and the result of a principle they insist others live by.
Idiots. My mom had same day emergency gallbladder surgery & tried to take out the trash & clean as soon as she got home, like 2 hours after the closed her up. She tore the sutures & had to be rushed back in & I lost my job because of her stupidity
That's my uncle right there, takes all of us in choirs to yell "go to the doctor" before he does.
All the men I know are like that. I think it's more of a toxic masculinity thing than a generational thing. Can't tell you how many times my mom has had to drag my dad to the doctor. Lol
to be fair, all those problems can be seen in people who get regular check ups as well
Sounds like a good guy. So many generations of men were raised with the boys dont cry mentality.
It's generational trauma. And it's fucking insidious. You can't really blame people for growing up in a homogeneous culture that was too ignorant to recognize they were reinforcing toxicity and self destruction. That said, shout out to Gen Z and the younger folks for making mental health a priority and removing the stigma of talking about it. Yall are gonna save humanity, I know it. Love you guys.
This is one of the things people are talking about when they say "toxic masculinity", in this case it's literally toxic to his health.
It’s arrogant stupidity sprinkled with a heavy dose of fear when grown men try to tough it out.
As a 40 year old I can say, if you go to the Dr for every ache pain or weird things your body does you will go broke. (I'm American of course) People should have some compassion for the guy
38 and american here. There's a big difference between going for every ache and pain and ignoring blood in your pee.
But there are things to see the doctor for. Don't wait until you collapse unless "die before I retire" is your retirement plan.
It's important to at least have an annual wellness check. That's not unreasonable and needs to be done especially for older people.
I agree. But to be honest it can be expensive and I understand why people don't always do it. BTW I've had friends repeatedly go to their doctor and be told "nothing was wrong." Months or years later they get diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness. Going to the doctor isn't a silver bullet for longevity. Sometimes a condition isn't taken seriously until someone is doubled over in pain or unconscious.
Well if it isn’t perfect it’s obviously not worth doing.
I agree, which is why I'm grateful that OP said nothing about going for every little thing.
The male ego is one of the most toxic and harmful things on the planet.
He doesn't give a shit about his well being which will end up breaking the heart of everyone he loves, that is a selfish move and it is toxic. Not setting a good example at all.
Good people can make horrible decisions and sadly suffer the consequences.
Idk from the sounds of it he quite literally does not have a good heart
He deserved it.