Its only indigestion

Subject: It's only indigestion

"Ignorance is bliss" of course and there is no truer truth than when one closes ones eyes, head on the pillow and a twinge of pain catches your attention. Dr Goggle is consulted and any one of a number of reasons, from the acute to the benign causes one to pause and think.
'In the past' without any self knowledge a pain was par for the course, nothing to worry about, if it gets worse place it in the doctors hands. Life was, in some ways, not so precious.
Two horrendous world wars had made a mockery of the sanctity of life and some how we were content with 55 to 65 years as a good innings. I was walking through a grave yard the other day and noticed that 50 years was the average at the turn of the 20th contrary and these were substantial memorials to the dead and must have represented the better off who would be expected to live longer.
Today we are searching for immortality by postponing death to await improvements in medical science so our bodies can be repaired. The technical apparatus handy to the medic today encourage him or her to use what's in the toolbox irrespective of the quality of life since we have been directed into 'specialities'. The lung man, the heart woman, the brain team, each speciality outbidding  the other for funds to promote what they do.
Look how good I am cry's  the abdomen guy, little realising that his success has huge implications up and down the food chain. The saving of life is not just the impact of a replacement but the overall effect that that replacement brings to the body corporate.
Life is finite, death is forever and no matter how we wish to doge the issue, we do ourselves a dis-service if we don't prepare for the inevitable.
How we do that is different for each one of us. Faith plays a great part for the many who believe we are part of something greater than the sub total of our being. People without faith must rely on being pragmatic and wish the end to come without pain, reconciling the inevitability with thoughts of having hopefully lived a good and full life.
And so the pain we feel tonight is only an example of the complexity of a function which has carried on for 70 or more years. Enclosed in a body which has been misused and ill-treating itself for decades and whose elasticity of purpose is fast running out.
Luckily there are pain killers in the cupboard and anyway, it's only indigestion !!!