one of those big flashing lights of insight

[m_d_h]

It just occurred to me that one reason I'm living beyond my parents' middle-aged demises (Bug has been an orphan for a long time now) is this very important thing:

I don't hide my medical issues/symptoms/whatever from my doctor, or from anybody else.  It occurs to me that my parents did.  All these years later.  This occurs to me now.

I thought about this as I was driving here earlier, strangely, remembering the time I took my mother to the ER for something, I dunno, seemingly random memory, but, ... what if that had not been the first episode ... I was there when it happened, so I took her to the ER.  For the first time in my life I'm thinking, that wasn't the first episode.  I caught her.

I deal with my medical issues, I overdeal with my medical issues.  My parents did not.  This is something I learned about them  and from them at an early age, but I don't think I understood it until now.  Which is weird.  It wasn't exactly what I thought at the time -- no, they were actively covering up their medical issues.

So I fly hard in the other direction, because I don't want to end up like them.