Although I have not always been very open about myself, I make no secret of the bad state of my body and mind anymore. There are just too many issues going on that make it obvious for people who really know me that I am not okay. And things are just getting worse now…

After many years of being burned out and depressed and with heavy migraines and other physical problems I finally got in contact with a doctor that dives deeper into my blood samples. As they say, blood is the mirror of you body, and my mirror is not looking clean.

There have been times that I asked my wife why there are no regular blood tests in the Netherlands, and sometimes I would look up test facilities outside of the normal medical world to get to know more about my health. But this always ended up in me being too scared to actually hear the results and blaming everything on the problems we had to go through. And no professional I talked to over all the years ever suggested looking into my blood very in-depth as well, so it looked like I was overthinking again…

Blood tests are very common and often focus on particular issues you might feel, but in my situation, with so many issues piling up, the right tests were not done until very recently, and the results look bad. In the USA for example people get yearly checkups and are way more likely to find out about heart, lung, kidney, thyroid, prostate, diabetes and other issues before it becomes a major issue or even a lethal problem. Not so in the Netherlands…

And now I am mad, not at my doctors, but at myself, for not having a yearly blood test done at a private laboratory. I mean, some values were measured for the first time in my life and I am 54! And some results are very bad and partly reveal why I feel so bad for so long but also what bad things might happen to me soon. I could have paid for this information every year if I put my mind to it, and would have been in a better place now for sure.

I need to ask the Dutch government why some very important tests are not done regularly, ask myself why I waited so long, and ask you to do whatever you can to stop health issues growing in your body without you doing a yearly checkup!