Family Med in a Small Town

Today I saw a patient who was a 79 year old retired dairy farmer. Farmers really aren’t a fan of going to the doctors, and they pretty much think they are invincible. For example, his hemoglobin A1C was 10.9 which was excellent for him (the HA1C is a measure of long-term glucose control, normal is between 5-6). It had been as high as 14.7 in the recent past.

Anyway, I introduced myself and asked him how he was doing. He responded with the following:

“Listen kid, I done found myself the Fountain ‘O Youth, okay?”

“How so?” I asked, slightly bewildered.

“You know, I worked on a dairy farm for 50 some years, and I’m Italian. So I says to myself, ‘Them old Italians, they used to drink a couple a glasses of wine every day for health reasons’, right? So I says, I gotta combine this. So I goes up to the farm, and gets me some milk straight outta the cow. Then I mixed 2/3s milk with 1/3 red wine and drank it down. Now, it doesn’t look too good, in fact, it looks like someone done throwed up  in your glass. But lemme tell ya, it’s the Fountain ‘O Youth!”

Then he pulled off his cap and showed me his hair. It was white with patches of dark gray.

“See this here? My head used to be fully white! Now my hair is growin’ back in dark. I’ll tell ya, it’s the Fountain ‘O Youth!”