Sick of Being Well

This February I’ll be turning 65 and going on Medicare, provided we still have a functioning government. If we don’t, I’ll be cooking up some rheumatiz medicine like Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies to cure what ails me. If that doesn’t work, my Plan C is to avoid illness altogether, which won’t be easy because I’ve been a robust hypochondriac since infancy, concocting all manner of maladies, diseases, poxes, and conditions. On July 2, 1970, our barn thermometer read 99 degrees Fahrenheit. I was so hot I convinced myself I was entering menopause, which was impossible since I was only 9 years old and hadn’t yet ovulated, but a determined hypochondriac isn’t deterred by trivialities like age and gender.

If all goes as planned, and I enroll in Medicare, I’ll be able to see a doctor for next to nothing. Having never enjoyed this luxury, I plan on being sick as much as possible. New retirees are advised to find a hobby, and mine will be spending hours each day in doctors’ offices being tested, poked, and probed. If I’m lucky, they’ll find a new disease, so I’ll have something to talk about. I hope it’s so exotic no one else can top it.

I have type 2 diabetes, but so does everyone else. As diseases go, type 2 diabetes is a snoozer. A friend of mine went to Africa where he was fortunate enough to contract monkeypox, making him the hit of every party. I don’t even like him anymore. I would start talking about my diabetes, and he would mention his monkeypox, show off his blisters, and dominate the conversation. Much to his chagrin, the monkeypox went away and he went back to being his old boring self, suffering the occasional head cold, which served him right.

For the past several years, I’ve been under the care of a nurse practitioner named Laura at a wellness clinic sponsored by my wife’s employer. I was excited at first, thinking Laura might be naive because of her youth and inexperience. Unfortunately, she turned out to be one of these scientific types and didn’t believe me this past summer when I told her I had a rare type of COVID, in all probability fatal. I asked her to write my wife a note explaining my imminent death, requiring a month’s rest in our screenhouse, but being the cynical sort, she insisted on testing me and told me my COVID was allergies. It’s clear she can’t be trusted.

When I told her I would be going on Medicare, she said she couldn’t see me anymore, and that I would have to return to my previous doctor, who’s older than I am. Of all the doctors I’ve ever had, he’s been my favorite. He agrees with me that I’m the sickest person he’s ever met.

The most serious illness of my 65 years has been the Spanish Flu, which certain discredited doctors claim petered out in 1920, though I swear I had it in 1978. I had a sore throat, a headache, and a dry cough, which everyone knows can only be one thing — the Spanish Flu.

And here’s the weird thing, I don’t even speak Spanish, even though I took two years of it in high school. Señorita Rogers was our teacher and had spent the summer before in Spain, so I likely caught it from her. We still live in the same town, so whenever I see her, I remind her that she almost killed me 48 years ago, but she just laughs and says I’m crazy, which is exactly what Laura, the nurse practitioner, has been telling me.

Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor and author of 22 books, including the Harmony and Hope series, featuring Sam Gardner.

This article is featured in the January/February 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.