Something I remember hearing from the late, lamented Dick Gregory.
We are constantly being told that smoking causes cancer, but people continue to smoke. Now if we were told that smoking caused white skin to turn black white people would give up on the habit immediately. So, he argued, for white people being black is worse than having cancer.
Perhaps so, but I see it another way. What people see is more influential than what they know but cannot see. Internal changes effected by cancer are not immediately obvious, whereas external effects, in this case the hypothetical change of skin colour, will usually prompt a reaction of some kind, perhaps a change of habit or régime.
Now it gets personal. Every twelve weeks I go for an injection and a check-up, the latter involving a monitoring of my weight. Last week I learned to my horror that I now weigh 14 stone (196 pounds, c 100 kilos ). For most of my adult life I've weighed about 11 stone. The external change is upon me.
The injection, or implant, I get is of female hormones. These are supposed to suppress the testosterone produced (I think) by my prostate. Linked to the tetosterone - I don't know how - are what are called 'prostate specific antigens' (PSAs) which can travel around the blood-stream. In my case the prostate is cancerous and the PSAs can carry particles of the cancer to other parts of the body. So the injection is a means of preventing or inhibiting the spread of the cancer.
All clever stuff, but there are the inevitable side-effects.
One of these is weight gain, around the waist and the pectoral area (man-boob alert!). Now I don't know if this increase is a continuous thing, or if, after a time, my weight will stabilise. All I do know is that it's a depressing experience, and affects my morale far more than the disease itself, which is out of sight, and which at present has little impact on my way of life. As an old man (and this is an old man's complaint) I can regard the damn thing philosophically. We've all got to go sometime, and for a male of my family, I'm a veritable Methuselah.
So I entertain the thought that one day my physical appearance will make life unbearable. What then?
Another memory from long ago. I recall hearing a report that the film actor César Romero had been arrested for drunk driving. While he was being interviewed by the cops he said, "I'm an old man and I just want to die." Those words shocked me and stayed with me. How could anybody WANT to die? How could a man who was affluent, successful, famous, feel that way? I was in my teens at the time, and thoughts of mortality were far from my mind. I assumed everyone had the same attitude. But age and physical deterioration begin to alter one's attitude to death. There must come a stage, should one live long enough, that the old carcass becomes something one needs to be rid of.

Happy days!

Correction: 196lbs approximates 89 kilos, not 100 kilos. Silly me!