Anyone else... ever just let something fester? For years? Like a quiet little organism just... living inside you? I’m 76, still doing freelance graphic design—gig economy before it had a name. No benefits, obviously. So doctor’s visits are... a luxury. A calculation. But lately, I’ve been thinking about this young woman I see at the coffee shop. Single mother, three kids under ten I think. Always buzzing—caffeine, I assume. She’s got that perpetual motion look about her. Always on her phone, rescheduling appointments. "Oh, the school play is Tuesday, can’t make the general practitioner," or "Little Liam has a fever, gotta skip the dental for myself." Her stomach often cramps, she rubs it absentmindedly. Blames it on stress, the coffee. Says it’s just indigestion. I hear her. And I think... am I the only one who sees it? That familiar dismissal? It’s an echo, really. My own history. I was younger, of course. Maybe mid-forties. Doing the same dance. My own little ones, bless their hearts, always needing something. School events, scraped knees, the endless cycle. My stomach, it was a rebellion. Gurgling, cramping, a persistent ache. Doctors? Who had time? "Stress," I’d tell myself. "Just too much coffee, too much worrying about the next contract, the next bill." I’d cancel and rebook. My general practitioner, a kind man, eventually stopped trying to get me in. He’d just shake his head, give me a sympathetic look when I saw him for the children. I’d shrug, feeling... justified. Resilient. Until it wasn’t. It was much later, too late for simple interventions. A different doctor, a harsh diagnosis. Gastric issues that had... progressed. Things that could have been managed, easily. If I’d just... prioritised. If I’d understood the differential diagnosis of my own body. The pain, by then, was a constant companion. A dull roar, occasionally erupting into something sharper, more insistent. The regret, it’s a quiet thing too. Like a secondary symptom. So I see her, this young woman, clutching her stomach. Her children, bright and demanding, pulling at her sleeve. And I just want to... what? Whisper a warning? Tell her to pay attention? To see the body’s signals as more than just a nuisance, an inconvenience to be pushed aside for the immediate demands of motherhood? It’s not just stress, darling. It’s never just stress. And coffee is not the villain, merely the scapegoat. The actual pathology, the real etiology... it’s often much deeper. Am I the only one who sees this pattern repeating? The self-neglect, the deferral of care, the quiet erosion of one’s own well-being under the weight of daily life? It breaks my heart a little, every time. Because I know the cost. And it’s not just financial. It’s... everything.