Dear Wendyl,

My husband recently retired, aged 70, and he has been plagued by minor health problems ever since. I’m now becoming a little concerned as I think he might be becoming a bit of a hypochondriac because he is always complaining about something to do with his health.

At the moment he is insisting on going everywhere on a mobility scooter, even though the only thing that’s actually wrong with him is that he gets a little stiff in the joints when he walks too far.

I came home one day and there it was, this bright red thing that he’s renting, just sitting there. He rides it all over the place – to the local supermarket where he takes it right in and along the aisles, and down to the local RSA. I mentioned it to our GP but he just laughed, which made me feel like I’m over-reacting. What do you think?

Grace, Bay of Plenty

Dear Grace,

It isn’t often I feel divided by a question, but I have three pieces of advice for you. First of all, I agree with you that your husband may have looked around and found nothing to do after his retirement except focus on his health. And I think his resistance to walking around can only result in a lack of exercise and the old saying “use it or lose it” will apply. So I’m going to suggest a change of doctor. Try to find one who takes things like stress, anxiety and depression seriously and will check your husband out just to see that he is in the best shape he can be at this age.

My second piece of advice disagrees with you as I believe that when you get to 70, if you choose to ride around on a red mobility scooter then you have reached the age where you can do just that. Maybe he needs you to cut him a little slack when it comes to the scooter. Be glad that he is at least getting out and about.

The third piece of advice is to combine both of my previous answers and reach a happy medium. Get a new doctor to check him out, learn to live with the scooter, but perhaps you could suggest he also takes up a new activity, like bowls, to keep those joints moving.

-Wendl