Wednesday, October 8, 2014

If in doubt, check it out!

Cancer is a brutal disease. It does not care what plans you have for the future or how many other people will be affected by your cancer. It doesn't care what you may lose in the process of trying to stay alive. Cancer does what it wants to, when it wants to and its goal is to conquer your body; it wants to kill you.

One of our greatest defenses against cancer is early detection. The sooner we realize something might be wrong and needs to be checked out, the better. Waiting allows the cancer to multiply and spread. Like the game of Risk, cancer ruthlessly takes on any part of your body as quickly as possible. It's smart enough to know that planting its seed in as many areas of the body it can will help the cancer win the battle. Clearly, it wants you to lose.

Some of us, myself included, will think something is not right with our bodies and hold off getting it checked for fear it may be news we do not want to hear. But we wait knowing deep down that not checking it out only makes things worse.  We also know that not going to the doctor will not change the condition we are frightened of.

I had a lump in my jaw and was concerned about it, so I asked my family doctor to take a look at it when I was already there for a high blood pressure medicine review. The doctor glanced at it and suggested that we will keep an eye on it.

So here was a case where I wanted to find out what the lump was, but the doctor was not concerned. This is where I should have insisted the doctor take a closer look and at least tell me what the lump was. I didn't want to wait, the doctor did.

We need to clearly express our concerns to the doctors and if they are not responsive, ask them to have another doctor come in and look at it. If there is none, seek a second opinion. It is our body and our life at risk. I have no medical knowledge, but I believe it would be accurate to say that the waiting this doctor caused allowed the cancer to spread. It was 3 months later that the cancer was finally discovered.

You owe it to yourself and to your families:

If in doubt, check it out! Early detection saves lives...


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