You Know What to Do!
I am privileged in my work to hear and learn from other peoples' stories. I discovered two common threads while writing a series of health articles for a national newspaper a few years back. One was that Black folks, in the UK and the US, are routinely denied access to health care on the level afforded to White people.
Disgraceful? Yes. Surprising? In truth, no. But what was surprising was the failure of too many Black people to take care of their health and seek medical counsel when they suspect something may be wrong. This message hit me even harder when I heard the same concern from a former work colleague, who had just been diagnosed with cancer.
Soon after, this thread ran through another interview with a woman whose father died from prostate cancer after years of abusing his body with a poor diet. However after the diagnosis, he switched to a healthier diet (80% fruit and vegetables, with small amounts of meat and dairy) and survived for 3½ years - the doctors gave him 18 months.
Whatever our ethnicity, gender or age, sickness cannot always be avoided. Wouldn't it be great to say if we all have a balanced diet, sufficient of exercise and plenty of rest, we could all guarantee a long, healthy life? Sadly that isn't the case, but why don't we do all we can to avoid illness and trust God to do the rest?
Celebrity tough guy Mr T won a six-year battle with skin cancer in 2001 because he did not shy away from treatment. Another actor Bill Bixby - who played the David Banner on 'The Incredible Hulk' TV series (I'm showing my age now!) took months to seek medical advice about the pain in his side. It was cancer and by the time he did, it had spread across his back and was inoperable.
So when it comes to taking care of yourself, you know what to do.
Now, why not share some of your health-related experiences and thoughts?
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Veron Graham - telling it like it is.
Share our health-related experiences and thoughts? How ignorant. And I can't believe you suggest we let God do his job, there are people who have dedicated their lives to learning about diseases and helping others and the work of God had nothing to do with it. For years before all the modern day medicines people would be lucky to live until 40! That was the work of God. And to suggest that healthy diets are going to make that much difference is rude. My husband had a healthy diet and he died last year. Thanks.
Dear Mrs Barber,
I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you. Sorry also to hear about your husband.
Can I ask you to read the blog again? Then you will see that I did not say that a healthy diet will make all the difference. I said why take the chance and have an unhealthy one.
I'd love to read your response.
Take care
Veron
Hi readers
I would like to tell you about my experience and the NHS. It took 9 months before I was diagnosed and then it was my sister who alerted me to my breast cancer not my doctor.
I kept going not feeling well with pains in my chest. He convinced me that it must be stress for stress has a way of bringing out other symptoms in your body. If I was sent for the appropriate chest x-ray and not told that scans are expensive I would not have ended up with a grade II tumour in my breast. Luckily there was plenty of breast to play with why I did not end up with a mastectomy.
My mother also just before Christmas was referred by her Asian doctor to the local city hospital. The white doctor told my sister what do you want me to do with her she was here 2 years ago. My mother is 83. He further added that there can’t be anything wrong with my mother for she is lying down flat on the bed. My sister was inconsolable when she got home and announced that they are going to kill her over there. 2 pints of blood later, fluid drained off her lungs, a three week stay in hospital with the family keeping a serious eye on proceedings.
So black people keep an eye on your parents. They need our help to be treated equally.
Thanks for sharing your story, Claudiette.
That sounds like a terrible ordeal. I'm glad that you are coming through the other side and prayerfully the treatment has been totally successful.
Do you think the authorities have a part to play in Black and other communities' reluctance to go to the doctors?
It would seem to me that getting substandard treatment could be a valid reason why folks just choose to stay away, as damaging as that might be. What do you think?
V
This is my personal view point, I know every part of om body and take great care of it. I know when something is wrong and visit my Doctor for confirmation. I am not obsessive about looking after my body but I settled with myself early on that its the only one I have and I will look after it the best way I can.
But I have noticed that the generation of my mothers age say and think a like. With every pain and illness they make comments about them and its days weeks before they make an appointment to get it checked out. I have had conversations with my mum and I have encouraged her to book the appointment. Sometimes it nothing but when something is diagnosed she is relieved that it is nothing too serious or that something can be done and treatment given.
Its not all the time that certain feelings of pain / lumps and bumps that come and go are serious but for me I will always ask myself questions and if I can't answer them a Doctor or a Health Care Professional can.