Ode to Medical Science
I have always considered myself to be a very healthy person. I’m strong and am an all around good athlete. I love to do physical activity and fight off colds pretty well. I have a high tolerance fo pain, when it does strike. So, it was a wake up call when I went to the my doctor a few weeks ago. He told me to tell him my complete medical history. At first I thought, “Well, I’m really healthy.” Then the truth started to come out. Besides the three miscarriages… There was that time I went to the Philippines and started losing my vision because of some freaky, rare parasite I caught. A few months on heavy steroids almost completely fixed the problem. Oh, and there was that time I got Lyme’s disease and had to walk with a cane for a couple months until I couldn’t walk at all. I stayed on my parent’s couch watching movies…eventually it was excruciatingly painful just to turn my head. Eventually, I was put on a new medication for Lyme’s Disease which has almost completely fixed the problem. Oh, and there was that time I fell off my horse and compacted my spine after hitting my head on a huge rock. That one took longer to recuperate from and I still have back problems today.
The doctor looked at me and said, “Wow. It sounds like you’ve had quite an extensive medical history.”
This was a total wake up call to me, the one who considered herself to be very healthy. The one who, without medical science would have potentially died twice, and gone blind. Then the wake-up call continued. If it wasn’t for medical technology, I’d still have terrible headaches from my wisdom teeth. And, everyone in my family except my mom would be dead. That’s so weird to think about. We are so lucky and it kind of blows my mind to consider this whole thing.
So, this is my small thanks to those throughout history who have taken an interest in medicine and the technologies that help it along.