The Sunshine Will Come Out

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” This is a nice and true saying. Many of us wait. We wait to marry, wait to have children, wait to take a trip, wait to start dieting, wait to buy something new for the house, wait to take up a hobby and wait to keep on waiting. I have a friend who passed away at age fifty-one February 16th. He was a fine man and he was waiting to change careers. He had been a manager of a local restaurant and he was going to the community college on the next morning, he was off from his waiter’s job that he worked at after leaving being a manager. Some thought he had stepped down in position workwise, but he knew he could not stand the long hours he worked as a manager and told us he was going to do something he had done when he was in the army. He was going to become a medical person and the way he was going about it, he was applying to become a male nurse. He never made it to the college to get the information, because he had to work the all night shift that Monday night and Tuesday when he was supposed to be off, he was tired and did not go for his appointment. Then he was going to visit the campus on that coming Thursday and the Wednesday night before that day, he had a heart attack and passed on the day he was supposed to go for college information. He was a fine man and this happened out of the blue as they say. Of course, he must have had some medical problems that were hidden from him or he did not go to a doctor when he had some signals of the incoming problems. Perhaps he waited, we do not know. He had seen us the Monday night of the long day he was working and he said to us “I guess I have a good twenty years to practice nursing.” He meant he was fifty-one and if he worked another twenty or so years, that would be good. However, he never got to do that and who knows if he had not worked the long shift, that perhaps he would not have been so tired and he would have realized some symptoms and may have gone to a medical facility. He waited as many people wait when they get some signs of illness. They wait to see if goes away with a miracle. My dad did that over forty-eight years ago, waiting for his doctor to come back from vacation. By the time he came back, Dad was in the hospital and died a few days later. If he had perhaps gone to another doctor or hospital, he may have lived. My brother did a similar thing and was told to wait ten days for a visit to a cardiologist. Perhaps, if he had tried to go to another cardio doctor, he would have lived . Who knows what would have happened to these three persons if they had gotten medical advice early on? Perhaps, these three by not waiting for the storm that was going to happen to them, may have lived to see the next day’s sunshine. I am not a medical person, what do I know? Sometimes to wait for something is good, sometimes when it is your body and your life, try something else and go and seek help even if you are told to wait it out. There are hundreds of doctors who will see you immediately and even these clinics in strip malls , where they have prompt care for almost anything, would have a doctor new to you to see what is happening. You do not need to be a patient of long standing like in your own doctor’s office. It is a walk-in facility and can be very good for instant care. If it is something that is quite in the emergency mode, they will send you to the hospital at once or take x-rays on site or send you for some ultrasounds or whatever they decide you may need. Waiting for a new house, for a new job, for a new traveling experience and waiting for a new baby to be born are in the group of waiting for great things with great expectations. Sometimes, it is not clever to wait for something. Sometimes it needs to happen now. That is your decision for you alone to decide. Another old saying is “it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” Maybe lighting a candle will give us a source of light to see things. When I was little, adults sometimes had the habit to put things off, because of the expense involved and they did not have the money to lay out, for the project. My folks always had the money to take us to a doctor if necessary. We may not have gotten a new toy, book, piece of clothing when we wanted it, but there was always the checkbook ready to pay for something for our health. In those days, there was no health insurance at all. You went to the doctor and handed him when you departed the check for around six dollars per visit for that visit. He had no billing secretaries, he had no receptionist, and he was the doctor, billing clerk and appointment clerk. He did not have a fancy office with beautiful chairs and a TV blasting away like some , because in those days, I do not think they had a lot of tests around to diagnose your illness or to look in the insides of your body to see what was wrong or good. You did not take x-rays unless you broke a leg or arm. There was no prostate screening, no cholesterol testing or much of any other testing. He told you what was wrong and that was it. He either told you to take an aspirin (no Tylenol, Advil or Aleve) in those days; it was all aspirins period or he would admit you to a hospital. When in the hospital, they would keep you for days, while they took tests of this and that. You laid there all day waiting for the nurse to come and take you downstairs somewhere to take a test of some sorts and then two days later, you got the results and either stayed to have something done or were discharged. Things have changed for the better, I think and there are many diagnostic tools to find something out and very quickly. Perhaps if my dad forty-eight years ago had not waited for the doctor to come back from vacation, he would have lived many more years and would have had the opportunity to meet my grandchildren who would have been his great grandchildren and also my son who was born after he passed on. Perhaps, my brother if he had not waited for the cardio appointment and had gone to see someone else in that field; he would have lived to see his granddaughter make him be a great grandfather I realize that some people run too much to doctors; others not enough. Who knows what is correct but in my laywoman’s knowledge and thoughts, it is better to be more careful than to be lax. That is like the saying says if you spend your whole life waiting for the storm you will never enjoy the sunshine. Waiting can be OK sometimes for some things, but when it concerns your health, my humble opinion is seek help and care and perhaps, you will then be here to see the sunshine. If you have health insurance, most of it will be paid by the insurance and the balance of twenty percent of your copay is well worth the good results you may get by going to a physician right on. I know many of you turn the cheek and figure divine intervention will set upon you and perhaps it would or could. However, the old saying is “an ounce of prevention is worth the pound of the cure.” Think about it long and hard when and if you decide to wait for something that is aching or hurting you. You’re ‘not to do now thoughts’ like those of my Dad, my brother and my friend can lead you to a storm rather than sunshine. Karl Kraus said ‘diagnosis is one of the most common diseases.’ Of course, this is only a saying, but I would rather try to get an opinion from someone who is educated in this profession and if you doubt it, are concerned about it or even decide to not to listen to it; you will have at least not waited. Perhaps you will get help, relief or contentment in your mind that nothing was wrong and if some of your friends or family calls you a kvetch (a complainer, a worry wart) who cares? You are the smarter one, because you are protecting your health and this is better than being a ‘waiter type personality’ which means you will be here to appreciate the sunshine and have bypassed the storm. elita sohmer clayman Like Comment Share Comments