Sorry for the awful title–I tried to think of something clever, but words have failed me. Today’s blog entry will be shorter one today as it is the 18 year anniversary of the death of my uncle–the same one whom I have often spoke about in these blog entries (See the entry for Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain for a quick intro on how influential he was to me as a person). Yesterday, I wasn’t able to blog as I was at the Doctor’s office for my annual physical. The day before I had to upload the grades for my students and I was completely exhausted trying to make sure that I had accurately graded all papers and projects.
You Should Always Have a Physical
I rarely give advice in these blog entries–preferring to relate the events and things that happen to me and let the readers decide how and what to make of that information for themselves. This is the rare time when I would suggest that everyone, if at all possible, have an annual physical examination. Why, you might ask? I feel fine, you might say. Well, I know from experience that it is important to have your health checked on a regular basis.
The High Cost of Medical Care
So, I’ve lost a family member and a friend, both of whom did not go the doctor because of the cost of medical care. My family member was an uncle, who died in 2000 due to colon cancer. I will always remember that time and it crystallized the need to have annual checks as a doctor mentioned that the disease would have been treatable if it had been caught early enough. A few years later, when I was working on my Master’s Degree in Education, I had a fellow graduate student who wanted to be a teacher, but wasn’t technologically savvy. He asked for help on improving his “technology” skills and, since we’d previously had a class together and I knew he was good guy, I agreed to help him. The last part of that class was comprised of a technology “presentation” and he told me he would call me so that I could run him through PowerPoint and show him how it worked . . . but the call never came, then came his time to present and he wasn’t there . . . and then the professor informed us that he had passed away. He had told me earlier that he wasn’t feeling well, but that he didn’t want to go to the doctor because of the high medical cost.
Annual Checkups are Necessary
So, to end this blog entry, after these two deaths, I’ve come to believe that annual checkups are necessary. I have missed one or two (due to unforseen circumstances), but I try to make sure, whenever possible to make my annual checkups and I encourage everyone to take one as well. Have a great day!
Sidney
- Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora Wolf
- Read Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
- Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
- Current Work-in-Progress: The Independent (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 2nd Draft)
- Current Work-in-Progress: Project Star (Sci-Fi Short-Story -1st Draft)
- Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
OtherWorlds: A Science Fiction & Fantasy Web Journal 