<p>I feel sad for your family members, MiamiDAP, if they lose you prematurely (and I doubt you are really all that old-- I’ll bet many of us here have you beat), especially if you have something that is imminently manageable or curable. Why single out diabetes to watch for (just because it runs in your family) but cancer to ignore. Have a colonoscopy. Or have a virtual colonoscopy. But, required reading are these 2 threads before you go. You will be laughing so hard you won’t need the prep stuff. You’ll laugh your a$$ off.</p>
<p>By the way, my DS could have easily ignored the mole that needed attention. He wanted to ignore it. He scars easily and didnt want to have the moles removed. Heck, when he did, there was a horrible storm and the power went out in the middle of his getting stitched up from the second procedure. Why did he have the second procedure? Because the first one found severe dysplasia (one step from melanoma). He was 18 at the time. He has a noticable scar. But he is alive.</p>
<p>Following jym’s lead and going somewhat off topic - I have an appt. in half an hour to follow up with my dermatologist after an atypical mole was removed 6 months ago. The doctor thought it looked okay but I insisted that it wasn’t as it was darker than any other I had and didn’t used to look that way. Sure enough the lab said it was bad and she had to take off a larger margin 10 days later. With two other body parts giving me trouble as well, I feel like cancer is nipping at my heels but I’m being super aggressive about screening - running as fast as I can. I pity the above poster with her head in the sand. (If this wasn’t a family site, I would say that I’m trying to see her point of view but I can’t get my head up my ***.)</p>
<p>I’m talking about your day-to-day care when you’re either recovering from surgery, radiation or just the flu because your immune system is wiped out. I’m not talking about the health care providers/staff. I’m talking about those people whose lives will be disrupted because you thought a screening test was unnecessary, when it’s been show to save many, many lives. Your insurance isn’t going to pay for a hired caregiver to do all these things for you. So either your family will have to do it, putting their own lives on hold, or you will have to pay someone out-of-pocket to do it. Again, if your family has to do it, what do you think happens to their lives while they have to care for you? All because you wouldn’t take a day and a half out of your life to undergo some screening that would prevent this.</p>
<p>MOWC - wow, I know a lot of physicians that would like to know her secret!</p>
<p>MiamiDP - I’ve been sort of diplomatic in my responses, not trying to pull the ‘experience’ card, but I’m telling you you’re wrong. Do you know what hospice care is? I worked in hospice for seven years, with my major job responsibility being that of helping people and their loved ones with end-of-life issues These are typically people who have been given a prognosis of less than six months to live. This is where the proverbial doodoo hits the fan. Family dynamics are complex and complicated. Hospice patients come to us after every diagnosis under the sun, not just cancer. You name the disease, I’ve pretty much seen how it plays itself out in the end. Some of them are what we call self-inflicted diseases, such as liver damage from alcohol or drug abuse; or lung cancer from smoking. These are the really sad cases. Family members are forced to care for their loved one while simultaneously being very angry with them for cutting their life short. Other diseases just happen with no apparent reason that can be prevented (look up Huntington’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, dementia) with any sort of diagnostic testing and/or treatment. Families of patients with those diseases do not carry the same sort of anger and resentment toward the patient as those who could have taken pre-emptive steps to avoid diseases that can be prevented. Again, not to pull out the experience card, but you are wrong to think that by narrowly focusing on diabetes prevention, you don’t need to worry about other diseases as you age. I could write volumes and volumes of books about families I dealt with directly - some led perfectly healthy lifestyles their whole life, and still developed some incurable illness. Some had episodes of illnesses (such as cancer) that they fought and beat, then eventually returned many years later. But the screening allowed them that extra time. And then there are stories of obese people, who in their 80s, develop some disease that has nothing to do with their obesity. My personal trainer works with a gentleman in his mid-60s who is morbidly obese, but has no diabetes, no high blood pressure and no high cholesterol. He obviously beat some odds, so why shouldn’t he just stop going to the doctor since he is obviously ‘right’ about what he is doing, since he’s still alive. </p>
<p>Don’t do the colonoscopy or whatever (doesn’t bother me - I won’t be taking care of you), but don’t mislead people on this forum that what you are doing is considered best practices in the medical field. You may never get diabetes, but while you’re spending so much time narrowly looking through your diabetes lens, don’t be surprised if you miss something else that could have been prevented.</p>
<p>And a final observation since this is mostly a parent’s forum. I believe one of the ways we best teach our kids is by modeling responsible behavior. Every time I’m tempted to procrastinate on some routine health care that’s needed, I think about the message I want to send my daughters… that taking care of yourself is important and a worth-while endeavor… that they are important enough to this world to heed recommendations and suggestions from their health care practitioner so that they can be around as long as possible. I want them to care about themselves and learn to work with their physicians as a team player and not take their health into their own hands. And before you reply to this… yes, they both work out, do not smoke, and are very conscientious about their nutrition. If those are values they’ve adopted because of watching me, then I can’t think of many other more important things I could have left as a legacy!</p>
<p>Miamidap,
I wonder, do you go to doctors at all? It sounds like maybe you don’t. You check height, weight, bp, and blood sugar at home? Do you have some type of fear of doctors? I can tell you from experience that caring for a family member with cancer is heartbreaking. Again, you sound a lot like my father who died of colon cancer.</p>
<p>No thanks. You may be the smartest person on the block in every other area, but it’s clear to me from your posts that you are very uneducated about health, disease prevention/screening, disease processes, and treatment.</p>
<p>You are free to make your own decisions about your body, but please don’t pretend that your actions come from a place of knowledge. Because you clearly don’t possess it. I repeat, do what you want with your own body, but the thought of anyone “learning” from you (as stated above) about the nature of diseases and all that relates to that is rather scary.</p>
<p>Are you aware that breast cancer is about 1,000,0000 times more painful than a mammogram, especially for people who “are more sensitive than others?”</p>
<p>This is patently false. While lifestyle choices can influence the development of type II diabetes, diabetes type 1 does not happen because of lifestyle choices and cannot be prevented. Hypertension can occur in people of normal weight who eat right and exercise because of genetic factors or other conditions. My sister is 5.2 and 105 lbs, works out 6 days a week and eats like a nutritionist and just had to get on high blood pressure meds-hypertension runs in the family. And I wish I had some control over my height-I’d be 5 inches taller.</p>
<p>nrdsb4 - a few months ago, a 38-year old well-liked sportscaster (Daryl Hawks) on the Chicago NBC affiliate died suddenly in a hotel alone in Atlanta, while there covering an NBA playoff game. He was a marine, and took his physical health very seriously. Initial autopsy reports were inconclusive, but this month it finally was reported that he died of a heart attack brought on by hypertension. It’s about the last thing anyone would have thought of. He was about as buff as anyone would imagine.</p>
<p>I have told the story before of the 34 yr old army reservist who was running the local annual big 10K race and dropped dead of an MI in my lap. He apparently had severely occluded arteries. His mother was checked out after his death and she ended up with a quadruple bypass. He saved her life, but he left a beautiful wife and 2 small children. Tragic.</p>
<p>I recently lost a dear friend who was an Ironman triathlete and Boston marathoner. He appeared to be in perfect health and did get all his screenings. He dropped dead in his kitchen of a heart attack at age 64. I know he wouldn’t have wanted to be a burden to his family and friends by suffering a horrible and preventable cancer demise, though. He also didn’t think floating around in the pool for an hour plus counted as proper exercise.</p>
<p>teri-
I can’t find the post right offhand, but there really isn’t much more to tell. It was pretty traumatic, and to deal with it, I ran a bereavement support group for several years. It was a long time ago, and it still haunts me.</p>
<p>Really??? No jokes in the cafe to lighten things up and redirect the critical talk? Guess we’ll stick to the ugly banter about dying from cancers, etc.</p>