Do You Choose Health or Illness?

Today, amidst all the budget debate, I began thinking of problem facing America. That of our health care or lack thereof. Do we choose to be healthy or do we choose illness instead. We'd all choose to be healthy, right? Right. Of course we would! Some people seem to sail through life without any healthcare challenges, but behind the scenes, they're probably chosing to include healthy lifestyle behaviors in their daily routine. They sleep right, eat right and exercise, going to the doctor for that  yearly physical. Others, aren't as lucky.


In spite of exercising, eating right, sleeping well, and doing all the 'right' things, some people have health challenges. They may have a diagnosis of diabetes or high blood pressure. This requires that they play a more active role in their health. They can't simply eat what they want and when they want to, but they need to  commit to eat certain foods at certain times and take necessary medication.

They also need to choose to keep blood sugars in a normal range, learning as much about the illness as possible and asking questions of the doctor or his nurse whenever there are things he doesn't understand. This is much more true with any chronic illness, like hypertension, heart disease or autoimmune diseases.

Healthy living involves many choices. Do you take the time to write up a list of questions that you want to ask the doctor when you see  him? If he orders blood work, leading a healthy life requires that if he (or someone from his office) doesn't call you with the results, that you take the responsibility and call him to find out what these results are and what they mean. This doesn't mean that you need to play junior doctor,

For years, Americans waited for Dr. Welby to call and call he did, with the test results. Now, for any number of reasons, that's not always the case. Americans, patients in any country for that matter need to learn to advocate for themselves. It's not  difficult, this self-advocacy. Often, you only need to show a modicum of interest in YOU and your health, for health  practitioners to take you seriously and to want to work with you.

This is one way to decrease the percentage of our health care dollars that go to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to decrease the cost of health care in this country. We can rely on resources already available to us, like pamphlets in the doctor's office and free health screenings at church. There is an abundant amount of information available on the internet (though we need to be cautious about some sites). We have choices about our health, "Do we choose to be healthy or do we choose to be ill?"