Universal Health Care blog #4

Health Care blog #4

Prompt: Is our health something that we have control over?

On first reaction most individuals would say that we are in charge of our health, but after a lot of thought I must disagree. Life, as we know it, is truly unfair. This is why we are not in control of our ultimate health and well being. Yes, you can do many things that give you a better chance at being healthy at certain points in your life, but these actions do not promise an individual anything. You could spend your life eating right, exercising, not smoking, and still be that unfortunate individual that is born with a disability, diagnosed with cancer, or gets into an automobile accident. Goodman talks about this in our universal health care book, “such lifestyle choices such as diet, exercise, and smoking. It makes far more sense to look at the disease and conditions to which we know medical science can make a real difference.” We should not only look at what we can control, but what we cannot, just as Goodman says. These unfortunate moments bring us to the realization that we are not in control of our health, but we do have the ability to help ourselves at certain moments in life, and help others during their low health.

Guadium quotes, “Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, you have killed him." As for yourself, if you do not feed yourself you are creating negative effects towards your health. So yes, at certain times you are in charge of taking care of yourself and others, but in the end we have no control over unexpected things happening to us or others. Those who go through life keeping their health at a peak may believe that they have always been in charge of how healthy they are, but as for me I have seen too much to believe that is true.

When I was fifteen years old my Dad was diagnosed with Lymphoma cancer, a cancer of blood cell tissues. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, eats right, and has always been active (even ran a marathon!). His father passed away from the same type of cancer when my Dad was a teenager, causing the idea of genetics to be the main topic of concern. My Dad was not in control of his own health when he was handed that deck of cards. Thank God that he has been in remission for a couple years now, and has done his best to keep up with the good health he always has had. In this case, he is now doing his best to be in control of his own health again. But just like any other cancer survivor in remission though, you are always on edge because you really can’t control everything about your ultimate health.

As our Rome trip continues, it seem as though the amount of homeless people on the streets keeps growing. The number of individuals I have seen begging for money with disabilities or missing limbs seems never ending. Could it be that all of these individuals are in this position due to their health decisions throughout life? For the majority, the answer is most likely no. Unfortunately most of these individuals were probably born this way, a health problem that they could not prevent. One cannot truly be in control of their own health. Those that disagree with this most likely have not seen the darker side of life, or do not truly understand it. “If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you’re fooling yourself. That’s like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn’t eat him.” Anonymous