HEALTH CONSCIOUSNESS
Yesterday I received a sad news that a friend and colleague died in his sleep he was just forty three years old. “He wasn’t ill said his wife but he just complained of a mild headache as he came in from his trip, he then took a pain reliever and slept. He didn’t wake up the next morning.” This sent chills down my spine as I thought of the wife’s statement; a young vibrant man yesterday with no symptoms of any illness is dead today. But this just one of many tales of young deaths, young lives cut short by the colds arms of death. Why, though I ask myself?
It’s a big concern for me as these deaths are people between the ages of twenty – eight (28) and Forty five (45), this for me is totally unacceptable. This led me to wonder what on earth could be the reason for all these explainable deaths with nature of deaths ranging from death in their sleep to complications from chronic diseases. The old are no longer dying but the young ones are, why? I don’t want to kid myself by thinking this is something spiritual and it’s out of my control but I want to take responsibility and act.
What are these chronic disease? Chronic diseases are long term health conditions that may or may not have a cure e.g. Alzheimer, Diabetes, Cancer, Heart diseases, High blood pressure, Asthma etc. These diseases may be present in the human body from between three months to fifteen years before they manifest or show any symptoms. Medical Doctors say that most times when they show these symptoms it’s already too late and difficult to treat. But the key to surviving is early detection and treatment.
How then do we detect these things early? It’s by watching our diet, life style and regular full body checkups and also giving full attention to the signs our bodies give us.When I gained admission into the higher institution several years ago, we were required to get our medicals done. This singular act saved the life of a friend as the chest x- ray revealed she had breast lumps in both breasts and we were just eighteen years old. Imagine what would have become of this my friend Naanan fifteen years after, if she never had this chest x-ray done then?
I know people that will say, I don’t want to get checked or go for checkups because Doctors will always find something. As funny as this sounds a lot of us are actually like that, we fear the worst hence we don’t act not realizing this delay is even worse. An ECG technician once told me that a Physical Education teacher died from complication from a heart defect that she was most likely born with but she never knew until two months to her death which was also unfortunately few months after the delivery of her child. This Technician said this condition is very treatable when detected on time, but how does this get detected on time? It’s only by full routine body checks. Even the Bible says “How then shall they be saved? By hearing the word of God, how then do they hear? By the preaching of the word of Life.”
My aim for this right up is not to scare or make us live in fear that we may die at anytime or we are carrying some deadly diseases but to draw our attention to the importance of routine checks and also putting an end to this trend of needless deaths. World Health Organization warned Nigeria several years ago through a research they conducted that by the year 2020 three out of every four deaths will be from chronic diseases. This is happening already but the good news is it can be stopped, simply by being conscious of our health and the signs it gives us, changing our lifestyle and diet and regular routine checkups.
