Sometimes Knowing Too Much Can Be Scary

I was listening to NPR about a breast cancer gene that a family found out they inherited. They spent a lot of money and stressful waits by the phone to find out if the gene was past on to them and from them to their daughters. It was heartbreaking and hard to listen to. So I turned it off.

So of course I started thinking about health screening as a whole. And how sometimes to much information isn't a good thing. This family was pretty frantic and even had periods of depression due to the unknown of their health screenings. I started to think about how health screening for your family doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

I think if you make it mandatory that annually or whatever schedule your doctor suggested, it will become routine. I think about how I go for mammograms and pap smears and it's typically a non-stressful appointment. It's health screening and should be treated as such, a way to warn your self in advance so you can take preventive measures or treat problems. Needless to say the NPR story on health screening had me thinking a lot about my own health and how I can take control by using health screening for preventive care.

What's in your medicine cabinet?

You ever go to someone else's house for dinner or a party and look to see what's in their medicine cabinet? Don't lie, either you did or you thought about it.

I decided to go through my medicine cabinet. It's one of those neglected areas of the home you just don't think about cleaning. To my surprise I found a lot of expired medicine and vitamins. I also noticed a lot of medications and vitamins that I used to prevent myself and my family from getting colds and infection.

The money spent on preventing my family from getting sick has added up. Not that it hasn't been worth every penny. As me and my spouse go into our 40s I started to think about preventive screening.

Preventive screening for my family is something I never considered. However, having a family with high blood pressure makes me think that preventive screening makes sense. My husband doesn't know a lot about his family's medical history and worries about health issues that may develop as he ages. So for both of us preventive health screening makes sense. We also want our children to be aware of health screening when they become adults.