Finneran: About That Mammogram
Friday, May 31, 2019
Schedule the mammogram and be sure to keep the appointment.
Of all the tendencies of the human family, taking one’s good health for granted is the most universal.
It’s true. We simply assume that today’s good health will be there for countless seemingly endless tomorrows.
Until it isn’t……………….
That assumption of infinite good health is particularly true in the United States. We Americans take for granted the facts of abundant food, clean water, virtually universal shelter, effective vaccines, and astounding medicines. What’s not to like about that cornucopia of advantages?
Medical knowledge builds steadily from year to year. On the horizon we see prevention and cures for ALS, dementia, various cancers, and other maladies of mankind.
Medical devices allow doctors to look inside veins and arteries, to examine organs, and to deliver medicines to precise locations without the risks of major surgery.
Yet, notwithstanding our many medical blessings, most of us would greatly prefer to avoid it all, to hop out of bed in the morning and charge off happily and healthily to the day’s tasks. We moan and groan mightily when our mobility is impaired. An infection might lay us low. An organ’s function might be under attack. A family history may make us susceptible to various diseases. The dreaded C-word is usually a later-in-life experience. For women it may be breast cancer. For men it is likely to be prostate cancer.
It is at these moments, moments of inquiry, moments of anxiety, and moments of diagnosis, that we come face-to-face with our mortality. It is at just such moments that we cherish what we no longer have, the blessings of a healthy and carefree life. Our homes, our cars, our other possessions shrink in importance to our health. No such possessions can exercise a hold on the mind of a sick person. Rather, the sick person’s preference is for a good day or a good week. Such are the simple and much appreciated treasures of those who are ill.
A wise and very successful Boston businesswoman recently made a telling point to me. She remarked that we Americans spend a lot of money on health care. She noted that we do so because we have the capacity to do so. She went on to point out that every single culture does essentially the same thing. Developed countries might get to spend more because of their wealth. But less developed countries will also spend whatever they can in pursuit of the same goals---longer and healthier lives. Their health care assets may differ from ours, but the underlying motivation and goal is identical---it is to “spend” knowledge and assets to improve their society’s health. To those less wealthy societies, I’m sure that such expenditures seem quite high.
And that’s because of one enduring fact of life throughout the entire inhabited world--- a recognition that good health is priceless.
So cue the colonoscopy. Schedule the mammogram and keep the appointment.
And may you be blessed with good health.
Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio
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