It took me a few bad experiences with my children for me to wake up and realize that their lives and health are all up to me. I silently keep wanting to apologize to them for not taking charge when I should have done so from when they were born. My secondborn had a rough first year of life, which brings a tear to my eye each time I recall it. Not that I was not present, but I was not taking charge as I should have. She was in the hospital almost every month with pneumonia, and she only slept well whenever she was on medication. Still, after the medication had worn off, she went back to being a poor sleeper until when she fell sick again and got back on medication.
Young children are vulnerable to many issues, and with their little lungs and hearts, they easily catch infections, but the part I wish I had played more actively was in realizing early enough that I needed to do something beyond rushing to the hospital when things went bad and spending sleepless nights on those days that she could not sleep. One time, after several visits to my usual pediatrician, a friend suggested I visit a different renowned chest specialist who had helped her son with similar issues. He gave me the same diagnosis and medication, I had been given by my usual pediatrician, but this particular visit changed me. The reason it did was because of how he looked at me. You know the look someone can give you that indicates that you are lying or seeking attention or the look that says ‘this is all your fault?’ That’s the look he gave me. I left that clinic angry, and annoyed, but with one resolve – to find out the cause of this recurring illness in my child. A lot happened, and I found out a few things that were not so pleasant (a story for another day) but decided to take charge, I made changes, both in lifestyle and in diet, and introduced a few natural home immunity boosters and home remedies and pneumonia did not come back and her health greatly improved. By this time, however, she had developed asthma, but we never went back to the doctors with grave illness, they were simply visits to boost what we had been prescribed to manage the condition. I can gladly say today that even asthma has since disappeared. Again this can be argued for various reasons but now I know how to manage my own children’s health as much as is within my control.
The first thing we forget when we rely on medication is that our immunity becomes highly compromised, therefore the first thing you need to do is get aggressive on natural immune boosting action. Doctors will most of the time only offer you what they know best – and that is medicine to cure the ailment, however, very few will go the extra mile to advise you on how to not get to that point in the first place. Sometimes for no fault of their own, this can be because they don’t understand your history, or because some of us believe so much in medication that if we don’t get a prescription we feel shortchanged by the doctor. Sometimes the doctor genuinely does not know where to begin in advising you what to do.
Our pharmaceutical industry has also been in the limelight in the past for the pursuit of profits over cure, creating substandard medications that ensure reliance on the medicine for the long term for profits. I think we all need to take charge of our health, and our children’s health more consciously. In this era of technology, there’s so much information available for free that we do not sufficiently explore. Books have been written about healthy foods, understanding your human body and its functions, etc, but we do not stop long enough to invest in this knowledge and take corrective action, but we leave everything to our medical teams.
Most of our ailments and conditions are unfortunately instigated by our lifestyle choices; the foods we consume, the limited movement, continuously living under stress and life’s pressure and leaving the most important aspect of self-care to others. Some of us with desk jobs consume 3 meals during work hours, mostly out of habit or for social purposes, and when we reach home, we settle on the sofas to watch some TV or Netflix and ‘wind down. We are continuously exposed to toxic environments; both mental and physical, consuming food that would not even attract insects. Some reality shows follow the lives of some obese individuals, all of whom live appalling lifestyles of over-consumption of poor foods, with little to no movement. You don’t need a medical certificate to know how they got here in the first place.
So again, who is in charge of your health? Is it you, your environment, your socialization, or your doctor? I challenge you to get back to the basics and take charge of your health and that of those you love. Read books, take more fruits and vegetables, make use of naturally available ingredients and spices for conditions that can be managed at home, and practice self-control and detox habits. After all, you know your body best and you are your own best bet.
There’s no better day than today to start taking charge of your health.
PS: I am no medical doctor, and neither am I a health expert, therefore any drastic lifestyle changes for pre-existing conditions should be worked on with the guidance of a specialist.
