Diagnosis

Diagnosis without action is dead.
I am a terrible medicine swallower.  I put a tablet in my mouth and water and spend ages that way.  Eventually I do the big swallow.  Taking the medicine is an ordeal in itself.  Yet it deals with what is to be dealt with.  It does me good, but I reckon my process makes it even worse than it needs to be.
Though there was one time I know the medicine itself was making me crook all day.  I was taking a few tablets and I thought “I reckon it is that one.”    But I had no proof.  In the end I cut the tablet in half with the thought that if a whole tablet was making me sick all day, then half a tablet should make me sick half a day.”  Sure enough, I became acquainted with the bucket next to my bed for half a day, and then I felt better.  Bit drastic I know, but it was short term pain for long term gain.
So often it seems a doctor can tell me what to do.  I know it is right and if I do it the problem will be fixed.  The trouble is I do not want to.  I know I am heading for trouble with the lifestyle I have adopted but for any number of reasons I choose to ignore it hoping that doing something the same way produces different results.
The trouble for me is it does not.  So often my stubbornness gets in the way.  “Blow you Jack” I am doing this despite many people warning me there is danger ahead.  Sure enough it happens.  Sometimes it is a long way down the track, and sometimes it is just around the corner.
Doctors can get it wrong and sometimes spectacularly wrong.  I was told to do something and did it and it had no affect whatsoever.  Something else we did worked.  But my experience is mostly they are right.  The fact we still have doctors testifies to me that the vast majority of times they get it right.
They have had training.  Every patient allows them to put into practice what they know or to learn.  It is no wonder where a doctor works is called a “practice.”  Just by the by I think everything I do could be called a practice.  Some stuff I have “been there, done that.”  Other stuff I learn.  Practicing to me is a lifelong thing.
The thing for me is there is some advice I ignore at my peril.  It is given not on the basis of a whim.  Cases that present themselves generally have two possible outcomes.  Following the advice and getting better, or ignoring it and becoming a statistic.
To science I may be a statistic, but to me and others I am a human being.