Back in the university, I always went for regular medical checkups and never missed them even up till now, I went at least twice a month with a close friend, Lilian. I grew up in a family were regular medical checkups weren’t a tradition, we barely fell ill because my grandmother always brought locally made medicine(herbs) for us.
She had herbal medicine for lots of sicknesses like malaria, stomach bite, dysentery and more, we didn’t believe in going to the hospital at all let alone going regularly for checkups.
But when I got into school, after lectures a group of ladies come into our class educating us on tests that every lady should do and on the importance of getting medical checkups at a good hospital.
From that day, Lillian and I made a resolve to always get medical checkups.
Sadly after a while, Lillian stopped going for medical checkups. Her reason was that she was healthy she didn’t need to go for medical checkups plus it was a total waste of money. "Those doctors are just mining money from us every time we go for medical checkups, I was just fine before going to the hospital and heavens will not fall if I stop…when she said it, I thought of it as a silly reason and kept persuading her to come with me.
"Medical Checkups are just a way to know how well your body is, I don’t see anything abnormal about it." I would tell her but she just wasn’t ready to listen. One day she began complaining of irregular bleeding and constant tiredness, but she didn’t take it seriously thinking it was just school stress. Her situation got worse by the day until she eventually fainted in class and was rushed to the hospital, she had developed a reproductive health condition; if only there had been an early diagnosis she wouldn’t have gone through intense treatment process.
Since then I’ve always encouraged people to go for regular medical checkups, my grandma and family included. Regular medical checkups shouldn’t be taken lively because they can save a life, it’s better to find out any health issue early and nip it in the bud(if any) rather than waiting until it becomes a major problem.
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Thank you for reading.