Posted by
Catmman on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:56:48 AM
"Let's wait and see what happens in Iran" seems to be the prevailing "wisdom" from many on the Left.
Almost eleven years ago, my mom was in the hospital having suffered a heart attack. I was sitting in the ICU waiting room with my brothers, their spouses and my wife. I scratched at an itch on my left leg, just behind the knee on the inside of my thigh. Didn't think anything of it, just an itch. It bothered me for a while, then I took a look at the itchy spot. I looked like and felt like a mosquito bite. Again, I didn't think anything of it but then my wife took a look. There was a bump on my leg where I had been scratching, the same you would get from a mosquito bite. However, something did catch her eye. The itchy spot was centered on a small mole on my leg. It was also "oozing" a bit. I thought it was just raw from my scratching. My wife said I needed to get it looked at.
After my mom had improved and was moved from the ICU, I went home and did make a call to get an appointment to see the doctor. The appointment I got was three weeks later (thank you government health care!) By the time the appointment came around, the itching had disappeared, the spot had healed and wasn't bothering me anymore. I almost cancelled the upcoming appointment but figured I'd waited three weeks to get it, what the hell, might as well go ahead and go.
I went to the doctor. The doctor took a look at the spot (now looking like a regular mole) and at first said we'll just wait and see what happens. If it bothered me again, I could come back and they would do a biopsy and check things out. He then left the examination room for a few minutes. When he returned, he had changed his mind. He said something about the spot just bothered him and he was going to go ahead and do a punch biopsy now and get it over with. The doc did his thing, I got a few stiches and the tissue sample was sent off to Wilford Hall Medical Center for testing.
A month later I was at work. I had just went on shift as the Desk Sergeant at Goodfellow AFB. The phone rang and the guy I was relieving picked up. He handed the phone to me, telling me it was a doctor from the clinic. I took the phone and asked what was up. The doctor told me to sit down. If anyone has ever had a doctor tell you to sit down, you know bad news is coming. Up to that point I had forgot all about the biopsy - it had been a month since I'd seen the doc with no word from him in the interim. Now the doc was calling me at work, late in the afternoon, and had told me to sit down.
He told me the biopsy results had come back - Stage II Melanoma. Cancer. At the time, I didn't know anything about melanoma. Stage II is relatively easily treatable. At the time however I did not know this. I was scheduled for surgery to remove the tumor, a "wide surgical excision" as it's called. I had to travel to Wilford Hall for the procedure which took another month to get the slot for. The tumor had not spread to any of the surrounding lymph nodes. Though there had been some initial surface ulceration (why my skin had started itching) said ulceration had healed and didn't appear to have penetrated too deeply into the dermis. They were going to cut it all out anyway, which they did. Subsequent tests and yearly followups have shown no recurrence, though I will have to have annual follow ups for the rest of my life to to be safe.
Why the long story? This was an instance where I almost cancelled my appointment and took a "wait and see" attitude. Melanoma (heck any cancer) doesn't take a wait and see attitude. Had I cancelled my appoitnment and done nothing, it is a certainty the cancer tumor would have grown, would have penetrated the layers of my skin, would probably have metastisized (as melanoma is famous for) and I would either be dead, dying or suffering greatly to hold on to what life I would have.
There were numreous other things going on in my life - my mom was recovering from her heart attack and subsequent open heart surgery. My dad who is aged himself needed more attention since my mom was recovering. I'm in the military after all and there are many demands daily there. Plus my own family to look after? It would have been easy to cancel the appointment and take care of other stuff, hoping things would "work out".
Taking a "wait and see" position on things is hardly ever wise, and has the potential to lead to catastrophe.