Time to see the doctor

I have a really nice family doctor. He saw me for a check-up, then a month later saw me in a follow up visit to my first hospital stay, sending me straight to the neurologist who eventually diagnosed GBS.

It was time for a check-up again this month and again, I was impressed that I have such a caring doctor. He asked many questions to make sure that during my relatively slow recovery that I am keeping my spirits up. He is a civilian doctor at the Air Force Base Hospital where I live. I'm glad he chose to work there.

We rely so much on competent doctors to help with our health concerns. As far as Health Care Reform goes, I just hope that it is clear that we need good, smart doctors and we need to compensate them fairly. What smart, caring person would decide to go to medical school if they know they will be poorly paid and have little decision making power in their practice when they graduate? Just something to think about.

image from digital-scrapbook-kits.com

Two great examples

Did you know Rowdy Gaines had GBS? I didn't until I was looking for an online version of a recent recoveree. I remember his name from the 1984 Olympics--he was a swimmer. And he won gold medals (wow!). Anyway, in the 1990's he had GBS and was investigating the LDS church. Story here.

Then here is the article I was looking for in the first place. I asked my young son to read the paragraph describing the onset of symptoms and he recognized those as GBS. The article is about a high school athlete recovered from from GBS in time to play his last year of football. Part of his recovery was shooting baskets and playing basketball. How fun is that?!

Being forced to slow down

Have you noticed that you can learn a lot from things that you don't want to have happen (i.e. trials)? I read The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks this week and was impressed by a quote from page 264.

Strange, what being forced to slow down could do to a person.

Applies to GBS, for sure! In the book, a girl and her brother go from NYC to live with their dad on the beach in North Carolina for the summer and as the pace of life slows down, they learn to be less selfish, more aware, and to love. It's quite beautiful, actually. Didn't know till I was searching for a book image that it is soon to be out as a movie. Hope my favorite quote is in it.