An Open Letter to Lubbock Men: Stop Being Stubborn And Go To The Doctor

If a guy is reading this, my guess is that his wife or girlfriend put it in front of him.

Sorry about that, guys, but I recently learned two painful lessons, and I’m hoping you can learn from them without going through what I did.

The first lesson started with a visit to a new restaurant. The next day, I saw somebody post online, “Be careful, guys. That stomach bug is no joke.”

I happened to be eating my leftovers from the restaurant when I read it. I did something I almost never do: I threw most of the food away.

I’ll make a very long and unpleasant story as short as possible. I began throwing up a strange black, fibrous substance and felt like I had a steel band wrapped around my chest. Even with those symptoms, I delayed going back to the doctor because I kept telling myself it would pass.

It did not pass.

By delaying and denying that something was seriously wrong, I ended up spending nine or ten days in the hospital. I went through multiple procedures and surgeries, had a tube coming out of my chest and experienced a whole lot of misery that might have been less severe if I had acted sooner.

That should have been enough to teach me a lesson, but apparently I needed another one.

Persistent Symptoms Need Professional Attention

Shortly after I was released from the hospital, I began having persistent scabbing inside my nose.

My first thought was that somebody must have scraped or irritated something during one of my procedures. I had also spent time receiving oxygen, so I figured the inside of my nose had simply become severely dried out.

That was more than six months ago.

I finally went to the doctor this past Sunday. He told me I had an infection inside my nose that needed to be treated with antibiotics. He also warned me that infections in that area can potentially spread to the brain and become extremely serious.

Once again, I had spent months assuming I knew what was wrong instead of allowing a medical professional to examine it.

Maybe you consider yourself a tough guy. Maybe you believe you don’t have the time to see a doctor. Maybe you’re worried about the cost. Those are real concerns, but you need to start figuring them out before a manageable problem becomes an emergency.

I was taught these two lessons the hard way, so maybe you won’t have to learn them the same way.

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Good luck and good health to you. When you have a persistent symptom—especially something painful, unusual or worsening—go to the doctor. Let a professional decide whether it is serious instead of trying to tough it out and diagnose yourself.

Your body is trying to tell you something. Stop arguing with it.