Can we talk?

family problem is enlightening

      It's amazing how we non-medical people, who hear medical conditions from time to time, and let them go out  of our heads without understanding, suddenly pay attention when a family member, or we ourselves, contract one of these conditions. I myself am a good example.
    When I heard about things, I always felt sorry for the person, but I didn't get a lot of detail. And I've forgotten most of what they taught in school. And there are always public service announcements about recognizing the signs of stroke, or seizure, or heart attack, or choking. Most people ignore them until they hit home.
    Now I know someone who has seizures, and I remember a poster I saw at the auto mechanic. Now it has some meaning, but I had to look up the info, just in case I need it. When a relative went on dialysis, I began to learn about the kidneys and how they function, and just what a dialysis machine does. I learned about different types of heart surgery, when it hit home. When my friend's mother got Alzheimer's, I looked it up to see what the symptoms were. My latest inquiries were into an enlarged liver. Someone else in the family had diabetes, so I learned about that through her, but I also looked up recipes and things for her. An in-law had IBS, so I learned about that.
    I want to know more about the things that plague the people around me, but I never wanted to study illness or sick people. I didn't pay attention to public service messages, because they didn't apply to me. Now I know all kinds of health conditions that I wish I had never heard of. Unfortunately, that's life.
    This existence of ours includes disease and malfunction and injury, to the body and the mind. Given enough time and enough acquaintances, we will learn a lot about medical problems, and prescriptions, if we pay attention. However, it seems to me that the average person isn't paying attention. Is it a lack of caring or they're just too caught up in day to day to hear someone else's concerns?
    I once thought my pastor should have been a medical doctor because he knew so many medical problems in detail, or could ask all the appropriate questions, unlike most people, when he heard of some church member's problem. Then I realized he's been a pastor for 50 years, and a family counselor for almost as long, and he's probably heard it all by now in great detail. Because he truly listened, instead of glazing over, he retained a lot of medical data. And according to him, he listens rather than offering words of cheer, because he's had a few doctors straighten him out on physical pain and suffering.
    If only mankind could have stayed in the Garden of Eden, there would be no disease, pain, or suffering. There would be no allergies, no negative reaction to the sunlight on our skin, no malfunction of our body parts. But here we are in the 21st century on planet Earth, and as we get older, we learn more about sad things and nature's challenges to living.