Get Checked

This will have nothing to do with baseball.

A close friend of my family died Tuesday of breast cancer. She was 49. This hits home because she was my friend; she was about my age; and her youngest daughter is the same age as my oldest son. They were classmates once upon a time.

She suffered a lot the last few months, and there is a feeling of relief now because that pain is over. However, for me, there is also frustration at how the last two years went. After she was diagnosed, I learned she had been in pain for a while but just put up with it. Not days; not weeks; but months (and possibly a year or longer). Never went to the doctor to try and figure out what was going on.

By the time she did finally relent and go see someone, the cancer was Stage 4.

I truly wish things had played out differently.

For me – and I suspect, for most of you – going to the Doctor isn’t one of life’s pleasures. But it’s absolutely necessary, especially as you get older. No one is handing out medals for how long you go between Doctor’s visits, or how much pain you can tolerate. That nagging pain you can’t explain? Find out what’s causing it. We pick apart transactions and starting lineups, things we have no ability at all to influence. Turn that intellectual curiosity to yourself, and find out what’s going on with your body.

I implore you – GET YOURSELF CHECKED. Forty-nine is far, far too young to move into the next phase of life; especially thanks to breast or prostate cancer, when early diagnosis brings with it a very high survival rate.

Now there’s an empty hole where my friend should be, and in the lives of her family and her friends.

GET YOURSELF CHECKED. Watch your kids graduate from High School. Walk your daughter down the aisle.

Don’t find out you have cancer too late and spend your remaining days living with regret. Who needs that?

This post also appears at Padres Public.

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