Protecting Ours and Our Families Health
When it comes to our health, there can be no bigger scare than hearing you have cancer. Immediately, your mind will be barraged by an endless stream of questions with no immediate answer and a sudden sense of our own mortality. You will also be faced with breaking the news to family, if you choose to do so — all this on top of the actual treatment itself.
However, cancer should not be as feared as it once was. Not so many years ago a cancer diagnosis meant almost certain death but science and research have made great steps in finding treatments and cures for many, many types of cancer. Certain health insurance companies even offer packages that specifically cover cancers so we can do all we can to help ourselves by taking out health insurance and leading a healthy lifestyle.
Every year in the UK over one thousand women will die from cervical cancer. It is the twelfth most common cancer for women to contract and we have a 0.8% chance of facing it in our lifetime. It is caused by the HPV (human papilloma virus) which can take up to twenty years to develop. This is why screening is so important. Screening is carried out regularly for women between the ages of 25 and 65 and detects early changes that could lead to cervical cancer. This means that it can be dealt with quickly and effectively.
However, with still so many women dying, it obviously wasn’t catching everyone and a vaccine was needed. Hence, we now have the HPV vaccine currently being rolled out in a campaign to vaccinate all school girls, beginning with the 12-13 year age group. The vaccine is given in three stages over six months.
A spanner has now been thrown in the works with the death of one young girl which occurred within an hour of her receiving the HPV vaccine. Authorities say she had an underlying health issue that contributed to her death but this will be enough to scare some parents into holding their daughters back from receiving the vaccine.
Of course, you cannot perfect any vaccine that will be suitable for everyone and if you know of any health problems you have, then of course, you can take this into account. The only problem is a health issue that you don’t know about and nobody wants their child to be the ONE.
Now, we can eat healthily, exercise regularly, take up offered vaccines that we feel comfortable with and take out life insurance to cope quickly with anything that is thrown our way but we cannot insure against the unexpected. All we can really do is be vigilant and learn to listen to our bodies and hope for the best!
Catherine Parker looks at how health insurance is just one of the things we can do to help ourselves and our families.
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