I was a serious wimp when I was a little kid! I got to know a lot of people in health care because I constantly was “hurting” myself or getting “sick.” I don’t remember ever faking feeling ill or hurt, but I rarely ever actually was. After many trips to the nurse’s office in elementary school and the hospital for X-rays where they couldn’t diagnose me with anything, my mom made me read “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s about a boy who yells into town that there’s a wolf, when there really isn’t one. Everyone freaks out the first few times he does it, but after a while they all just ignore him. When one day there is actually a wolf, no one believes the boy. My mom was trying to teach me that if I went to the doctor’s office when I wasn’t really hurt or sick, he won’t believe me when I really am.
However, there are a lot of people who suffer through pain for too long before going to get diagnosed from a doctor. Receiving a diagnosis can be scary, but the sooner you confront an illness or an injury, the better your chances are of healing completely.
