28_medical_alert

MEDICAL
ALERT!

ALERT! 

20

health

You have a cold 

You wake up in the morning with an

aching head, a scratchy throat and
a stuffy nose. You have a cold! What
should you do? If you aren't too sick, you
could probably just stay in bed, take
cough drops for your sore throat,
an over−the−counter medicine for your
nose and eat chicken noodle soup. 

If you really feel bad, or have been

sick for a couple of days, you'd better go
to the doctor. You will have to make an
appointment, and sometimes it's very
hard to get one quick. Once you are in
the examining room, the doctor will take
your temperature with a thermometer,
and listen to your heart with
a stethoscope. He will then probably tell
you to go home and go back to bed,
because there isn't much a doctor can do
for you if you have a cold. 

If the doctor does think you need

a specific medicine, he will write
a prescription for it. You can take it to
a pharmacy, and in the US or Great
Britain, many grocery stores have
pharmacies inside. 

However, maybe the doctor finds out

something else is wrong with you. You
could have the flu, which is like a cold
with a fever. The stomach flu is different,
that's when you are vomiting or have

diarrhea, perhaps from something you
ate or drank. If you have a lot of
headaches, it could be because you have
a problem with your eyes. Then you would
need to see an optometrist, who would
test your eyes using an eye chart.

More serious
illnesses

If you have severe, recurring

headaches, you may suffer from
migraines. With a migraine, in addition to
a really bad headache, you may also be
dizzy, nauseous and sensitive to light.
Headaches could also mean you have
a growth, or tumor in your brain, but this
is very rare. Tumors can be anywhere on
the body, and can be either cancerous or
not. The doctor would remove the tumor
in an operation, and if it is cancer, you
would probably have chemotherapy
treatments to kill any cancer cells still in
your body. 

When you have an operation, you can

either have it out−patient or in−patient.
Out−patient operations are for small easy
things, and mean you do not stay

overnight in the hospital. In−patient
operations are for more serious problems
and mean you will be staying in the
hospital for at least a couple of days.
If you have cancer, a heart attack or
a stroke, you will probably be admitted
to the hospital and have to stay until
the doctor says you can go home. 

What other diseases or illnesses can

you get? If there is a certain substance
like dust or pet fur that makes you
sneeze, you may have allergies. If you
have breathing problems, perhaps you
have asthma. Diabetes is a chronic
condition, which means you will always
have it. If you have diabetes, your
pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin
which means you have too much glucose
in your blood. A stroke is the sudden
death of some brain cells because of
a lack of oxygen. It occurs when there
is a blockage that affects the blood flowto your brain.