Dr Google vs Dr Tariq and his team

I had a serious problem with Dr Google this week and for those who haven’t met him yet, he is a doctor on the engine searcher Google. You of course type in an issue you suffer from and Dr Google tells you what’s wrong with you and most of the time Dr Google exaggerates. 

And this is precisely what happened to me this week. As a working mother, you already feel guilty when you do not spend enough time with your children and the feeling gets even worse when you are made to believe that you could’ve been the reason why your child could be ill. This is life. We all work and we might sometimes even not give our children all the attention they need.

For months my nine-year-old son had been showing me a thin dark line on his finger nail and it has happened to all of us as children. If you close the door on your fingers. Scars on the nails take their time and eventually fade.

But on the incident I will refer to as the Dr Google day, I walked into the house and my brave little young man told me he believes he has melanoma, skin cancer and that what was on his nail was that. What I had ignored for months assuming it’s just a scar suddenly became the scariest thing that could ever happen to me and my child. I asked how did he assume that and he said Google had told him. What of course to me seemed a scar suddenly became a deadly disease and I spent the night on Google until the next morning when he and I saw the first dermatologist. She made it clear that it was just a nail scar and that if needed more confirmation, he should see a surgeon the same evening and the surgeon said he was also sure it was just a scar. I believed it was too but now I had entered the stage where I had to be sure that it wasn’t melanoma that Dr Google had confirmed. The next morning, we ended at Dr Tariq Saeed’s clinic and his word was the last word I needed to take. There isn’t anyone more senior to me and I can blindly trust more than Dr Tariq, and I respect all our doctors of course. He saw him and he told my Khalid that this wasn’t melanoma and very lovingly asked him to send him pictures every month to his phone to see if there were any changes and confirmed that he doesn’t even need a biopsy. My Khalid left Dr Tariq’s clinic, finally relieved. Dr Tariq left such a humane impact on Khalid that Khalid said he wished he would be like Dr Tariq one day. There is a huge difference between medical practitioners who look at what they do as jobs and others who deal with their patients on the most humane level.

Of course special thanks to Dr Tariq and his team of surgeons and specialists who succeeded for years in practicing medicine with the highest ethics and values. Dr Sherine and Dr Nimish. Thanks.

But my message this week is this and the lesson I personally learnt.

My nine-year-old was smart enough to Google what was worrying him and he had kept to himself. This is what unfortunately adults don’t do. And that is why we as adults die of diseases that are almost all curable if detected early. I respected how he had dealt with the matter. I respect his brain and ability to read and face what could be wrong with him. He was brave. We as adults pay our lives because of negligence. If our children today learn what early detection and awareness is all about, we can be assured that many precious lives can be saved. We die due to heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, blood pressure. All are curable if detected early. We neglect annual checkups and I myself do so too.  I would go to as many doctors as it would take to make sure my child is fine and all parents would do so but what about ourselves. When we die, we deprive our children of a happy life spent with their parents and it is extremely selfish of us to do so, Ruin our children’s’ lives. I’ll personally remind all my readers every now and then to do what needs to be done to make sure their lives are not wasted because of diseases that can be treated when detected early. My respect goes you my Khalid. Thanks for the lesson you taught me.

Khalid insisted on adding these words to my column

You shouldn’t only worry about your child’s illness. You also matter and even if you are an adult, that doesn’t mean anything. Remember age is just a number but back to what I was saying. If you do not treat yourself fast enough, your child will be hurt about what happens to you and will never forget what you took away from him or her. A father or mother can never be replaced.