About this series: I revisited my journals from my early years as a freelance writer and found they told a story of their own. In this series I get the rare opportunity to give myself and other writers career advice with nearly 50 years of hindsight. Enjoy!
I’ve never been one to talk and fret much about health issues. Now that I’m in my senior years, they no longer come as much of a surprise, anyway.
But things were different when I was fresh out of college, living alone for the first time. I did worry about things I didn’t understand. And the recurring pain and numbness in my left arm was a scary mystery.
Driving back from my mother’s house after Thanksgiving:
… I am worried, however, about a pain that developed in my left armpit and worked into a general numbness and dull ache in the whole arm. It could be a strain from overwork the other day, compounded by my imagination. But I worry.
Journal, Volume III
25 November 1979
Back at work the next day:
Put together a damned good front page — best composition we’ve had in months, Robert said. Great!
Arm continues cold + numb. Worried.
Ibid.
26 November 1979
The next day:
Is it my imagination, or do I have a lump in that armpit? God, I hope it’s nothing serious. Thoughts of cancer. Probably I ought to see a doctor, if only to relieve my mind.
Ibid.
27 November 1979
In a note from that I squeezed into that entry a month later, I noted: “Troubles slightened w/vit. E+C, but occasionally I have small arm or chest tweaks. Heart trouble, possibly?”
Then the next day:
… My arm felt better today, though it tired this evening. I am holding off on a doctor until I’m sure it isn’t getting better. Could be a minor infection of a lymph gland or something. But I worry.
Ibid.
28 November 1979
Procrastination is seldom fatal, but that’s not a certainty. Any of the possible causes I guessed at — a heart condition, cancer, a serious infection — can be deadly. I should have had it checked out, rather than let it go for months.
The problem: I didn’t have health insurance — not that I knew anything about how it worked. For that matter, health insurance is only a problem if there’s a provider who will take it. I never got that far. Bradford had recently lost its only physician, and none of the surrounding towns had what we would now call primary care providers.
In the days before walk-in medical clinics, my best bet would have been to go to the Emergency Room at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, which was then only two blocks from my old fraternity in Hanover. But this was clearly not an emergency. If it had been, I would already be dead.
Why am I sharing all this in a series about starting a writing career? Simply this. In today’s part-time and gig economy, many writers will not have full-time jobs with health insurance. You’ll be in the same boat — or at least the same kind of boat.
So plan now for the time when you will have a medical situation you need checked out. Find a healthcare plan you can afford at HealthCare.gov. Locate a provider or clinic near you so you can be prepared for when you need it.
That way you won’t worry the way I did, which cuts into the productivity and creativity needed for a successful writing career.
** Footnote: By now, you’ve already figured out that a** = arm. Made you look!
