What's this all about?

Hi,
This is the first post to my first blog! I imagine you may have reached this blog through a search about health or by accident. However you arrived here, you may still have the question "OK, so just what do you mean by 'You in charge of your health'?".
I have been passionate about health for as long as I remember. I began reading almost everything I could get my hands on about how to be healthy and have healthy kids way back in 1971 (Oops! there I go dating myself ;-) ). I continued reading, thinking, analyzing what I read and heard about health. Skip many years later, 20 years in the healthcare profession as an RN and I have arrived at some very strongly held opinions.
Please note! I said opinions! If you read this blog you are agreeing that you, ultimately are responsible for what healthcare decisions you make. I do not diagnose nor prescribe! Sorry, had to get that out of the way for legal purposes.
As I see it, I am in charge of my own health and you are in charge of your own health. After all, who knows more about me than me? I have lived with me for 60 years. You have lived with yourself for however many years old you are. No Healthcare Professional has that many years of experience with you.
"Hold it!" you say, "But I don't have the professional education that my HCP has. How can I even think that I am in charge?" Good question. One we all have to answer for ourselves.
Let me illustrate with the plumber. Your drain gets stopped up (you know that the tree out in the yard has roots that have grown into your sewer) When the plumber arrives you tell him your drain is stopped up and you think it needs to be roto rootered as you are almost positive the roots from that ole tree out back has grown into the sewer line. Note here: you don't say you know because you are afraid of offending the all knowing plumber, after all he has so much more education and experience with these things, but you really are sure the roots of the tree are the problem.
Well the plumber really doesn't like it that you of all people, a lay person, is even suggesting to him what the problem MIGHT be so he sets out to "discover" the problem without taking you seriously. 6 hours later he comes to you confidently, with professional voice and breezily states "Well, I finally found your problem. The roots to that old tree out back have grown into your sewer line. I'm going to need to roto rooter the line. No time today so I will be back tomorrow and I think I can get the line cleared in 4 hours." Or an even worse case seneario is that he comes to you and says, "the problem is your kitchen sink, the drain trap needs replaced......etc, etc, etc". See the problems one can get into by 'just listening' to the "Professional".
What? You got it, If this professional had listened to you, he would have gotten your line cleared right away. OK, so maybe that is a cheesy example but it's all I could think of at the moment.
What I am trying to say is, whether or not you are consulting with a MD, ND, DO, DC, NP, PA, Massage therapist, Reiki Master, CST therapist, or any other kind of healthcare provider. We each, in fact, are the Head of our own Healthcare Team because it is us who has the greatest knowledge about ourselves.
Any way we go from here, we are the ones who decide what to do with the information we are given by the HCP. We can decide to kick back, and do just exactly what "they" tell us to do or we can say "thank you very much for your advice, I want to think about this, a second opinion, to research more, see what cousin Elmo says etc. ".
This "taking charge of your own health" concept is what this blog is all about. If you have questions, please post them and I will attempt to answer them. Otherwise, I imagine I will be blithering on about just how a person can best be their own Healthcare Team Leader. :-}
Until next time.
The Healthbug