Being someone who has seen the effects of not having a
good financial plan for the future, I can confidently
say that you're making a big mistake if you haven't
already done some sort of planning. This is even more
true when it comes to your health, which is precisely
the area in which I had a bad experience.
You see, my wife and I are both working individuals, and
since together we earn twice of what most families with
a single earning individual do, we were quite cavalier
when it came to insurance. We said to ourselves, what
are the odds we incur a huge medical expense? Let's not
worry about it and keep our savings strong. But trouble
was just around the corner.
My wife started having serious bouts of vomiting, which
the doctors initially attributed to intestinal
tuberculosis. They continued to treat her for it for a
couple months to no avail. And then when we did further
tests, it turned out that it was cancer a non hodgkins
lymphoma. I still remember the day the doctor called us
into his office and gave us the news. Suddenly, all our
plans for the present and the future seemed quite
trivial against the monstrosity that we now would have
to deal with.
The doctor told us that we needn't worry too much as
it's one of the types of cancer that has an 80% chance
of being cured. We started with all the recommended
medication and chemotherapy, and after a intensive
regime that resulted in excruciating pain both for my
wife and me, she started to get better. She had
responded to chemotherapy as we expected, and after a
year or so of careful treatments and hundreds of tests,
we concluded that the nightmare had passed.
It has passed alright, but it also left in its wake a
total destruction of our finances and left us nearly
bankrupt. The doctor's bills, the cost of stay in the
hospital we didn't take chances and had her admitted
to one of the most expensive places in the city and
the overall cost of having her treated, tested, treated
again, and the loss of income due to taking enormous
amount of leaves had rendered us nearly crippled
financially. And to think of it, we could have avoided
all that heartache at least financially by simply
opting for a good medical health insurance.
We have learned our lesson, and
now that we're both back to work again, we have started
investing in all sorts of protection plans right from
life insurance to medical insurance, automobile
insurance, home insurance, and insurance-related
investments. We may have a little less cash in the bank,
but we know that we're now ready for any adversity that
may come our way; and we pray to God that it doesn't.
