on the road again, again

We're heading back toward Texas together, with the pup and tweeter this time.  We're waiting for the concentrated WORK to begin in the back yard, so are taking advantage of the lull to let J "get away from it all" for awhile.  In our family, the driver gets to choose what plays on the stereo, so whereas i was listening to classic rock'n'roll and vintage radio-shows when i drove alone, today it's BBC World and other news and financial radio.  Boring to me for the most part, alternating with IRRITATING.  (The LIES!!!)

One brief blurb spoke of some company willing to donate to a cancer charity, dependent upon customer purchases.  Now, health "charities" get my goat at the best of times, but this one claimed that "a cure for cancer is in YOUR HANDS"....

You're damned right it is, but not in the way they mean.  You could bankrupt the country and not get any closer to a cure for cancer, or heart disease, or diabetes or any of the "diseases of civilization" for the simple reason that they aren't working from the right paradigm.  No drug is going to cure these illnesses, when the causative factors -- modern diet and lifestyle -- are not addressed.  And the pharmaceutical companies would implode if we did that!  No, they want the donations to keep pouring in because THEIR BUSINESS is the SEARCH, not the discovery.

It's a terrible thing that we have to watch our loved ones suffer and die from these dreadful diseases, just because they refuse to listen to the latest and most illuminated views on them.  We're wackos, you know!  How dare we doubt the omniscience (DIVINITY) of their voodoo-medicine-men -- i mean DOCTORS!  Having lost two dear friends rather recently, and unnumbered relations for uncounted years, i have a really bad attitude about patient trust and medical hubris, but more than that a raging fury against groups which claim to be working to help the ill, but in fact do everything in their power to maintain the horribly ineffective status quo.

The only way we can expect to have a respectable quality of life -- let alone length -- is to cover our asses and take care of ourselves.  Nobody cares how you feel or how you function outside a very small circle.  The more difficult your physical problems are to deal with, the more your MD just wants you to GO AWAY.  Sure, if you'll quietly agree to submit to and pay for your treatments s/he will continue to test and try and treat, but s/he doesn't really have a horse in that race!  If you complain that you've spent a fortune and suffered a lot and not made any progress, you're no longer even appreciated as a source of income....

WE have to be our own researchers and tryers-out, and make sure the physician knows that s/he WORKS FOR US, doesn't just autocratically run the show.  By being passive, trusting the experts to know what they're talking about, we assume that there is someone out there who WANTS us to be healed ... and that's a BIG assumption.

MORE THAN THAT though -- we have to be willing to do the work and put in the sweat, long hours and elbow-grease.  WE have to implement the lifestyle changes properly.  WE have to be disciplined. Just because we've read an article, too, we CANNOT assume that we DO know better than our GP ... BUT if we do our homework and bring up the subject, we shouldn't accept a brush-off sort of reply.

WE ARE in the driver's seat when it comes to our own health, and that entails a lot of responsibility.  If we abdicate it, and let others decide what is true, and blindly follow, the situation looks hazardous to me!  Is our "decider" a forward-thinker who spends his/her spare time reading PubMed, or a plodder whose hobby is more important than the patient and who believes everything the drug-rep spiels out?  We've been brought up to trust our professionals, but the more i learn about the medical industry the less i'm inclined to believe.

There's SO MUCH to know!  Even the brightest AND most caring, CAN'T know it all -- and people often do expect that.  The average Joe doesn't seem to realize that an awful lot of physiological detail is UNKNOWN -- and the "powers" in the medical world want to maintain that illusion!

IF people realized that their "sins" of dietary and lifestyle "commission" were insufficiently understood, and that there is no real treatment for the underlying problem besides CHANGE, would they be more careful in preserving their health and well-being?  If they knew that their chances of becoming seriously ill were LESS to do with their genetics and MORE to do with food-choices, would they depend so much on science to provide a magic bullet?

Those of us who have become renegades from the usual patient role are the bell-wethers of a new demographic;  time will tell if we're right (as we think) or deluded (as others consider us).  But that time is hurrying upon us!  The latest new cancer patient in my reenacting circle is a dozen years younger than i am.  His condition is so rare, they can't give him much idea as to what's going to happen next, but he's on chronic and acute pain medications.  :-(  IF we're right, we're going to be a group of "last leaves" ... which is not without its melancholy aspect, as we lose loved ones whose early deaths are theoretically postponable.