11:36 p.m. - 2002-09-04
Rehabilitation
In the movie "The Golden Child", Eddie Murphy's character - Chandler Jarrell, has to undergo a test of spiritual purity in order to claim the sacred Ajanti dagger to "save the Golden Child and thence the world from h*ll". The challenge is to carry a brimful glass of water across a flaming abyss without spilling a single drop. Of course there is a point where it seems impossible for our hero to carry out this task without choosing to fall into the abyss. Instead, he drinks the entire glass of water in one gulp and makes that one last death defying leap of faith. When he turns back to blast the guru who provided him with the instructions for the test for "misleading" him, the teacher laughs and says enlightenment means knowing when and how to break the rules. My kind of teacher!
I have a love/hate relationship with the institution of Western medicine. I took physiotherapy in university, then worked in the rehabilitation department of our city's largest hospital while putting my ex through school. Usually, half of every day was spent assisting in the care of critically injured patients. I know the care and dedication of the staff, but I know equally well the weaknesses of the institutionalized practices that they are required to follow.
For example, when I was pregnant with my first child, I read every book I could on nutrition because I had decided prevention was the best way to protect my child(ren). At that time, the best book I came across was by Angela Davis. The problem was you needed a Master's degree in organic chemistry to work through all the variables. So I started studying texts in herbal medicine (European and Chinese) as well the latest studies in bio/neurophysics to supplement my knowledge.
My oldest son, when he was a toddler, exhibited a number of medical challenges which seemed to defy diagnosis. When he was about six, Dr. Feingold published his seminal work on the effect food allergies and food additives had on children's behavior and health. This made a lot of sense, so I tried the testing outlined and, la voila, a different boy emerged. Our doctor still wanted to test him for, among other things Muscular Dystrophy, a couple of years after I tried this method. Wanting to be certain I did all the "right" things I followed through with the cat scan and biopsy he booked. In filling out his chart, I explained the Feingold theory and what I had discovered about my son's allergies. The response was rude to say the least because, of course, I directed that certain food substances - especially those with red or yellow dyes - not be given to him. So, the first thing the staff did was give him a "strong" sedative with a red dye (only an hysterical mother would challenge their prescriptions/superior knowledge like that) in it prior to sending him for the cat scan. Well, he climbed the walls for about three hours and played all the staff out. They finally did the "baseline" CT scan (like THAT was going to provide a good baseline read of his brain) and some psychological testing (ditto). I asked what the point of the exercise was when they had just induced all the symptoms that the diet had eliminated in the past couple of years. No good answer to that one. But there was a hospital nutritionist sitting on his bed when we came back from the test asking very politely what they Could feed him. There were also marathon interviews with just about all the levels of staff working in that discipline after. Turns out, of course, that Dr Feingold was right, but at that time he was still considered a wing nut by most mainstream doctors. (My son didn't have MD by the way). A similar bout of research - especially with a book called No More Hysterectomies - is what helped solved a debilitating gynecological problem I had and which standard medical treatment made MUCH worse about ten years later - but I'm not going to bore you with those details.
I was thinking about that today when I went for my walk at lunch. Straight up one of the escarpments left long ago by the glaciers, that ring downtown. I was puffing by the time I reached the top and it took a while for my heart rate to fall back to normal. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't think twice about it. However, I had a severe allergic reaction to some antibiotics I was given for pneumonia in January. It caused some damage to the heart and lungs just like extreme inflammation would cause in any soft tissue. A damaged muscle always needs a time of rest and regeneration. On that both the doctor and I agree - beyond that we don't.
He must follow the protocols set down by our medical community which of course are all drug based. Those drugs deal with high cholesterol - my levels are normal and my LDL is excellent; high triglycerides - mine are low;low levels of B vitamins in the blood - mine are high; and high blood pressure. Well, anaphylactic shock may induce a drop in blood pressure in the first stage - that is what shock is after all - but after that how else is a body supposed to deal with histamine levels that are through the roof. So my walking program substitutes for the drugs. I supplement this with herbals that have been tested for generations that clear out the toxins created by the antibiotics in the first place. Sometimes enlightenment comes when you know how and when to break the rules. We'll see if this is one of those times.
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