Our Own Epidemic

Photography by Sarah Q. Reicher 

Every morning, I awake I thank my Maker. I say "Thank God." I don't do this for any particular religious reason. I do this for gratefulness to all of it. It’s not just because I've been close to death for any variety of reasons. Neither because I've witnessed death, though I have. It is because I know how fleeting life is. We truly never know when this physical journey in the vessel we're residing in will end. Or perhaps, it’s my wanting to be there, altogether healthy and alive till I know our children no longer need me.

Truly, that is the main reason. And there's something personal I want to experience before this thing called 'me' dies. Our children have barely anything to do with this desired experience I have. I don't know if I'll experience it ever, but I want to. It’s a solo journey. And for once in my life, it’s not about science all that much; however, currently I’m in this science mode as usual this morning.

Upon waking this morning and doing my nine or so light exercise stretch routine in bed before my four floor exercises and five-minute meditation—I’d thought of all the people I knew on various medications. Some have to check their sugar. Many are on cholesterol medications, as well as some other pharmaceuticals such as thinners, beta-blockers and so forth. The adults who now have had to check their sugar regularly have had to do so since about age 50 or a bit older. I wondered briefly why this was. Then I’d realized that they had been warned about having pre-adult Type 2 Diabetes, so ergo their monitoring their sugar during meals, or ordering out.1

I contemplated the consideration of aging and epithelial tissue that is visible to us. Our largest organ system, the Integumentary System that is our skin as well as the sacks such as the perineum, pericardial sac and so forth within in our bodies.234 Having worked with soft tissue ailments, injuries, chronic conditions; too, working with the aged for nearly 30 years before closing my practice. What I’d recognized and still do is our outer layer. Our covering our skin. I had about 4,000 clients in that time. I’d worked on 15-day old babies to people aged 99, office calls, house calls, hospital calls, parking lots, hotels, universities, and ground zero.

I worked on people who were recovering from injury to people who were recovering from surgery to people who were dying of cancer, ALS, AIDS, MD, MS and so forth. Basically, I know healthy looking skin, its texture, its movement when touched and when not touched. Too, its color, its veinous look or the lack there of. I’ve touched people with bullets in them, that were too dangerous to be taken out, people with post-crushed wounds and limbs. I’ve

1 https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/about/about-type-2-diabetes.html

2 https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/22827-integumentary-system

3 https://teachmeanatomy.info/pelvis/areas/perineum/

4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482256/

worked people with 80% of their bodies who’d been burned. I’ve worked on many people who are considered in the polypharmacy category.5 I’ve worked on machete scars, old-gang related knife wounds and on people about to die in less than 36 hours.

This morning the thought had come to a question, “Why have I witnessed quite recently primarily white men on medications increasingly having medical emergencies who are settled, married, active and seem happy?” The first words to my lips were, “Cumulative stress?” Stupefied, I paused, nodded a ‘maybe’. Yet it didn’t all make sense. Too, what hadn’t made sense was the varying ages of the men 50-73 years of age. Also, they were all being monitored by their medical doctors, and they were all on some form of cholesterol medication. And the type of condition that altered their lives, some conditions arose nearly killing them, didn’t add up. At least not to me, although I am far from being an expert in any such medical fields.

As I lay there this morning stretching, I surmised what’d I’d always told myself and anyone who questioned any medical decisions was that all medicine is a practice. It’s science and we, no matter how educated we were, its all still a mystery. I went back to the questions I’d had over the last 30 years, “What percentage do we understand about the function of human physiology?” Yes, I asked this question to a few different doctors I’d had in my office as well upon my visits to their offices. The answers I was given were, “About 10-15%...” When you’ve heard that response, for me it sets the stage as to, then why are we so quick to offer such medications as statins without further education about the human we have in front of us? Although they’re willing most of the time to take a drug with few queries. Humans are impatient and the medical fields as well as the pharmaceutical industry knows this. Physicians need a safety net to protect them and their practice and well, the pharmaceutical industry is currently a capitalistic venture to make money, which is partially unknown yet widely accepted as ‘is’.

Ergo, I reflect upon my own habits, my own expectations of self. Where can I improve on myself? On such thoughts to avoid impatience that could have devastating effects, adding a ripple effect? Too, inhibiting me from living fully and witnessing my own true-life span? Whatever that may be.

Too, I reflected back to: Of these men who was on blood thinners already? I know not all of those men had complete scans. Many had either a stress test and or at some time before their catastrophic health events had a needle put into their arm to check for plaque.6 However, one thing I have an inkling about is, before their scary life-altering health event, I’ll

5 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK532953/

6 https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/coronary-computed-tomography-angiography-ccta

bet dollars to donuts that they didn’t have a carotid doppler done. That may sound either outer space like to some or of something in the past to others. Or what the hec am I talking about? Correct?

Have any of these men had an MRA? Body scan? I’ll answer for the reader and say 90% certain that all but one or all of them hadn’t had a carotid doppler, MRA, body scan.78 A couple had a stress test, that’s how one was spared life. Yet, all of these men were on cholesterol medication. And by the way, once you’re on cholesterol medication there is no plan to take you off it. I know of only one person who went on it after a smidgen of a TIA and within a year was taken off the cholesterol medication and is about 98% back to who he was before the health event, last I checked with his wife who is a doctor. The difference between him and the other white men, is perhaps his diet. And I mean the daily regiment of his diet he’s had for years. His episode appears to have been via genetics; however, this is often blamed first, but its all we think we know. We’re taught that we can’t correct this genetic mess we may have or not. Yet that thinking was proven in 2004 that it’s not the end all reason, nor should it be the fallback conclusion. I call that laziness on the part of medicine, too on the part of the patient and greed of the pharmaceutical industry with their ad campaigns.9 Over the years I’d had doctors in my office agree with me that there shouldn’t be advertisements on television on prescription drugs. Some stated they’d be prescribing less. Yes, you heard me correctly, they’d be prescribing less medications. Physicians should be running that ship with the patient.

Too, nowadays, physicians are convinced with some logic that they must prescribe because most of us won’t follow a strict dietary change. Or we see it as strict, when it could be gradually altered. Trust me, every few months or once a year I want to eat a crumb cake. I remind myself that if I do that, I have to lower certain other foods over the next week or so. I’ll keep my green vegetables on high alert, so to speak. Basically, I monitor my food as one would monitor how their pharmaceutical intake. I monitor daily my ability to rest, sleep, monitor my pulse, breathe rate, skin care, etc.... I try and get in a minimum of three miles every day outside, even in the inclement weather, I have spiked galoshes for icy runs and snow shoveling when needed. And when I can get 15-25 miles on my feet in a day outside I do, even if I have inside chores to be done like scrubbing the kitchen floor and the like.

Every morning, I marvel at waking up, as I’ve survived fire, flood, crime, catastrophic injury and disease. I’ve watched too many friends, relatives, co-workers, acquaintances and the like rush into the belief that one test and one opinion is all their humanness needs to

7 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/carotid-ultrasound/about/pac-20393399

8 https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/magnetic-resonance-angiography-mra

9 https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project

survive another day, week, year, or decade. Its if they just had this one test, one pill which turns into two, three, four, five or six pharmaceutical drugs charted in their medical records. Trust me, I’d had clients on 10 to 23 different pharmaceutical drugs at the same time. How that happens, God only knows. I’ll state some of us are coerced into believing what we’ve been told about how stupid we are on our own understanding of our bodies and how we can help ourselves. Deep down, most of us with an eighth grade education know what we must do to help ourselves, question our habits. Question a physician’s thought process, letting he or she know we will take up our own burden of decision-making in asking real questions, persisting on finding our body’s own true science. Going for that second opinion, asking for other tests before we venture into ingesting, injecting pharmaceuticals. As adults over the age of 40 in America we haven’t been acting like it when it comes to taking responsibility for our health and the children are watching.---Jody-Lynn Reicher