All my life, I’ve been blessed to have both sets of grandparents around, and I’ve had a great opportunity to learn from them. Different food, different cultures, different values, and very different lifestyles.
On my dad’s side, I’ve got Baba and Dido. Dido is 93 years old, and Baba is not far behind. Seeing processed foods in their house in a rarity, and they have not been to a doctor for a checkup for probably about 50 years now. This was after Dido’s cancer diagnosis, removal, and recurrence. Things aren’t perfect, with the wear and tear of a farmer’s life, and only really being conscious of good nutrition for the latter half of their lives. There have been some surgeries (broken bones, worn out joints), some degeneration, but they still have their faculties about them, and are self-sufficient.
On the other hand, we have Oma and Opa, my mom’s parents. Trailing in years, Oma is the youngest of the bunch, and Opa recently became a nonagenarian. Up until a few years ago, the running joke would be that Oma and Opa house a pharmacy in their medicine cabinet, while Baba and Dido don’t have so much as an Aspirin, and they’re all still here. Well, now the joking has stopped. Things have really deteriorated for Oma, this past year especially. We’re now witnessing what a lifetime of excessive sugar intake, fast-food, and venerating doctors as gods will get you. The hospital is now her second home. There have been surgeries, strokes, heart problems, and, most recently, a pacemaker. And let’s not forget the prescription sheet longer than the greediest of children’s Christmas list. It’s not unusual to find out that her latest visit to the ER just happened to be right after having a new drug, or a few, added to her drug regimen.
Even now, with her mind addled, and body failing, she still refuses to change her habits, her diet, or question her Medical Deities. However, things are getting to a breaking point. As I’m writing this, my parents are at the hospital. Last night, Oma took her personal limo (ambulance) to the ER, and they called Opa at 1am to tell him to come get his wife. They carted her outside in a wheelchair, and after trying for 15 minutes, unsuccessfully, to get her out of the chair and into the car, Opa, who was visibly upset at this point, said that he wouldn’t take her home in this condition. Probably the first time that he’s spoken against someone in the medical field. I guess there were some tempers flaring, because they threatened to get the police involved. My parents are going to try to “get someone to help her.”
The sad truth is, patching up a sinking ship will only work for so long, until it collapses completely and vanishes into the abyss. So too, with our health. Without addressing the underlying cause, treating symptoms is an exercise in futility. Symptoms are the body’s way of letting us know that something is not right. We can either heed the warning and address the root problem, or silence our body’s cries of distress with drugs and surgery. Our medical model would have you believe that the latter option is the only way to go. But our bodies have an amazing capacity to heal when we give them the raw materials they require (vitamins, minerals, nutrients, oxygen), remove the things they don’t (intolerable foods, toxins), and get out of the way!
