Sol:
About ten years ago my mother died a couple of months after heart bypass
surgery.
What happened was that a few days after the surgery she began having
strokes. Apparently, these were the result of post surgical debris
hitting her brain.
Each stroke reduced her capabilities little by little, but they just went
on
and on until she could no longer talk or anything. After about two months,
she mercifully passed away. But it was the cruelest death imaginable, for
she was fully conscious and aware of what was being taken from her. Like
most people, she trusted what the doctors told her and did what they said,
but she would have lived much longer if she had done nothing at all.
Before that, I distrusted doctors, but after that I developed an irrational
hatred
of doctors and of allopathic medicine in general. That has now calmed down a
bit,
but I have seldom seen a doctor since, and even then it is just to use them
to get a diagnosis so I can decide how to treat myself.
If it is something for which I can't find an alternative treatment, then I
make
sure that I carefully research what the doctors want to do before I submit to
it.
I can think of several occasions when I have either refused or modified what
the doctors wanted to do, and been glad of it.
As a result, I have developed a great respect for the body's ability to
heal
itself, if you give it what it needs. And that is why I subscribe to this and
other
lists where people share health information.
Also, I have since learned that strokes from heart bypass surgery
are not at all uncommon, but we did not know that then.
To this day, I suspect her surgeons were not fully competent.
My state of mind immediately after her death was the usual for me, namely
trying to wall myself off from my true feelings about it. Later I wrote
this rather depressing poem to embody how I felt (anytime I have a deep
emotional experience, I always feel compelled to write a poem about it):
Storm Lantern
The glass Chinese storm lantern
I sent from the Christmas catalog
stands on my mother’s bookshelf
with ceramic angels and birds
and red and green candles.
The wick of the candle in the bowl
is stiff with unburned wax.
She never got around to lighting it.
Her surgeons told her
a bypass would save her life,
but the Reaper had other plans.
After the operation,
He painted her portrait,
stroke by bitter brush stroke,
each one leeching her life away
until the picture was perfect,
complete with coffin and roses,
in a gilded funeral home.
My fingers caress the pebbled glass.
I would light the candle if I thought
it’s rays could reach her through the dark.
Subdued talk drifts from the dinner table
while heat from the fire makes me sweat.
Her cats bask in the warmth, but outside
her dog, Blue, rattles his chain,
shivers in the wind, and whimpers.
Del
----- Original Message -----
From: "sol" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 2:54 PM
Subject: Re: CS>One of my clients is on Larry King - tonight
> Not to continue this topic too long, but just out of curiosity, does
> anyone have any info if Farrah Fawcet was informed of any alternatives?
> sol
> FWIW, though I do not totally agree with his ending take on diet I have
> been reading the book "Heart Frauds" and the history of how the very
> inaccurate angiograms and problematic balloon angioplasties and CABG
> surgeries became the "gold" standard of heart care is amazing. All about
> the money......
