The Follow-up
Went back to the doctor for a follow-up earlier this week. Translated: it is the intent of the doctors to turn me into a "patient" (funny word, that, perhaps referring to how long one is expected to sit in the waiting room) - i.e., someone who trudges through the turnstyle like clockwork, racking up numbers on charts and money in the pockets of pharmaceutical executives. It is not my Intent to be or to become a "patient", and so it stands to reason that the meeting with the learned man with letters after his name was something of an adventure. I treated it as an exercise in stalking a worthy opponent.
He dresses well, I'll give him that. No white lab coats for this guy, but designer jeans and a hunter green shirt with black buttons. I like his style, but that's part of the lure. So I just observed him in silence as he sat down in front of me and began reacquainting himself with me through my chart. At least he shook my hand and said, "Good morning." Some don't even bother with the formalities.
I wasn't even sure what the pupose of this visit was supposta be, except that he wanted to prescribe even MORE drugs based on lab tests that were ludicrous the first time, and questionable at best the second time. Throughout my life, whenever I've been forced to engage with doctors, I've always been told, "Your blood is weird." So... that being the case, why is anyone surprised when I might test positive for diabetes or anthrax or termites or feline leukemia or canine parvo or anything else human or non-human? We aliens are much discriminated against through expectations that all must fall into some sort of "normal" category, when the reality is that not a single person on earth could really define what "normal" actually might look like.
As he gazed at the numbers from the lab test and compared them with results from the home testing I've been doing to monitor the blood sugar levels, I saw his gaze go from confident to confused to irritated. "Not possible," he muttered under his breath. "Not even Indian holy man can lower blood sugar levels by 100 points in less than 2 weeks! How many of the pills have you been taking? Are you overdosing?"
"I haven't taken any of the pills," I told him. "The potential side effects are far more deadly than the possibility that I actually have this dis-ease, so it seemed prudent to experiment with diet before playing Russian roulette with chemistry."
He remained dubious. "I want to order another round of blood work."
"I don't. What would be the point?"
"Your test meter is obviously wrong," he retorted.
"Easier to believe we must be dis-eased than to believe we can heal ourselves?" Having lost all fear and most respect for the medical profession, I had no qualms about arguing with the man, though I noticed the nurse in the hall cringing as if I'd just said the "F" word in front of the pope. Who knows? Maybe he might actually wake up. I had acknowledged previously that he had at least an edge of the warrior within him, though I didn't delude myself for a moment into thinking I could stir it to the surface. I just didn't intend to be intimidated by his pronouncements that the equipment was wrong (which would be in "his" favor), instead of considering the possibility that maybe - just maybe - a "patient" is capable of making progress in her own healing just through awareness of a potential problem. Translated: having received the diagnosis, I made drastic changes in my eating habits, and the results were staring him in the face...
He just sat there on his funny stool staring at me as if I were some species of amoeba under a microscope. "You need to be on the medications," he said, trying a different tact. "Then we will know for sure."
"Know what?" I wondered. "I've tested that home glucose meter on someone with normal levels and it's accurate for them, so why shouldn't it be accurate for me? And if it isn't accurate, why does every diabetic have to carry one at all times? I mean - you can't have it both ways. It either works or it doesn't, right? If it's working, then it means my numbers are about 150 points LOWER than the lab tests. Why must it be MY equipment that is in error, when the two lab tests don't even agree with one another?" I didn't bother pointing out that the lab tests are designed in part by pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in a certain outcome. Again - rather like having serial killers designing prison security.
He had no real answer, nor did I expect one. To satisfy his programming, I have agreed to yet one more round of blood work. But regardless of how those numbers may appear, I have also reaffirmed that Intent has every bit as much to do with wellness as anything any doctor could prescribe. Awareness. Intent. Will.
We may not live forever (the jury's still out), but I suspect we would all live a lot LONGER if we took control of our own well-being and stayed well away from the western medical profession.
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