Valuing Life And Living
In a burst of energy before she died, my mom urged us to take her to where she'd be buried.
Cupping my dad's face, she talked about how magical their life was together.
It was the most profound moment of my life, and it wouldn't have happened if we listened to her doctors.
[Snip]
Right after my mom's unexpected cancer diagnosis, a medical team out of Stanford and Palo Alto Medical Foundation jumped to action, recommending a laundry list of surgeries and procedures—biopsies, blood transfusions, and a liver stent. In most cases, the patient would have agreed to these procedures, and the meeting would wrap up quickly.
These recommendations were coming from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, after all.
But based on my sister's experience in medicine (Stanford MD and surgical residency), she started asking questions. We learned that these procedures had about a 33 percent chance of extending her life a few more months at most, a 33 percent chance of shortening her life span, and a 33 percent chance of not impacting her life span (yet keeping her away from the family). In all cases, the invasive route would mean that my mom would need to sit in a hospital room alone, because of Covid-19 protocols, and potentially longer if the surgery had complications, as they often do with immunocompromised cancer patients.
My mom made it clear to the oncologist that she was not afraid of her rapidly impending death, but she wanted to minimize unnecessary pain or nausea in her final days. Despite being clear, the system pushed the exact procedures that would yield pain and nausea and aggressively shamed our family for questioning the full-court press approach.
[Snip]
In 99.9% of cases, my mom would have died alone in a hospital room and we would have missed the life-changing final days with her.
[Snip]
In the decades leading up to my mom’s cancer diagnosis, she was informed her rising cholesterol, waistline, fasting glucose, and blood pressure levels were conditions that she could “manage” for life with a pill. But instead of isolated conditions, all of the symptoms my mom experienced leading to her death were warning signs of the same thing: dysregulation in how her cells were producing and using energy.
But through decades of symptoms, my mom—and most other adults in the modern world—are simply prescribed pills and not set on a path of curiosity about how these conditions are connected and how the root cause can be reversed.
[Snip]
The siloing and medicalization of chronic disease in the past fifty years has been an abject failure. Today, we’ve siloed diseases and have a treatment for everything:
--High cholesterol? See a cardiologist for a statin.
--High fasting glucose? See an endocrinologist for metformin.
--Depressed? See a psychiatrist for a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).
--Can’t sleep? See a sleep specialist for Ambien.
--PCOS? See an ob-gyn for clomiphene.
--Erectile dysfunction? See a urologist for Viagra.
--Sinus infections? See an ENT for an antibiotic or surgery.
But what nobody talks about—what I think many doctors don’t even realize—is that the rates of most of these conditions are going up at the exact time we are spending trillions of dollars to “treat them.”
[Snip]
We have been gaslighted to not ask questions over the past fifty years at the exact time chronic disease rates have exploded.
Full Post By Calley Means On X-Twitter
_____________________
NOTE: Calley’s sister, Casey Means, wrote a book, “Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health”, that you might consider getting.
Substack Permalink:
https://terrylclark.substack.com/p/valuing-life-and-living
Cupping my dad's face, she talked about how magical their life was together.
It was the most profound moment of my life, and it wouldn't have happened if we listened to her doctors.
[Snip]
Right after my mom's unexpected cancer diagnosis, a medical team out of Stanford and Palo Alto Medical Foundation jumped to action, recommending a laundry list of surgeries and procedures—biopsies, blood transfusions, and a liver stent. In most cases, the patient would have agreed to these procedures, and the meeting would wrap up quickly.
These recommendations were coming from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, after all.
But based on my sister's experience in medicine (Stanford MD and surgical residency), she started asking questions. We learned that these procedures had about a 33 percent chance of extending her life a few more months at most, a 33 percent chance of shortening her life span, and a 33 percent chance of not impacting her life span (yet keeping her away from the family). In all cases, the invasive route would mean that my mom would need to sit in a hospital room alone, because of Covid-19 protocols, and potentially longer if the surgery had complications, as they often do with immunocompromised cancer patients.
My mom made it clear to the oncologist that she was not afraid of her rapidly impending death, but she wanted to minimize unnecessary pain or nausea in her final days. Despite being clear, the system pushed the exact procedures that would yield pain and nausea and aggressively shamed our family for questioning the full-court press approach.
[Snip]
In 99.9% of cases, my mom would have died alone in a hospital room and we would have missed the life-changing final days with her.
[Snip]
In the decades leading up to my mom’s cancer diagnosis, she was informed her rising cholesterol, waistline, fasting glucose, and blood pressure levels were conditions that she could “manage” for life with a pill. But instead of isolated conditions, all of the symptoms my mom experienced leading to her death were warning signs of the same thing: dysregulation in how her cells were producing and using energy.
But through decades of symptoms, my mom—and most other adults in the modern world—are simply prescribed pills and not set on a path of curiosity about how these conditions are connected and how the root cause can be reversed.
[Snip]
The siloing and medicalization of chronic disease in the past fifty years has been an abject failure. Today, we’ve siloed diseases and have a treatment for everything:
--High cholesterol? See a cardiologist for a statin.
--High fasting glucose? See an endocrinologist for metformin.
--Depressed? See a psychiatrist for a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).
--Can’t sleep? See a sleep specialist for Ambien.
--PCOS? See an ob-gyn for clomiphene.
--Erectile dysfunction? See a urologist for Viagra.
--Sinus infections? See an ENT for an antibiotic or surgery.
But what nobody talks about—what I think many doctors don’t even realize—is that the rates of most of these conditions are going up at the exact time we are spending trillions of dollars to “treat them.”
[Snip]
We have been gaslighted to not ask questions over the past fifty years at the exact time chronic disease rates have exploded.
Full Post By Calley Means On X-Twitter
_____________________
NOTE: Calley’s sister, Casey Means, wrote a book, “Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health”, that you might consider getting.
Substack Permalink:
https://terrylclark.substack.com/p/valuing-life-and-living
posted by TLC's Place at 6:54 PM
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