kimberlysteele | Bad Medicine

I don't have health insurance. Like an increasing number of Americans, there is no way I can afford it. Luckily for me, the last major health event I had was in the year 2002 when I was in my late twenties and came within thirty minutes of losing my life. I had good health insurance at the time provided by my husband's employer -- this was back when he had a salary class job. I had suffered with genetic gall bladder disease, but as an adoptee with only one (hostile) known birthparent, it was a total wild card. The intense pain I suffered for nearly two years before the emergency surgery remained a mystery despite the consultation of two different doctors in my PPO. There was also the fact that I don't like to tell people, not even loved ones, about my health problems. I have always had the habit, for better or worse, of masking my health issues as I find it unbecoming to constantly complain about pain. Pain, after all, is a sign of my approaching death, and complaining about the inevitable is annoying.

Not long after that, the salary class company my husband worked for went belly up. Never again was he able to land a salary class position, and he spent the better part of three years holding out for a replacement. At the end of the three years, which was marked by depression, loss, and poverty, we had been pulled from the bottom-feeding part of the upper middle class to the lower middle class. For me, it was a new experience: I grew up in the upper-middle class, and though my parents were bounced out of it in the 1990s, they never landed in the economic abyss where I found myself.

Somewhere along the way, I went vegan. I was a vegetarian when the gall bladder thing happened. I'll always at least partially blame my consumption of dairy products for exacerbating my gall bladder disease (the night it happened, I had eaten a cheesy Italian pasta dish at a restaurant and a créme brulée for dessert). Though I went vegan for the animals, the health benefits for me were astoundingly obvious. My digestion became regular for the first time in my life and my ability to concentrate became markedly better. Adopting a plant-based diet does not help everyone, however, there is a preponderance of evidence that animal products are highly inflammatory and that eating less of them lowers one's risk for lifestyle diseases such as type II diabetes and cancer. Would I have had gall bladder disease if I had been vegan my entire life? Probably. Would my gallstones have nearly killed me at age 28? I don't think so.

Dance of the Doctors

Long before I ran around trying to find a doctor to diagnose my gall bladder pain, I had my doubts about doctors. As a college student, I suffered two different bouts of pneumonia. This was back when nobody cared if a college student was hacking their lungs out while still on campus. I was not quarantined -- I was expected to show up for class. If I could go back in time and be my own doctor, I would have told my younger self to quit smoking immediately, to get two solid weeks of rest at home, and to complete a regimen of zinc lozenges after healthy, protein-heavy vegan soups and fruit juice along with daily bouts of mild exercise the second I felt up to it. Even now in the age of COVID paranoia, there's no doctor I can name who would suggest such a logical routine.

The medical professionals of our era are professional buck-passers who have lost any power to heal to the corporate interests that have the entire medical profession in a death grip. To become a medical professional in the US is to join a game of musical chairs for which the speed of the music is always accelerating. As far as salary class professions go, medical doctors have the worst of all worlds: for their mouse-find-cheese unoriginality, they are rewarded with life-ruining debt and the threat of being sued into oblivion at any moment.

People who chose medicine as a career are no longer the essential worker heroes they were prior to the nothingburger flu: they are now the dancing villains of TikTok, hated for their arrogance when they are not avoided for their pricey incompetence. Unless it has to do with setting a broken bone or amputating a gall bladder, doctors no longer have a function. They do not cure diseases -- their Big Pharma corporate overlords won't allow it. They prescribe antibiotics without a thought about antibiotic resistance. They force chemotherapy on people who don't want it and imprison them "for their own good" when they do not comply. They wouldn't know a Plantago major if it managed to bite them on the leg, let alone its medicinal uses. They have become worse than useless. There are good doctors and nurses, of course, but until the few genuinely good ones grow a spine and start treating patients completely off-grid and away from the prying eyes of Big Pharma and Big Insurance, I'll be steering clear. Not that I could afford to see one anyhow.

A Predicament for Those Who Enjoy Staying Alive

I am perfectly aware that if my gall bladder had waited until I didn't have health insurance, I would most likely be dead. Perhaps some heroic physician would have saved me despite my lack of health insurance -- but remember, I had no time to wait. A bit of bureaucratic back-and-forth would have sealed my doom; my gallbladder was gangrenous and this was not discovered until the moment of the surgery. I am fine with the thought of dying. I was fine with dying at 28. Of course I'm glad that didn't happen. Though I love my life, when my number is up, it is up. I would feel much more angry on a daily basis if I had a kid. The uninsured families of the US are in the horrible position of their child's lives being threatened because the US health system is broken beyond repair. To add insult to injury, the Derp State's Potato-In-Chief has resurrected the Obamacare penalty for people who cannot afford health insurance. For this he says, "You're welcome," or at least he does when he remembers his own name in-between adult diaper changes.

The real cherry on the cake is the attempt of Bill Gates and pals to vaccinate the planet with an RNA hijacker with either a trans-humanist or post-humanist agenda. Nobody is sure whether the point of the vaccine is to debilitate/kill most humans or to colonize their bodies with self-replicating tracker nanotechnology, but all not taking it seem to agree that those who opt in are playing a game of Russian Roulette. Who stands idly by, nodding their heads to the government's beat? People in the medical profession. Like in the case of the church leaders who could not have found a more ideal time in history to stand up to tyranny by re-opening churches on Christmas Day, medical professionals have largely taken the path of least resistance and cowardice.

What I Do

If you're a lower middle class American like me, you have no choice other than to take your healthcare into your own hands. For me, this means I have learned to recognize and combat the little inflammations of my body before they become big ones, and also the Stoic acceptance that I will likely die of what is considered a treatable malady such as cancer or an accident because I cannot afford even the most crucial forms of American healthcare.

I can only speak for myself, but I make it a priority to minimize my consumption of processed food, to grow at least a small portion of my own food, and to treat all food as medicine. The phenomenon of etheric starvation is real; I'm planning an essay on it not too far down the road. I believe I can avoid disease by eating etherically-rich food whenever possible. The bulk of my diet consists of fruits, vegetables, bread, and rice.

I prioritize my mental health as well as sleep -- time in wild spaces, i.e. "nature" helps both.

I mostly avoid over-the-counter drugstore remedies. Though they are necessary every now and then, I only use them when I feel I absolutely must. I take an array of herbs to bolster immunity and to relieve pain. I take herbs in the form of capsules or teas. If I have body aches or trouble sleeping, I take white willow. For constipation, I take slippery elm. For urinary problems, I take uva ursi and cranberry. I drink a variety of teas with gentle medicinal properties -- for instance, Alfalfa Mint as a general health tonic or Chamomile Anise to relax. I take a Vitamin D supplement every day.

In short, I try to avoid trouble, but if I die, I die.

It's the best I can do with the situation I have been given.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

fringewood

Hi Kimberly,

I enjoy your posts and envy your musical ability😉

I grew up middle class as well. Lower, then middle then upper. Don't know what I am now since I have chosen to collapse early. I also chose to take my health in my own hands after a bout with kidney stones that was very painful. I was determined not to find myself back in the ER taking morphine for the pain which gave me a terrible case of constipation.

I know you grow a few herbs and I would like to suggest Bee Balm (monarda fistulsa) for urinary tract as well as disorders that need the 'fire' drawn out. It is easy to grow, bees love it, it dries well for tea and tinctures easily. I would also recommend marshmallow for constipation. You can use the roots or leaves, it's quite a lovely plant and it is not endangered like slippery elm. The lowly plantain is good for cuts and abrasions and is ubiquitous in most yards. For relaxation Lemon Balm is superb. I try to use plants that are easy to grow and come up every year.

It is one more way to be self sustaining!

From:

kimberlysteele

Thank you! I'm always amazed at how flippantly doctors prescribe opioid drugs -- they are heavy duty and should only be used as a last resort, and only just enough to take away the pain. I am not sure if it was Yarrow Willard (the Herbal Jedi) or Rosemary Gladstar who said that opium is fine, and it's non-addicting if you only take it to relieve pain and never in excess of that amount. Easier said than done, I suppose.

I do grow wild bergamot/monarda! I love that plant. I am a human fireball by nature with the hot flashes to prove it, so I will absolutely make a tea out of some of my monarda patch. Marshmallow! Violet gave me some last year and unfortunately it didn't come up... I will get a hold of more seeds and try again. I may end up growing a slippery elm as elms grow well in my area, until then I'll buy some marshmallow capsules. Plantain is great, isn't it? I have not yet tried tincturing it but that was the plan this year. Lemon balm is also a favorite of mine. It gets invasive in my area so I might have to confine it to containers only.

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