In the holistic healthcare world, medicine is sometimes seen as the enemy. Surgery is something to be avoided, and problems are best approached with a combination of lifestyle modification and holistic health practices. Acupuncture, Chiropractic, Massage, and Reflexology are some example of these practices that tend to view medicine as something to avoid.
My view of medicine is that it is not the answer when it comes to “health”care, but that it serves a purpose. It’s very good at “sick”care. Namely, medicine is excellent at emergency situations, at keeping us alive when we might die without intervention. My wife went through a good example of when medicine is totally in its element, when she had to have an appendectomy surgery over a week ago.
My wife is also a chiropractor, and she knows her body very well. She felt pain in her abdomen just a few days before. Utilizing a holistic health care mindset, she sought to think back on what she had eaten. To complicate matters, I had a bout of some diarrhea one morning, and the kids had been complaining of stomach cramps. So it was easy for her to adopt a “wait and see” attitude about it. She did that, assessing her body and seeing how the pain developed. Well, it didn’t go away, and it seemed to get a little worse as time went on.
At this point, being a holistically minded person served her well. I think that most of us would have taken a drug to feel better, to dull the pain, to try to mitigate acid… something to stop the symptoms. My wife didn’t do that. She simply continued to listen to her body. That gave her the knowledge by Saturday that she needed to get it checked out. She tried to avoid the emergency room, but urgent care sent her there after all. They had imaging that she was going to eat for a positive diagnosis. They confirmed the diagnosis of appendicitis by 3 pm and scheduled her for surgery.
And here we get to the point where medicine is awesome. They performed the surgery in less than 10 minutes, doing it with laparoscopy. 10 minutes! Thousands of dollars later, and my wife will live.
We caught it early because of our wellness oriented mindset, and her deep connection to her body. Medicine stepped in with incredible technology and technique, with practices honed from years of experience to cut into her and remove the affected organ. This was the best case scenario. My wife is recovering beautifully, and is using our holistic health care mindset to aid in her recovery.
She has refused pain meds, instead relying on her body to let her know when she can do more, and when she should do less. Instead of taking a stool softener, she has taken a Magnesium supplement to aid elimination. She avoided all medication, save for the anesthesia that she needed to go under the knife.
Medicine plays an important role in healthcare. Without it, my wife wouldn’t be recovering now, she may not have survived if her appendix perforated. So I’m grateful to medicine for what it can do.
Thanks to everyone at Tacoma General.