Health Care Reform

Thoughts Regarding Health Care in the United States of America

I go into writing these thoughts without emotion... In fact I am writing on one of the few days where I am not emotional regarding this detail or that detail in the Health Care discussion... or better yet a detail in the actual experience of Health Care in New Mexico.

I notice a couple of things in this health care "debate"... the first thing is that I don't know that debate.

There is much lip service given to people talking about a health care plan; however, one rarely hears or reads any actual plan. These echo chambers are very dramatic enlisting those most afraid of this or that to insight violence. One side becomes frantic that the health reform will encourage something like abortion and a group becomes violent beating up those who would support a health care plan and the we see on the news that people are crazy around this health care bill... When at the heart of such a problem, all I can see is that powers that be are scaring people who really need to feel safe. Throughout this, no one reads the bill of the day. At the end of the day, this is what comes through the press.

The press and that vast information highway report not on the actual discussions in congress, not on the bill itself; but on those who insight violence around their fears for their own security. That is what health care is... personal security. I have been sitting with a friend who is on parental nutrition. She has to surrender to this nutrition that is stregnthening her as a tool toward her healing process. This is a security to go on and understand her illness and heal.

I watch, as I go to the hospital day after day for four to nine hours a day the incredible disconnect between health and the disease management approach to health care that our allopathic medical professionals practice. As we sat in the ER from 9am for the rest of the day, we sat with a full waiting room. Many patients to be had sat there for more than twenty hours. The only food available were candy machines. The only beverage was a soda machine. On the television set played soap operas... Every group of commercials had at least one ad for one or another prescription drug. These are the obvious signs of disconnect.

The subtle signs of disconnect are things such as the inability for patients to walk outside while they wait.. There is a total lack of natural light. They use very bright fluorescent lights that gie headaches and dry the skin. There is no water available. The paint makes very thing look sick. The room is not clean. There is trash from the paper towels from the bathroom. There are very few trash cans. And everyone around you is really sick and untreated. This can include infectious illnesses.

Now we are in a hospital room. My friend, who is being treated for something, for lack of a better term, is called "post infectious irritable bowel syndrome." Which by their own admission, means the GI docs don't really understand what is going on. For dinner yesterday, she was given
a beef enchilada with green chillies, milk, grapes, and french fries. This was sent by the nutritionists and dietitians to a woman who cannot digest foods. If we use use a little bit of logic, we, as lay people, can probably deduce that she will not be able to handle this food. Twice she has been served roast beef fried potatoes and milk. This disconnect between food and health is another indication of the disease management model. But can none of us remember what our grandmother's said? "You are what you eat."

I bring her food. I give her massage. They hire a candy striper to give her a magazine and plastic backscratcher and a fuzzy plastic frog. They hook her legs up to these large plastic funnels that are plugged in and squeeze her legs. What happen to people? A licensed massage therapist should be able to offer the massage, but this version of massage has the nurturing oil, human touch, compassionate healing. How is it that we forget that what we do is just as important if not more important than the drugs we give.

The Health Care System is broken. Pushing band aids through congress as fast as possible might make the appearance that the congress got something done, but band-aids on a sieve are still band-aids on a sieve. The promise to reform health care was the promise to overhaul the system from the bottom up. I am all for it.

The current Health Care paradigm encourages disease. Health promotion rewards General Docs for the health of their patients. This is a totally different paradigm. On the one hand no one makes any money on healthy people. PEople make money when people are sick.

Proper attitudes towards food and lifestyle and business and ethics are the greatest, cheapest, and easiest tools that we have. Learning and understanding and nurturing our bodies and minds brings health. Taking responsibility of our daily life bring health. But we have to get real.

Who is going to make any money on that? The current paradigm is a for profit paradigm. The pharmaceudical company has fiduciary to their stock holders. Their efforts are mandated by law to make the stock holders money. Although this framework works for many businesses, it does not work for medicine. There is no stock holder reward for the health of people. There is no incentive to cure cancer or anything else. There is no fiduciary to the consumer, the sick.

I am not saying that we should socialize. But I do think that a non-profit model would show a great shift in the ethics of the system. Reward healers for their healthy patients.

We have to stop catering to all of the companies and people who make as much money off of us as they can. I would rather be sued by a large corporation for saying that their "food" is killing us, than try to skirt the issue. But it seems that we are more afraid of being sued by fast food giants than saying you cannot eat that stuff unless you want to destroy your arteries and your heart. We need to get real and honest about the correlation between artificial sweeteners and ADHD. Soda is not good for you. It doesn't matter if you have regular or sugar free. Splenda is not natural. You body does not know what to do with these things. A box of something is never fresh. These are the reasons that we are sick. This is why we think it is normal to have horrible PMS or headaches or insomnia or osteoporosis. We are told it is part of aging or something else equally as unscientific. If you want to tax cigarettes, you should also tax trans fats and artificial sugars.

Someone once said, "if your grandmother would not know what to do with it, it isn't food."

How did you grandmother cook?

Or maybe your great-grandmother...

The point is that there are cultures in remote portions of Africa that have not been touched by our western progress who sport healthy bodies and a full set of large, beautiful, white teeth.

This is true natural living.

I want the promise of a Reformed Health Care System. Take you time. Talk to people outside of the current system. Go to the hospital. Watch the Bucket List. List to the Senate: http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_02_26/2009_02_26.html

It's time to get real. We voted for change. Let's see some change.

Think outside the box.

Allopathy and licensed and unlicensed Complimentary and Alternative Medical therapies work well together. Lets find the best medical system in the world for the good humanity.

Promote Health!



Thank you

--
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

einstein

one week to go

so this week has been huge...

in terms of hours as well as accomplishments...

and the really interesting part is that i realized when I woke up this morning... my usual time between 530 and 6am... that I was really tired... i stayed in bed until 715... so i am really looking forward to some sleep!!

and relaxation... maybe a pool!!

so this week... i presented two clients and in the audience... well let me go back...

there are about 40 students in the class, dr. lad, and panchakarma clients... so the room is full and there is 90 minutes dedicated to my presentation of my client with my client in the room... it is a bit nerveracking because not only is it a bit of a testament to what one understands in front of our teacher who is a true master ... so you can imagine that one would think to present the easier cases that one has worked on... well, as some of you may have figured out over the years, I am rarely one to make things simple... My bright idea was to choose the clients that needed the experience the most... that is to say my most difficult cases...

so

on monday I presented a woman who was quite a difficult case and then on tuesday when i came in this group of panchakarma clients from florida where quite complimentary as were certain of my fellow students... and when the florida people heard that i was presenting on wednesday evening they said that they wanted to come back to listen... and they did... and they invited me to florida to do lecture and consultation... wow... so that is interesting... we shall see what comes of it...

i have one week of classes to go and this weekend i decided that i really need a trip to santa fe.. to walk canyon road and look at a bunch of art!! i will finish at the tea house for a glass of wine... and just simply relax...

i really don't know that i will ever be able to put into words what the experience of learning with dr. lad is like... in fact this may be one of those experiences that no one could put into words... it is truely an experience that has no equal... and i feel very fortunate to be here doing this work...

Love

love is not the opposite of hate
love is not the opposite of anger
love is not the opposite of sadness
love is beyond these things
love is to look in that face of your boyfriend with compassion when they tell you they hate you
love to see the beautiful face of a woman
the innocent face of a child
the spirit of the mountain
and that mountain, that woman that child brings a tear to your eye

love is awareness ... expanded self
love is beyond self

love is in the gap
love is that which is in between the shadow and the wall...

pure awareness

there is no distinction or division between the observer and the observed

awareness is the painter whose brush, perception, creation and model are one

awareness is love

love is awareness

love is not attachment
love is not obsession
love has no criteria

love is compassion
love is awareness
and love is allowing everyone to be who they are

love is

taking my own advice

So I was walking last night with a friend who last year had dropped the program...He was in town for a weekend seminar... He is going through a really difficult thing and to be honest, I can't say I didn't warn him. But, at any rate, we all have to go through a bit of darkness before we can frolic in the sunshine... So I recommended that he start creating his own space online by publishing his thoughts in a blog, much like this one. It is a brilliant idea and I started this last october to let people know what was going on and explain a bit of what i am doing with this crazy ayurveda stuff... and at some point, it became too complicated to explain all of this stuff and I became too busy and blah blah blah and my writing for the most part stopped. So, I made an agreement with myself. I am going to continue with my blog... in the way i intended so many months ago... and i believe that now it will be easier as i am assimilating this stuff so much more deeply and fully.

And it is a good exercise for explaining things outside of my current vernacular. So, this also means that questions are welcome... just attach them in the comments... and i will start to answer them...

I am seeing clients and up until now I have 2 regular yoga clients per week and five full ayurvedic clients and i am faced with having too many clients for the program and that is okay :)

Also I realized something a week or two ago... and it is this... people are sick... and i have agreed to recommend them to an MD when I see a need for referal... I have spotted one case of diabetes that i believe will be considered minor once tested. and this is the beauty of ayurveda... very early detection... there is still a major possibility that this can be managed and healed... but it also means that next weekend, I am to tell a woman that I believe she should be tested for diabetes. hmmm.. forgot that where mostly i am in these relationships with clients who are improving... the other edge of that sword is the side where there is an issue... and i have to tell them.

I have also located a case of fibromyalgia and the nice thing is that I can also provide the treatment protocol for what is called vata pushing pitta in mamsa dhatu...

this is our language of pathogenesis... vata pushing pitta into mamsa dhatu... what that means is that the movement principle (air/space) of the body is pushing the transformation (fire/water) principle in to the muscle tissues. This is of course not the only manifestation of the vata pushing pitta paradigm in the body and mind... but we are taught to treat both the root cause of the imbalance as well as the manifestations of the imbalance.

hmm... i am writing to you from the top of the mountain... in fact i am at a startbucks located across from a green space that shows views of prehistoric volcanoes a hundred or so miles away... the cumulus clouds are nestled comfortably overhead. They may in fact be stratocumulus perlucidus clouds... I do not know... but that reference is a tipping of the hat to my dear friend jerry... I started looking the terms up after our chat...

the winds are steady and the day has a tremendous calm... we could say the doshas, vata pitta kapha are in good harmony for this climate... :)


ciao for now...

but take a walk out your front door and allow yourselves to be in the environment... see that all that there is is part of you... you are a microcosm of this cosmic macrocosm

chikitsa

been a while since I have been here...

and i have a little confession

i began seeing clients... or as I can now refer to them as patients... and for the most part i feel pretty good... however my client this week is a really hard case and I felt like i really couldn't help her.

I felt like she really needed treatment that is beyond my abilities at this point... and then last night, i think i came through...

our lecture was regarding chikitsa... which is sanskrit for treatment... and suddenly this world started to really open up to me again... and i realized that although I feel a bit like I really need to have more tools at my disposal... I have only been in school since october...

and I guess my understanding is rather incredible considering that...

so I feel more confident than I have in a while... and i tell you this while also feeling like i really wish that I had three weeks off and then started a new trimester... i am sad that I have to wait until january to continue... but i guess it is also an opportunity to see what i do understand...

HI!!

 

hmmm... what can we do here!