renegade patients/patience

There is an interesting healthcare article in the news this week about doctors who decide to stop playing the insurance game.

A few years ago, we decided to take the self-pay route for our primary doctor. Actually, the doctor quoted in the article, Craig Koniver, IS our doctor. He went to this mode of practice two years ago, and last year pared his staff down to one - himself.

My family is fortunate to have medical insurance coverage. But we chose to stay with Dr. Koniver because his approach to care has revolutionized our health. It's that simple. And that amazing.

Break Free of the System!

Dr. Koniver describes it as partnership. He uses his knowledge of traditional and organic medicine along with his personal relationship with us to guide us in taking care of our own health. We trust his advice, knowing it is based on a holistic approach to our well-being, not on a need to satisfy coding requirements or pitch product. The upfront cost is surprisingly affordable. And since the cost is controlled and agreed to up front, there are no nasty surprises from insurance companies denying charges because such-and-such was coded wrong or excluded by our plan.

He is amazingly accessible. And we no longer feel like just a number in an EMR system. We have his direct phone number and email. When we send him a message, he's back in touch within minutes. When we visit, we have as much time with him as we need and we converse on a first-name basis. He knows exactly who we are, what our lives are like, and what we're struggling with, even before he consults his whizbang iPad chart. When he asks how we are doing, he means it, and he wants to know not just our physical state, but how we are mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. Because it all matters and has an impact on our health.

My husband was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes ten years ago and has had an ongoing struggle with controlling his blood sugar. Our prior caregiver would look at his numbers, nod as my husband voiced his concerns, then prescribe one drug on top of another. We are not opposed to pharmaceuticals and are grateful for medical advances, but after a few years of being pelted with pills - including one that was later taken off the market - we thought there had to be a better way. We wanted a holistic doctor who would LISTEN to us and would do more than just try to mask our symptoms with pharmaceuticals. Once we found that in Dr. Koniver, there was no way we were going back!

The importance of this approach became more evident this year. After getting to know my husband, following his struggles with his blood sugar, and doing some in depth research, Dr. Koniver suspected the possibility that my husband had been misdiagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. He sent us to a specific endocrinology specialist in Atlanta, whose tests verified that he had the marker for Type 1, not Type 2. No one else had ever looked at the numbers and suggested that maybe there was a reason why traditional treatments weren't improving his condition.

Obviously Dr. Koniver has not abandoned all that is good in traditional medicine. He uses everything that is at his disposal to make the best recommendations to his patients. We still use certain pharmaceuticals to treat ongoing conditions. But we prefer to use organic supplements when possible to avoid increasingly expensive pharmaceuticals with questionable side effects. (Seriously, have you ever listened to the rapid fire side effects list on those commercials?)  Dr. Koniver even has his own line of organic supplements. He doesn't push them, but we use them because they make a difference, we trust the source, and they're less expensive/higher quality that what you find in the market. And they work.  My husband and I are in much better health now than we were five years ago because of them. And as my husband would say, if it ain't broke, don't mess with it!

It's refreshing  - and inspirational - to have a doctor brave enough to defy conventions so he can fulfill his true calling of helping people reclaim wellness. He won't get rich this way, but he makes a good living and he spends a lot of time with his family, including his doctor wife who left practice to home-school their kids. Then again, that might just make him the richest doctor in town.

do over....

Seventeen years ago, I became a technical writer. My goal: make money writing during the day so i could write my own stuff at night. Instead, I entered a 16 year creative vacuum and didn't write a thing.

In my business I document systems based on test case scenarios. If the system crashes, we fix it and start over. It's all part of the documentation process. We get lots of do-overs.

But life isn't a test case scenario. This is the big game. Mostly we get one shot. Rarely do we get to wipe the slate clean and start over.

One day I woke up and realized the big hole inside me couldn't be filled with anything but doing what I was meant to do - writing about the real stuff, the hard stuff, the fun stuff, the stuff that was inside and all around me.

So I'm starting over, where I am, with what I have. No more wasting time. No more fear of critics. I am a writer. The time is now. Here I go....

smoking gun: feds, ads, and you

Most rational people understand that "truth in advertising" is an oxymoron. We don't believe everything we see. But that doesn't mean it's ok to make any old claims you want about a product. If you take a look at product claims made in historic advertising, it is obvious we benefit from regulations that impose parameters and guard consumers against blatantly false claims.

 

However, how much power should the government (that is, WE) have over the advertising and packaging of a product?

Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated "larger, more prominent cigarette health warnings" be displayed on all cigarette packaging and advertisements in the United States. Graphic warnings like these:

A federal court declared this mandate unconstitutional to impose this requirement on tobacco companies and struck it down before it could be implemented.

I don't smoke. But I'm not a purist. I smoked for a short season long ago when I worked in theater. Theater folks are typically a smoking crowd, no secret there. And I'll be honest - I enjoyed it. It's relaxing. It curbs your appetite. And it gives you something to do with your hands when you're waiting around for call.

But I got tired of smelling like smoke, of spending money, of hiding my habit from people who loved me and would have disapproved. I didn't like giving that much power over myself to a drug. And I knew it wasn't good for me.

I'd seen what decades of tobacco use can do to people. I'd listened to the wheezing and coughing of people I love. I'd watched their skin shrivel and wrinkle, smelled death on them. I'd watched them struggle for breath as they reached to remove the oxygen tube and light up. I'd seen them cough up something that looked like coffee grounds from the recesses of ravaged lungs in a hospital bed. I'd gone to their funerals.

So I quit.

Now the nanny state wants you to quit, too. And they think forcing you to look at gruesome images every time you buy a pack of cigarettes will do the trick.

See, the FDA claims their job is "Protecting and Promoting YOUR Health." Even if that was true (and not just the result of some committee meeting on coming up with clever mottoes), does it give the FDA the authority or the power to force tobacco companies to use pictures of rotted lungs on cigarette packaging?

Besides, if the FDA is going to force tobacco companies to use deterrent packaging, shouldn't they apply the same standards to other industries? For example:

• Fast food companies should use only pallid obese people in power-scooters in their packaging (see above pic for cig pack)
• Candy and soda advertising should feature hyperactive children with rotting teeth 
• Grocery store brands should exchange pictures of red barns and sunshine for animals packed into CAFOs knee-deep in their own manure and fields sprayed by workers wearing chemical gear
• Pharmaceutical companies should have to illustrate their products' small-print, fast-paced adverse reactions using pictures of patients vomiting, bleeding rectally, or lying in a coffin

I'm not for smoking. It can contribute to poor health and even death. But so can a bunch of other things that are well accepted - even expected - in our culture. The federal government has a role in regulation and public safety. But when they go too far - even for something we agree with in principal - we need to take note and consider the long-term ramifications to our freedom. After all, "they" are supposed to be "us". I think we have forgotten that....

old....alone....done for...?

"I know we're all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?"   -  Jack Nicolson as Warren Schmidt in "About Schmidt"

In the 2002 movie "About Schmidt," Jack Nicolson's character plods through life, keeping things predictable - no deep connections, no deep thoughts, no real pain, no real joy. However, in a rare act of impulse, he signs up to sponsor an African child through a Christian charity, and begins writing the child letters.

After his wife's untimely death (she drops dead in their kitchen while he is out), he decides to take a solo RV trip visit his daughter in another state. During the trip, Schmidt begins to awaken as he lets life happen to him. He chronicles his trip - and his life - in his letters to an unseen African boy.

Like his life, the letters are about one thing - himself. The details he shares are ridiculously self-centric, but it seems like the first time he's allowed himself to think about life and share a part of himself with someone else.

At one point, lying alone on top of his RV looking at the stars, he reflects on his life. He wonders what his late wife really thought of him. Did she love him, or was she just too nice to tell him how disappointed she was in him? In the dark, he asks her to forgive him for not being the man she deserved. At that moment, a shooting star blazes across the sky. We see a flicker of hope, see a light start to come on, slowly, painfully, and we pray he'll just keep moving.

He continues his trip and attempts to reconnect with his daughter, who lives in Denver and is about to be married to a waterbed salesman. Schmidt is forced to interact with his future son-in-law's very gregarious, very messy family. He is definitely out of his comfort zone, probably for the first time in his life. He is concerned about his daughter's marriage and tells her that she is making a mistake. She replies that after all these years, he no longer gets to have an opinion about her life; he can either stay and do what he's told, or go back home to Omaha. He stays for the wedding, and during the reception he placates everyone with a lovely but definitely not heart-felt speech. He leaves the wedding feeling old, alone, and done for - his life hasn't made a difference to anyone or anything.

At the end of this disappointing trip, Schmidt returns home to an empty house and a pile of unopened mail. One letter catches his eye, with its unknown handwriting and foreign stamp. It is correspondence from the sponsored child, written by a nun at the orphanage. She tells him that the boy has been sick, but is now well thanks to Schmidt's donations. She explains that the boy cannot read or write, but that he has drawn a picture to express his thanks and heartfelt wishes for Schmidt.

The boy's drawing shows a stick figure of himself holding the hand of a man beside him - Schmidt. A virgin tear rolls down Schmidt's worn cheek and is followed by sobs. For the first time in a long but isolated life, his story is no longer About Schmidt. He has touched and been touched. Whatever is left of his life will never be the same.

Many of us are or have been Schmidt, living lives of "quiet desperation." When I get discouraged about the state of things around me, I wonder - what have I done to make sure this story isn't just about me?  Where does it start?  Right here....right now....let it begin with me....

turn

at my age
it's nice to know
i can still turn
a head
a phrase
a leaf
right on red (except on main),
to every season turn
turn
for the better, turn about
is fair play, turn my
eyes, turn their
hearts, or at least
their ankles
so I know

fall (stop)

Rising sun serenades the silvery moon
Indian summer signs cool
salt marsh shimmers green
grande redeye gives props
carpool rocks to Hot Chelle Rae
yesterday's ennui
swept away in a flush of Life

(c) 2011  Cynthia Y Carver-Futch