Walking up/down stairs was now near impossible. Moving my arms and legs in concerted fashion was a painful exercise and at times almost impossible to do. The effort required to move my whole body was more than anything I had ever experienced previously. What had changed in the past two months, I wondered? ... The only thing that was new in my life was this drug. (Strangely, walking alleviated the discomfort that was my constant companion)
Our son, now an adult with an honours health degree, (School’s Over, Summer’s Here –June 2012) offered simple advice to help me restore my body to its previous lustre. (ha ha) ... His directive: to eat even more simply and walk -
gave me pause. I took him to heart. Easy, common sense guidelines for a return to
health seemed to be too good to be true. (Other traditional remedies had failed). ... It is odd how the answers to perplexing health
problems can, sometimes, be solved with a walk, a simple diet, and a drink
of water. My son suggested a well known natural joint support, MSM. It was
added to my diet and a year later I felt better than I had before this event
had taken place. It seemed prudent not
to muddy the waters of health by introducing my body to yet another layer of
drugs: prescription painkillers, stronger versions of the over the counter type
to address this ongoing pain. ... (Masking
pain did little to find the source of it)
Drugs we are familiar with and drugs, new on the
pharmaceutical scene, have efficacy histories unknown to many of us, doctor or
patient. We trust the research until a drug’s safety is questioned and we are
left in harm’s way. ... We must learn to
educate ourselves in basic fundamentals to find ‘natural’ ways to heal
ourselves. ... Doctors are not magicians. Drugs are not
always a panacea to what ails us. Later, I would learn, the side effects of both
drugs: the bone strengthener and the painkiller, would be called into question
on a large scale.
One day, as I was cleaning the dog pen of its daily debris, one
of the many ongoing duties of pet ownership, I was
reminded how fortunate I was to be doing this chore. Many might regard this act
of cleaning as beneath them, a terrible job that has to be done. This ‘stoop
and scoop’ duty was a comforting reminder to me of our dogs’ daily health and
my ability to still be able to walk and bend to retrieve these by-products of
animal digestion. I was outside, breathing fresh air, cleaning the ground on
which I walked and on which our dogs played. It humbled me to know how
fortunate I was that I had not been permanently disabled or worse by a drug that was supposed to help
me regain/strengthen precious bone mass. My trust
in drugs was shaken. Then
our son declared boldly that this problem would go
away, someday, with the simple truths described above.. One year later, it did.
His confidence in me restored my confidence in myself in healing my body. ...
Kids do make you smarter!! (Kids Make Us Smarter-4/2013)
Coming soon:- The
Special Ed. classroom, a design perspective
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