Nagging Doubts

My sister, Angie, had her tonsils out over a week ago. Remember when this used to be a common procedure? Children everywhere lined up for their introduction to the center of modern medicine--surgery...

Turns out that something is off here or something has changed or something...Angie is just now getting better. She has been miserable for ten straight days. The only reprieve is that she has a great sense of humor so I have been able to give her a few laughs via a few timely texts about filling in for Axl Rose and Brian Johnson.

Of course, this is really nothing to laugh about. Angie told me this morning that she was working in her yard yesterday when her neighbor (an attorney) came over and said, “Now this is mostly over, I can tell you…I have been involved in two separate cases in which women died after having their tonsils taken out….Both adult women with children who bled-out while they were sleeping…”

Those who know me well have probably heard an occasional barb about hospitals, insurance or modern medicine. I can’t really say where it comes from but I have forever had this nagging suspicion about the way that our age considers and addresses health. At the very least, it strikes me as the proverbial little man behind a curtain pulling levers that produce a lot of smoke and noise. I am afraid to admit, even to myself, how I really feel about it.

You’d think that by now we would have figured out something a bit more creative than surgery. I always think of one of the middle Star Trek films in which Bones McCoy refers to our era of doctors as “butchers.” Of course, he would then just get out some kind of magic wand that he simply waved over the patient. Science Fiction...but still... Can we not come up with something a bit less invasive than the presumption and practice that has dominated medicine for the last hundred years?

Angie, sorry about your throat. Next time, you might want to just go with the vitamins.