E-coli happens

It's a med-tech joke. Really, you don't want to know.

I light myself on fire for a living. I've looked down many gun barrels held in fear, anger, duty, and jealousy. I've been shot, stabbed, frozen, drowned, electrocuted, hit by cars, fought with horses, angry women, bullies, and dragons. I've died in the desert sun, on mountain snow, on grassy field, and on placid lake. I've stepped through deaths door so often, I have my own coffee mug there.

But never have felt so fragile and helpless as in the hands of the AMA. So, in case my feelings for them aren't clear, I've asked the ghost of Johnny Cash to help out...

On the other hand, despite my brush with the only Drug Pushers I've ever had the displeasure to meet, I feel that I leave the better for it. I have data confirmation that my self-diagnosis over the years have been 100% correct. And despite a little brush with what must have been acid reflux a couple years ago, my heart is in fine shape.

Yes, I'm a fat bastard who needs to lose weight. And I already took the first few steps towards that goal. I bough an iPod so that I had something to listen to on walks (personal best this week, I broke the 20 minute mile). And I recently bought a real refrigerator.

You see, since I moved in to Culver City over 6 years ago, I've had this tiny mini fridge as my only unit. Sounds great until you realize you can't have frozen foods, or large quantities of anything that can spoil. Basically, it sucks. But now I can keep whole heads of lettuce, healthy snacks, all fruit popsicles, etc in there and know they'll come out right. It's remarkably improved my eating habits.

Plus, I feel even more empowered to continue listening to my body (and totem) for dietary cues. So far, they've been dead on with what I need.

In short, I feel like a new man. And it only cost me $800, three needle pricks, completely toxifying myself with bad prescriptions, and a couple weeks of stress.

Alchemic Tango

So, I recently had a pretty severe inner ear infection that caused me to break a 12 year streak and seek medical attention from the 'guys with the good drugs'. That's right, the almighty, allopathic, AMA. One ear infection and I end up spending $800 for a blinding array of tests to have them tell me the things I diagnosed for myself were, in fact, the case. Oh, and here, take some pills. Never mind that the things we "just caught in the nick of time" are things I've known about and have been treating for years. Oh, and here, take some pills. Never mind that ALL I wanted to do was get some antibiotics for my ear. Oh, and here, take some pills.

The AMA was formed to combat hucksterism and the patented medicine industry. If you're drawing a blank here, think of Sweeney Todd and the Pirelli's Miracle Elixir scene. Oh, and here, take some pills. In this case, Todd would be the humble and well-intentioned AMA, and Pirelli would be the shameless huckster portrayed in the movie. Thing is, the AMA did eventually move on to the atrocities displayed in the movie by Todd: literally cutting the throats of it's competition (in some cases) to attain dominance over american medicine. Oh, and here, take some pills.

Now, I walk out of the clinic with 6 bottles of pills, multiple punctures, referrals for two specialists, and a pear tree up my partridge. These last few days have incited more stress in me than the last 10 years of running my own business. Oh, and here, take some pills. Never mind that I found some startling similarities between my 'treatment' there and typical cult indoctrinations: 15 hour fast, separation from home, change of name, group-specific terminology, and let's not forget the drugs. Oh, and here, take some pills.

And now, having googled all the various pills they gave me, I find that one of them counteracts another, two cause symptoms that counteract each other, the one pill I feared most turns out to be the most innocuous of the bunch and the ones they put me on first are the most likely to kill me. Yaaay... Oh, and here, take some pills.