A Final Word - Healed, Saved, or Cured
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
What does it mean to save? Under the context of healthcare, to save someone is to rescue them from physical death or serious harm. We save a life. Inherent in this concept is the need to intervene from the outside with whatever high technology is available; invasive procedures, imaging, surgical intervention, pharmaceuticals, ventilation, etc. This is a passive activity for the patient. One can do very little but accept the care provided to them. We are blessed to live in a country that is capable and highly skilled at saving lives.
“For it is by grace you have been saved… not from yourselves, it is a gift of God. Eph. 2:8
To be saved requires the humility to accept a gift from outside our control.
What does it mean to heal? Someone is healed when their health is restored. This concept reaches far beyond the physical body since to be a whole and sound human being means to be healthy in body, mind, and spirit. Instead of an intervention simply coming from the outside, a healing body must work from the inside. I have been blessed to work with the spinal cord injured, brain injured, and individuals fighting progressive neurological disease most of my life.
Healing is not a passive activity. Healing is not simply symptomatic relief. Healing is about facilitating restoration of wellness and function, and it must be a very active and holistic endeavor. I would assert we live in a country that seems highly incapable and somewhat inept at this process.
“He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you…” Mark 5:34
To be healed requires a dynamic and ongoing effort which originates from inside our control.
OK. What about the term cure? If you look in the dictionary, you may find these terms, “to cure” and “to heal,” used in a superficially interchangeable fashion. So, let’s dig deeper into the definition(s) of cure. A cure is also defined as a remedy, an act or agent that preserves. These terms paint a picture in my mind of a one-time, quick-fix solution followed by a static state. I am not certain this term even belongs in the vocabulary describing the dynamic health and wellness of an individual. Yet, I believe this is how many of us have come to look at our health. I’m busy, fix it. I too am guilty of this mindset.
USA Today reports, prescription drugs are now the biggest cause of fatal drug overdoses in America.
“Addiction to prescription painkillers — which kill thousands of Americans a year — has become a largely unrecognized epidemic, experts say. In fact, prescription drugs cause most of the more than 26,000 fatal overdoses each year,” says Leonard Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Approximately 120,000 Americans visit the emergency rooms each year due to overdose of opioid pain killers. As I was researching the above statistics, numerous sites popped up where you could purchase your own cheap and effective Hydrocodone and other pain medications. These sites are probably scams, but that is not the point. There is a pervasive mindset in the United States which justifies the overuse of prescription medications for “preventing” and “curing” disease
"The biggest and fastest-growing part of America's drug problem is prescription drug abuse," says Robert DuPont, a former White House drug czar and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "The statistics are unmistakable."
Another negative aspect of the word cure is the position in which it places our healthcare providers. Doctors are expected to perform feats beyond that of flesh and blood humans. We seem to forget their brains are limited to connecting a synapse just like the rest of us, and when they fail we feel we have been wronged. The expectations we place on our healthcare system result in a runaway train of procedures and tests fueled by fear of litigation.
My husband does an injection technique which illustrates the not-so-subtle difference between the concepts of healing and curing. The procedure is called prolotherapy, and it challenges the idea that chronic pharmaceutical management or a surgical “cure” are the only options for a torn ligament or a joint with cartilage damage. The technique is simple if you know and appreciate the musculoskeletal anatomy and the mechanisms that cause pain. You find the structure that is damaged and inject it with a solution that basically irritates the squat out of it. The tissues become inflamed and call in stem cells, cytokines, and other natural processes God put in place to allow our bodies to heal. Over time, you have a stronger ligament and/or improved cartilage. He has kept hundreds of people from suffering through surgical intervention. Are they cured? No, that is a static and inappropriate term. Are they restored to function by facilitating their own body to heal from the inside? Absolutely.
This is no different from choosing to use a digestive enzyme to move food more quickly though your gut so you naturally accumulate less stomach acid rather than taking a drug to block the backed-up acid. The inability to properly digest the food is what needs to be healed. This is no different from using natural occurring supplements like folate, B6, B12, CoQ10, or fish oils to decrease the inflammation and injury to your arteries rather than jumping immediately on board with a statin drug to lower your cholesterol. The damage to your arteries is what needs to be healed. But what we hear incessantly advertised on TV is how these chemical “cures” are what we need… They often are not.
Not all pharmaceuticals are evil. Not all information is erroneous. I have taken an antibiotic or two over my lifetime, and my dad has been treated with chemotherapy. I do not subscribe to the conspiracy theory. This situation is not nearly that intriguing. But as we discussed in the last post, there is a good chunk of misleading information fueled plain and simply by greed.
You have probably noticed I get my jollies from making spiritual and scientific analogies, and this one is a beauty. I hope this, my “Final Word on Healthcare - Healed, Saved, or Cured,” has been thought provoking. I am eternally grateful this Thanksgiving for all of you that make my life rich beyond compare.
I always look forward to your thoughts.
Michele
www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-30-drug-overdose_N.htm
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