HW #23: Illness and Dying Book Part 2

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

Precis:

     Paul Farmer is truly one of a kind, he would rather put other people before himself continuously. He speaks for Haiti basically and addresses a lot of their issues, for example the DOT program which actually makes patients conditions worse.With all of his world humanitarian help Paul Farmer has been able to address MDR Tuberculosis in some third world countries. Paul Farmer isn't even in it for the money, he just cares and wants to help the people.

Insights:

 " It bothers me even to look at it... It can't support eight million people, and there they are. There they are, kidnapped from West Africa," (Pg 188). Haiti has way more people in it's country, than it can support itself. They also are so poor and technologically un-advanced they also can't support the people.

" She thought he'd never experienced true depression, a freedom so enviable she almost resented it. I've never known despair and I don't think I ever will., he wrote me once.It was as if in seeking out suffering in one of the world's most desperate locals, he made himself immune to the self consuming varieties of physic pain."(Page 189) Ophelia basically thinks that Farmer has never been so sad it stopped him from functioning completely. Farmer is able to work through the illness and dying he deals with on a daily basis. He simply doesn't have time to help himself and his own problems.

"Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world.. indeed, they are the only ones who ever have." (Page 164) Usually when small groups try and make some positive change to the world it works. This may be because of the chemistry that can be built with less people. They can work more on issues rather then argue and get nothing done.

Thoughts:

     I was saddened that WHO had flaws inside it. I was actually very surprised, more surprised than I would normally have been. Anytime the government gets involved, whatever the thing there helping with. Farmer and his dedication and love towards helping ill and dying people was amazing. Farmer is almost the very definition of saint to me. He literally treats his patients as human beings and on a much personal level than current doctors do. All doctors should read this book before they finished medical school.

HW 22 Ilness and Dying Pt 1

     Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

                                                                            Precis:

     Paul Farmer had an extremely unusual childhood. His parents were very strict, particularly his dad. Paul ended up being an extremely intelligent kid, who went to and finished college despite some tough times.Paul is a doctor and a writer today. Quite the overachiever with those two professions. Paul eventually ends up in Haiti where he tries to help the one of the poorest countries on the western hemisphere out.

Quotes:

     " I may as well say that from the moment I saw Zanmi Lasante, out there in the little village of Cange, in what seemed to me like the end of the Earth. in what was in fact one of the poorest parts of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I felt I'd encountered a miracle." (Kidder 20)

     "In Haiti. I knew per capita incomes came to a little more than one American dollar a day, less than that in the central plateau." ( Kidder 20)

     " But they blow their noses into dresses because they don't have tissues, wipe their asses with leaves, and have to apologize to their children for not having enough to eat." (Kidder 40)

Thoughts and Questions:

     Paul seems to genuinely care about helping people, he has a gift and I'm glad that he seems to be trying to use it right. Paul is someone who hands on helps people, instead of just sending money and calling it a day. It's very inspiring in a way. Paul seems to try his patients as humans and not just patients. This probably positively affects everyone a lot more.

HW 21B

To Omar,  Please post your blog so I can comment on it before 8 pm. Thank you for posting it the next day. Your most beautiful line was " she dealt with a very difficult illness in a very extraordinary way." I like how you immediately started off by saying you have never had anything more intense than what Beth dealt with. Health care is a problem that many Americans end up facing in life. People aren't invincible and you will end up getting sick or ill throughout life. One last thing I noticed that Omar did was that he noticed and explained that Beth stated we shouldn't treat doctors, patients, or nurses as tolls. Were all human beings, is basically what Beth was able to see in the hospital staff. 

HW#21

   Insights:
1. Beth's husband wasn't able to receive health care because they couldn't afford it until they applied for help
2. Beth having to deal with both of her children experiencing and dealing with her husband/ their father's death in their own unique way
3. Husband went from looking " movie star handsome" to very sick/ ill looking
4. Making the difficult choice of having to shelter her kids from their fathers death
5. Choosing to care for her husband 24/7 personally instead of relying solely on the doctors help
6.Beth and her husband never used the word death or dying with each other

Number 6:
     What I find very interesting is that Beth and her husband never used the word death or dying around each other period.  I was very unfamiliar with this. Usually every time I visited the hospital those words were mentioned, because we felt as though we had to be honest with them. There's always the possibility you can die, especially if your in the hospital.  When my family had to deal with my grandmother's upcoming death, the adults in the family had a meeting with her to let her know in about 3 months max she was expected to die as the doctors told them. Another thing that was amazing to me was the fact that Beth took the initiative to personally take care of her husband. This is something that I'm kind of familiar with but not exactly to the extent that Beth went. When my grandmother was sick in her final months my mom and my aunt took turns taking care of my grandmother, so that they could also continue their lives and support the family. One last thing I noticed was how close Beth's husband was to his children. I have always been close to my mom however, she works nights so I was babysat until age 12. There would even be some days where I didn't see my mom at all. This could have ended up very badly for me, but luckily I never made to stupid of decisions that I couldn't undo somehow.  Being close to their father must have made things immensely difficult for Evan and Josh, I have no idea how they did it.
        One idea that I thought of during Beth's presentation that I already knew but didn't really experience was life is constantly on a tilt. It can change in the blink of an eye for the better or the worse. Saying it and experiencing it is very different as some people know. No matter who you are or what you do anything can happen to you. The richest and the poorest person you know could die from cancer, get into a car crash, or just die of natural causes. No one is invincible and illness and dying is something that everyone must deal with at least once. That's just a part of being human

HW19 Family Perspectives on Illness and Dying

     In my family, in at least one member in every generation is overweight, has diabetes, or has high blood pressure.  I'm not so sure about my father's side for various reasons I don't want to get into right now, so everything said relates to my mom's side.  On my mother's side of the family everyone is very likely to develop one of the conditions I stated in the beginning, due to lack of education throughout my family.  There are only 5 people in my family that I can think of that went to college. Everyone else that didn't go, I wouldn't consider to be more educated than me. My family has plenty of smokers, which leads to strokes, cardiac arrest, and etc. On top of that due to their lack of intelligence they don't really eat healthy meals from what I know.  Because, of these diseases and other conditions developing later in life there have been many hospital visits. Most of these I didn't attend to for various reasons.  These type of experiences and just the stories I've heard from family members, makes me afraid kind of to grow old. I want to keep my youth forever, as most people probably due.
     My family ( me and my mom) is also very religious. My mom is a Christian who takes most things serious from the religion.  My mom and family members believe in going to the doctor anytime anything bad or slightly bad happens to you.  My mom mostly believes in allopathic medicine. My mom tries to force these beliefs on me very often. If I ever get a cold, fever, injure myself, or get sick she always tries to take me to the doctor which is conveniently located to us.  She understands though that doctor's aren't always right. She thinks holistic medicine is very unreliable and would probably never trust her life in the hands of holistic medicine.  This is a quote she used the other day while talking to me about this " Abdul if you got shot or stabbed where are you going to go to the hospital or to the massage therapist, see which one will 'heal you up" better."
     My mom's opinion on illness and dying are very common and about what most of society thinks.  I basically grew up with the same ideas more or less so my opinion isn't to far off hers.  The reason I believe allopathic medicine is better than holistic medicine is because it's more logical and more advanced in a way. Allopathic medicine has been changing for centuries "improving" as the years go on, and for the most part it's due pretty good lives get saved. I do however, think that both opinions should be looked at and it should be the patients choice on what type of medicine should be prescribed onto them.

HW 18 Health and Illness and Feasting

     The experience of Thanksgiving was quite different this year. I felt abnormally weird eating food this year. This was most likely because of the food unit that just passed, I felt very guilty eating and didn't even finish one plate. This was very weird for me because I hadn't eaten all day, similar to last year where I even went on that night to eat 8 meals.  I'm usually one of those people that uses thanksgiving as an excuse to have an all you can eat buffet, meanwhile not even knowing the true meaning of thanksgiving which it pains me to admit.  In my family thanksgiving has become more about socializing and discussing issues in the world, and with ourselves. I would much rather this than to have us all at a dinner table stuffing our faces.  It seems to be becoming more and more cultural and traditional. Not to sound conceited but this may be because as I get older it becomes more socially acceptable for me to chat with the adults. This makes it all the more fun.
     A new tradition that me and my family  took part in this year was, watching the football game. Even though, I don't enjoy watching football just because my family was there it was alright.  We all gathered around the T.V. and watched football, conversed during commercials,and ate food. It couldn't get much better than that.  It's definently unhealthy to eat and watch t.v. while just sitting down, but this is one of those examples where Thanksgiving is used to show that body centered practices dominate over anti-body practices.
     Honestly I don't think it's a bad thing that there is at least one day a year which is completely devoted to body centered practices. After thanksgiving is over, or all the food is eaten people often become very sluggish/tired.  This is probably due to the rapid ingestion of food that was eaten. 

HW#17 Initial Thoughts About Illness and Dying

      I haven't died yet, but like everyone else in the world I know what it feels like to be sick. My experiences with being sick from memory haven't really been that terrible. Whenever I get sick, I either lay down in bed for a week straight and do absolutely nothing but sleep, or I will do what most people do and go to the doctor. I usually get better after a week or two and its back to normal life for me, Luckily for me I  also have health insurance. I can thank my responsible mom for that, although if a person can't afford it that doesn't mean there irresponsible. I'm not entirely familiar with Obama's new healthcare plan but, I know he had to make one because, basically when someone didn't have health insurance they were left to die. America should try and strive to adapt free healthcare for Americans, which is what France, and Canada have.
      When it comes to dying, I personally have never been told I was going to die, as of now. I have unfortunately been around people who were either dying, or knew they were going to die very soon. As Kevin Wagner stated in his response, for some reason most people imagine the "traditional" American death scene, it involves a grieving family crowded around a hospital bed.  I  actually attended one of these tragic events. It was very depressing, everyone was crying except for me really, I cried at the funeral though. My experiences with dying made me realize I won't actually know what it feels like until I'm actually there, which I will get to later in life hopefully.
      Most people think about illness and dying in a negative way. I think it's for good reason also.  No one should want to die, I sure don't. I'm not looking forward to it at all. No one can really prepare for it, as no one knows when it's coming.  During times of illness and death, people often act very patronizing, they pity people, there sympathetic, and compassionate. Most of these things I personally wouldn't like done to me, but it happens anyway. Somehow, dying often brings people extremely close either temporarily or forever. I found this out especially with my family, it makes me very sad to think so though.
     Lots of people try to avoid illness and dying, which isn't possible at all.  I would like to think it's possible, but no one is superman/woman it will happen to all of us.  Also no one knows what's going to happen when you die because, there dead and can't tell you. This is one of those things in life where you just have to figure out on your own.
     Questions:
1. How has the way humans approached illness and dying changed over time?
2. How does religion affect our interpretation of illness and dying?
3. How does knowing humans aren't perfect and get ill and die affect how we view ourselves?