I honestly cannot recall a time when I didn't think home remedies like oatmeal baths or an aloe plant were amazing. Mark's family's fever recipe always astounds me: a shot of whiskey and a glass of hot water before bed. They did this to my husband from the day he could walk. But he does swear on it.
But in the last four years, my DIY-health efforts have taken it to the 400 level. Recently, when faced with a recurring swelling of my tonsils, I drug myself to the doctor. Since I have worked with refugees, I find I am getting sicker more often and with stranger things. A friend of mine actually got whooping cough recently, so it seemed worth checking out. That conversation went something like this:
"On any medications?"
"Nope"
"Any birth control medications?"
"Nope"
"Any allergy medications?"
"Nope"
"No medications? At ALL?"
"Yeah, none."
This happens a lot. From dentists, even down to my massage therapist. The conversation proceeded :
"See here you noted that you get migraines. What are you taking for those?"
"A tincture of fever few and a tea of white willow bark."
"What are you Pocahontas?" (She didn't actually say that, it was just the look on her face.)
So I'm taking this pretty seriously at this juncture. I started working for a health food store in 2006, and was there for only a few months before moving, but it let me on to something major: I usually DIDN'T need drugs. There were time tested ways to relieve problems I faced frequently, some of which I had spent significant time with doctors trying to fix.
When Mark gets sick, I make him what we affectionately call "Get Better Tea". If what ails you is no more than the common cold, I can have you on your feet, feeling great in a few hours. If it's a flu, I find you have a much shorter duration of sickness, and if you have Swine Flu, like Mark got lost fall, it gets you capable of not whining for your two days off work.
If he were writing, he would describe GBT as a horrendous event in the life of tea, worthy of a warning label- it is not a tasty treat. But it works. Mark has not been to a doctor in almost three years. And when he did it was not for a cold.
So when I got hit by a car in February, it caused a fundamental shift for me. I already dealt with one or two health issues that needed semi-regular attention, but there was simply no way to avoid weekly visits to a massage therapist and twice a week stops at the chiropractor. After a particularly frustrating week of pain, I asked Mr. Chiro "What can I DO to make this better???"
He responded bluntly, but compassionately, "You keep coming...it gets better."
It stuck with me, that no matter how much I know about herbs or supplements or massage, there will always be someone gifted and more knowledgeable, and there are times when, in spite of my efforts to own my own health journey, I need that help and a little love.
Today I am feeling much better, for having worked with a team of a chiropractor, massage therapist, and naturopath. I'm also feeling less of a need to be the alpha dog where my health is concerned. To get closer to pregnancy, I've been working with an amazing midwife, who has been helping me enormously in only two visits, just by listening and offering incredible wisdom. I've been gearing up to enjoy some communal acupuncture- a much cheaper, more readily available type of acupuncture where a few people are treated in one room together. I continue to see an incredible chiropractor and massage therapist and I've been loving yoga (although not as regularly as I should!). I also have been enjoying the community and accountability of a friend to work out with regularly and an urban garden to tend.
To me, all these amazing people and experiences are proof that health is an effort of personal responsibility and of communal sharing, much more than industry. For these reasons, I will never again go to a practitioner who does not answer questions, who rushes me out of the room, or poo poos a suggestion I make in an effort to connect to a treatment or to fully understand it. Owning your health is the only way to have it as far as I am concerned.
Here's my prescription: Listen to your body, engage in community.
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