HW 29- Reading and Noting Basic Materials

For this homework I have decided to structure my three "domains" by the triforce. For those of you who do not know what the triforce is, it is made up of the three elements of Power, Wisdom and Courage.

POWER:

When it comes to illness and dying (in mainstream U.S. and/or western civilization in general) the power is really in the hands of those who decide who gets medical care and who does not. As seen in Michael Moore's "Sicko", several (roughly 50) million people in the United States do not have medical coverage. Of those millions a vast majority suffer from not being able to receive proper care when it is needed most. There are examples of those who have sustained serious injury, developed advanced disease and still they are denied the treatment and care they require to continue to function. The main interest here is money. Insurance companies want to profit over the illnesses and deaths of patients, and doctors expect to be paid well for their treatment of said patients. Doctors pay a lot to be expertly trained with the highest tech equipment, and after the Great Depression medical bills started to become higher than a month's salary. (Sick, 6)

On the other hand, my father didn't have to pay AT ALL for his treatment during the time he was terminally ill. But in retrospect, making us pay would've added insult to injury. We were lied to and lost in the shuffle because of the insurance company's errors, and by the time they had "come to his rescue" it was FAR little WAY too late. In the end, insurance companies possess this power to deny sick people coverage, continually playing puppet master to the doctors and agents who are paid and professed to save lives, not a quick buck.

WISDOM:

When one becomes sick without the breath of death in their face, they have quite a few options. It takes the wisdom and judgement to be able to determine an individual's situation and immediate needs, which can be instrumental in one's fate. For example, when my brother stepped on a toothpick that got lodged up his foot a couple of months ago, it was clear he needed serious medical attention, so he and his friend traveled to the emergency room. If he were able to pull the entire toothpick out, however, he might have dealt with the situation differently. This is a clear example of turning to the allopathic side of the treatment spectrum. Can he completely trust the doctors? Maybe not, given that there's a possibility of serious repercussions (nerve damage) as a result of the doctors slicing his foot open. Now he somewhat regrets going directly to the emergency room, which in the end let him out no better than he started.

In MY case with my trip to the emergency room, wisdom might have saved my life- that is if I DID have appendicitis. When my lower abdominal area felt like it had been struck by a truck, I turned to homeopathic and holistic methods of making the pain disappear first. I tried to eat, drink tea, go to the bathroom, massage my belly and sleep. When none of this worked and I felt like vomiting my brains out I decided it was time to put my fate into the hands of the allopathic system. The irony of it all of course, was that not only did I NOT have a serious problem- but not even the acclaimed doctors and specialists could determine what struck me that fateful day. Everyone in the hospital had the utmost confidence in my having appendicitis, and they were all proven wrong. If I DID have it though, they said I would have been in grave danger judging by my pain and crohn's disease. When I interviewed my mom for an earlier HW, she said she thought the spirit and methods of holistic treatment were wonderful and sometimes even triumphant- but it would be foolish to shun allopathic ways completely. She must be right, because out of the three personal accounts of illness mentioned above, my father was the only one whose illness defeated them, and he was the only one who refused to see a doctor.

COURAGE:

Knowing that you have a terminal illness and are going to die is probably the hardest truth one can come to accept. It takes the utmost bravery to say to yourself, "this is it, I am going to die", and even moreso to continue to fight your mortal enemy: cancer. My father never acknowledged the fact or even possibility that he would die... out loud at least. He never collapsed or got depressed by his predicament, and continued to work on his art and support my brother and me as his sons. To the patient, this feeling must be head-spinning and crushing at the same time. One must ask themselves, "how will it feel to die? what does it mean to be dead?" For the family it is even more painful, watching your loved one, the one who cared for you since your very first waking moment to crumble before your eyes and to have no control over it.

My father was treated much differently in his time of illness, and he treated people differently as well. Much of the tension that had built up between my dad and my mom's side of the family had dissipated, and my family treated him with the greatest of respects for his level of courage and without any of the stigma that usually comes with illness. He continued to try and play tennis with us, and even placed 3rd in our annual mini-golf family tournament (out of us 20 other players!). When WE as a family decided that there was absolutely no chance of his recovery (in this case he had SO much courage he would never outwardly come to this conclusion), we decided to take him home for the last time and allow him to let go when the time came, surrounded by his artwork and the environment he flourished in. It wasn't as apparent to me at the time, but I now realize a lot of people do home hospice (to a lesser extent however, we never had doctors or any outsides come out save the buddhist monk). (...And a Time For Dying)