Just Not Today

It's conclusive. The doctors are not sure why my belly is hurting. They have no idea why my bowels are acting up so badly. And when it comes to the vertigo, they won't make a conclusion as to the source. There are a couple of options, but neither of them really matters. I have vertigo, and there is nothing they can do about it. In other words, I could have told them that.

The current strategy is to try and figure out what is going on with my belly. The tests show no sign's of c-difficile, even though I had all the right symptoms. Those symptoms are now mostly gone, I think due to the probiotic diet and apple cider vinegar Chris Gordon provided me last weekend. The only remnant symptoms are the lack of bowel control, something which is slowly resolving itself, and the pain in my gut on the left side.

For the bowl control, the elite group of medical professionals here have decided a probiotic diet and some metamucil would be the best approach. For the dizziness, they have recommended I start taking gravol on a regular basis. As to the gut pain, they have scheduled a CT scan to see if I have diverticulitis or some other internal ailment as yet undiscovered.

My own feeling is that all of this began with over-aggressive use of antibiotics. These powerful medications damaged my gut, creating c-difficile like symptoms, along with damaging my inner ear on the right. The only thing that can cure these issues is time, feeding the body proper biotics and rebuilding the biome in my belly.

It reminds me once again of that scene from Star Trek where, in walking into a trepanning, "Bones" McCoy shivers and refers to current medical practice as "barbaric". I have learned once again that there are very few things doctors really cure. They use clumsy tools at times, treating things they can't diagnose all that well, and hoping the body does the real work of curing itself.

This, in no means or in no way, suggests that I don't appreciate or value all that the medical system is doing, or has done for me. It's just a simple recognition that we know so little about our own bodies, so little about the nature of disease or illness, so little about how to help our bodies heal. Our modern tool set has moved is forward from the Dark Ages of medicine, where cures were often worse than disease, and generally had little effect. Medicine in the 21st century has come along way.

Yet even with our modern technology, even with what we are learning about how our bodies function, even with drugs to treat so many diseases, we still have so far to go. There is much to do, and many people are doing it. One day we will have prodedures and treatments which do no harm while doing so much good. One day we will have true cures for cancer, ALS, and so many other diseases. Just not today, when I need it.