Staying with a relative gave me some scary insight into the downhill path of health choices many people take.

Date:   7/25/2006 1:16:17 PM ( 18 y ago)

My family went up to the mountains this past weekend. My dad's cousin invited us, so we stayed with them in their cabin, spending the night Saturday night. Overall it was a nice visit, and I enjoyed it. HOWEVER...

My dad's cousin is a nice woman, around 70 years old I imagine. She graduated from college 50 years ago, you do the math. Anyway, we had heard that she wasn't doing too well. While we were there, she told us some of the details:

Her doctor had put her on hormone replacement therapy for 10 years. Her doctor told her that she "needed" it (along with everyone else). Toward the end of this 10 years, it gave her a small stroke that made her blind in her left eye. Later it turned out that this particular drug gave tons of people cancer. Well, it gave her cancer, too, so she took the radiation and had her lymph nodes removed, etc. After 10 treatments they said she was clear, but the one doctor wanted to give her 5 more treatments, aware it might scar her lungs. She didn't see why she needed it but went along with him. Yes, the 5 ensuing treatments damaged her lungs and now she has some lung disease. She has to use oxygen daily, and take a high dose of prednisone (I think), and some other things. She can't do much physical activity, just mild walking from the car to the building is taxing enough. She is in terrible health!

Now the point so far is that it was all of the bad suggestions of the doctor that had a chain reaction giving her these problems. YES she went along with it, but a large part of the blame lies on the doctor. If she hadn't taken the hormone therapy drug, then she wouldn't have had the stroke and cancer.

Okay. This woman knows she is in terrible health. Now is she doing anything about it? Diet and lifestyle-wise? I saw a bottle of "Juice Plus" on the table, and I know that she attended a meeting of the "Hallelujah Acres" lifestyle once (my aunt, who is her cousin, is a health minister). She has heard some things about how diet can heal and cure, etc. But...

For dinner Saturday night they grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. They defrosted the hamburgers in the microwave, so I ate a hot dog. There were baked beans, which she microwaved, so I didn't eat them. There was a big bowl of potato chips (I ate just a few, mainly because I was very hungry). And fortunately there were two half-ripe tomato she had grown, sliced, and some fresh pineapple cubes, so I ate a ton of pineapple and some of the tomatoes. I thought the meal was scary! She had meant to bring a pie but had left it at home. She had tons of snack foods like cookies, crackers, and dips which they kept offering us (and she kept eating). Don't forget all the soft drinks.

I don't know what they ate for breakfast, I came late and just ate fresh peaches.

We went to a fair, where I ate some pinto beans and cornbread, some fresh squeezed lemonade, and yes, I did eat part of a funnel cake.
SHE ate a BBQ pork sandwich, sweet tea, strawberry shortcake, funnel cake, and ice cream!!!

This wasn't really a special treat for her, either. She eats junk everyday.
I don't want to be too judgemental. I guess she doesn't really know the truth or she would act differently. Her life is similar to a LOT of other people out there. I mainly just find it sad.

Hopefully we can all learn from observing a life like this. There are a lot of steps and turns along this path. It starts with daily choices about what one eats. A big turn in the path was following the doctor's advice to take HRT, and then many more downhill steps from there. Let this remind us to keep our guard up and make wise choices.

 

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