i am exhausted. i got 5 hours sleep in 72 even before i got here. i must get the first part of this story told before it gets lost.

the first two days were a nightmare. i came the minute i got word that my friend bill was in trouble. the doctors were saying that he would not leave the hospital(alive). his daughter told me in her email that he had requested me and that it was bad. i knew that if he was asking for me, it must have been. bill is closer to me than a brother in many ways. it is interesting that i posted the song by the great bessie griffin that i did a few days earlier, because in many ways he is my mother and my father, my sister and my brother, my mentor and my best friend.

back to the first two days. i observed while the very best in modern medicine fumbled and bumbled their way in the dark. i have never seen a more ignorant and narrowminded profession in my life. robert o becker said it best in his classic work "the body electric" when he said, "medical biology is afflicted with a kind of tunnel vision." boy is it ever.

i watched as they tried to treat an illness that they knew had internal causes by using external mechanisms. the standard treatment for copd is to leave the patient to their own devices until they can no longer breathe on their own and then put them on a machine to breath for them. once this occurs, they may or may not ever get off the machines until they expire. apparently there are many in this country who are in facilities living on a respirator, a prison that i cannot imagine is preferable to death. my friend feels the same way.

once they got his gasses turned around, they took him off the inubator and onto a mask called a c-pap. this machine assists in the breathing and introduces higher than normal levels of oxygen at the same time. usually the idea is not so much oxygenating the blood, but the problem is the release of co2. as the co2 builds up in the blood, this creates an acidifying effect. as the pH goes lower, less and less co2 can be released. the acid pH effects the ease with which the gradient of oxygen can displace the co2. the patient snowballs and soon can no longer stop the rise of co2 in the blood which results in expiration. the person is chemically drowning.

the mechanical means by which they try to treat this is no different than sticking a plug in ones butt to stop diarrhea. sooner of later, something has to give.

i kept listening intently as the high paid and barely available doctor would come in and explain what was going on and never once offer a solution that would correct the problem, even when asked. the co2 rising, the diaphram muscle being exhausted and unable to work as hard, the lungs less elastic than before - all the while all of these things got worse. just let the machine do it.

bill is a patient man. he went with the flow and accepted his fate as things went along. however, he was not going to be confined to a machine with no way to communicate. as he tried to move away from this confinement, the doctor got more doom and gloom and began to talk of dying.

when i first got there, they got the tube out of him and put the mask on. no longer being fed by a tube into his stomach, he wanted to eat. i was aghast at the meal they sent him. it was death on four wheels. i watched him eat mashed potatoes and turkey and gravey and roll with 2% milk and a small salad. he seemed to be feeling better and the doctor was in general agreement with his quest to go home. she said he might not make it out of the hospital once he tried to move about. he did seem to get worse after his meal. i left that evening with him in good spirits and doing fairly well. the next morning he was in crises again.

the next day went the same way. the more he was on the c-pap, the better his gasses got and he was able to take the mask off and eat again that evening. again, it was the biggest acid forming meal i had ever seen, and again he went downhill through the night. the next morning everyone was summoned in and he was moved to a private room where as many as wanted could visit. his wife and he signed a DNR that morning just to get them to take him out of CCU. they were no longer drawing blood gasses. he was on his own. we were all told he would not make it through the day. medical science was more than willing to stand by and watch this man die without lifting a finger. well, i wasnt.

late yesterday i had discussed with bill what i saw based upon the information the doctor had given us. i systematically went throught he list of all the difficulties he was having and suggested a treatment for each. magnesium peroxide for his diaphram to relax the muscle to it could rest when not working and get oxygen closer to this starved muscle. cayenne to help normalize the blood. vitamin C for the high oxygen levels, both as an antioxidant and as a detoxifier of the lungs. iodine for its oxidizing effects where oxygen had not been able to get and as a mucolytic and antifungal. amazingly, iodine also works as an antioxidant as well and helps balance pH. oregano oil to help clear the lungs and address any parasites that may be present. and the air restore lobelia and mullien tincture from MH. he said to go ahead and get these things.

but this morning he was at deaths door according to his doctor and we all just rushed over. and got him moved into his private room to die. they only expect people to leave this area on a gurney to the morgue.

like a fool i did not bring anything with me. logistics has been tough but we managed to get out of there while they prepared to take him out of CCU. i rushed back to the house and got the air restore, the iodine, the oregano oil, and picked up a cheap ass 40Khu cayenne at the grocery store. a better selection would have to follow later.

when i got back he was in his new room. i told bill if we could turn this pH thing around we could get him out of the hospital and go to work on the rest and on to the healing stage which would include even more things to try. i gave him a capsule of the cayenne and a capsule with one drop of oregano oil in it. in some orange juice, i gave him four drops of wilsons iodine solution, four drops of magnascent iodine and two dropperfulls of air restore.

the turn around was almost immediate. he kept his mask off longer, gained strength and coordination, his voice got stronger, he was more animated, he laughed a lot, and some kind of cloudy yucky substance began to flow out of his urinary cathater. this was an added bonus for me to see. unfortunately the DNR arrangements meant there were no more blood gasses drawn for testing so i dont know what his co2 was doing. but i had a good guess.

you see, i had told him earlier that he had an infection. the doctor was saying there was no infection to fight and he was already being given prohylaxic antibiotics. i knew he had an infection. i figured it was candida or a mycoplasm or both, both of which were in his lungs.

then i told him there was no way he could eat that crap again and expect to live. we planned his evening meal and had it cooked at home by his son who brought it over. it was salad with olive oil and vinegar, whitefish and green beans. orange juice to drink. not perfect but not that other crap. at the meal, he recieved two cayenne, two drops of oregano oil, four more drops of iodine, two dropperfuls of magnascent and four dopperfulls of air restore.

by the time i left tonight he was still improving, still excreting a nasty cloud from his cathater, and having his oxygen levels adjusted down by a respiratory specialist. he is coming home tomorrow, lord willing, and i see nothing but improvement for him once we finish shopping at the health food store.

i fully intend to see this through and if he wants, i think he can be functioning at a level above what he was at even six months ago. he said he had about six more months of work on his book. i think he can have that and more if he wants.

i dont want to get too excited, but i did have one other interesting interchange with his doctor in passing. i asked her if she was surprised(as if i couldnt tell), and she said yes. you dont tell family to gather for a death from as far away as louisiana and have the patient walk out of the hospital the next day. it just aint possible. or is it?