The battles we face daily …diabetes and the funders :) yeeha!

So we all know we are currently experiencing an epidemic that is about to “tidal wave” africa in terms of diabetes. And we know that world wide despite logarythmic increases over at least the last 10 years there is no stopping the tide. We love food and no exercise too much.

So we also know that the more this happens the less health wealth and happiness for society and the more sick folk get the more it costs the medical aids – so then with tears in my eyes and a brain between my ears why is it that we have a daily fight with funders to do what is right for patients and saves them hugely downstream costs ?????

To me it’s a no-brainer. I dont know.

I have been accused of being a dilly woman and yes I am a woman doctor – that does not bode well to start in the patriachy. And yes my dress sense is a bit quirky. And yes my mouth she speaks way too easily for the patriachy once again. BUT, really all I want is the best for my patients short term, long term, longevity with quality wise which adds up to a societal knock on downstream. So whilst quirky all I am actually fighting for is the greater good ????

The funders and generally brushed with a giant sweep of a brush at large seem to slowly be waking up to the multiple facts staring them down like a gun barrel as this is a very large challenge to them to. How does one solve these dilemmas as still stay top 5 profitable in south africa ??;) 😉 😉 ah em …

Just saying, there are better ways to tackle this tsunami…

I met an amazing academic yet pracitical medical advisor the other day, and my suggestion is that other medical aids follow suite – yes have your acturial scientists who make you the top JSE company when a med aid is supposed to be a med aid not a top achiever, but combine it with some sense so that you can stay there cos right now your tactic aint going to work for you on the long game.

 

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Halloween …

What is halloween?

It is a festival that started more than 2000 years ago, this is before Christ. They were pagans in what we know as England today – celts.

It is a festival marking the end of the harvest season and has a long history.

I was trying to figure out why it is so offensive to the christian religion but even after researching I am confused.

If we really think back to 2000 years ago, and that is hard to comprehend. Life as we know it was very very different. They were as we call it pagans but really they were just trying to survive and using the sun, wind and stars to get them through the year.

As with all of these traditions like father Christmas and the easter bunny – do children really know the significance of the holidays we celebrate?

What does halloween mean for children – sweets, pumpkins, trick or treating, dress up. They certainly don’t channel anything.

I actually find it quite interesting that as humans in 2018 we still have followed a lot of customs from more than 2000 years ago, fairly “religiously”.

My personal feeling is that it is what you model daily, preach without words that has the biggest impact.

Also perhaps I am cooked in the head but “broad minded ness” in my book includes exposure to things rather than hiding them under a mushroom however this is just my personal opinion.

 

Suicide, yes I said suicide

A subject we all seem to shy away from. And yet I am guessing it has been around for a long time and seems in my observance to be on the increase. Certainly amongst the medical field.

The root word is from latin sui – self and cidiim – killing, not even really a fair description.

What bugs me more is the judgement. The condemnation, never mind of some. I feel that to a large degree is it because we are not connected any more and that the lack of true “support” across the board reigns. It seems we are all islands.

And yet it could be different. We could “support” people at large more and actually “be” there for people at large.

We have become shallower in our dealings with humans. Human to human is a connection we don’t seem to have anymore. And it is sad.

Suicide is a comment on our society and it is sad.

Not long ago I thought it was dentists that had the highest rate of all professions, medical doctors seem to have taken the lead and how very very sad this is. The healing profession seems unable to heal itself and yet is it as simple as that? What lurks beneath the murky surface of this awful predicament that has surfaced. Ego ? Burn-out? The eternal yearning to be the best? Denigration ? Putting people down? Army style? Again and again? Relentless hours? Death witnessed firsthand uncountable times and the expectation that you walk out the room and have a cuppa????

Many things.

Surely we can find the roots, and deal with them? Academia at large are seemingly unaccountable – should that not change?

Lives being lost as we speak – fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers.

Sad, sad. Is there something YOU can do today? Or will you choose to remain silent and impotent.

Abbott Francis Pfanner

What a lovely story of a man who gave his life for others. The founder monk of Marian- hill Monastery whose handiwork still stands today in testament.

Apparently a sickly young man who ministered in albania and europe and then come out to “africa”, landing in PE after having vomitted for most of the sea journey. He made his way up to durban and then established the monastery at marian hill. He had a different way of working to the vatican and ended up being dismissed.

He was passionate in his faith and demonstration of it, yet differed from his superiors on some of the doctrines which seemed to be deal breakers at the time.

Yet his work, handiwork, leadership etc still stands for all to see. He died feeling a great sense of injustice which I feel is so terribly sad and yet I am fairly sure that once he arrived on the other side his joy would be complete.

My own mind still boggles at the strangeness of man, I can only imagine how God’s must.

 

Coxsackie,yuppie flu, post viral fatigue

Anybody who has not witnessed firsthand or experienced this evil is willy-nilly able to say that this vile vulgar viral disease is “all in your head”. I can tell you that there is no-one on this green earth who voluntarily goes through the ordeal that comes with this virus. It literally flattens you in more ways than one.

I have seen countless patients afflicted with it and whilst “science” on many levels questions this disease (instead of getting on with more accurate diagnosis) it is a disease that no-one wants and is more than happy to get rid of the day it leaves their bodies.

I have to ask though why the medical profession at large is sceptical and ridiculously pathetic when it comes to diagnosis as well as treatment (of which there is little). And once again in my mind it goes back to something similar to semelweiss. The washing of hands idea disdained by so many pompous egotistical physicians turned out to be one of the most important discoveries of science and prevention of transmission of disease. Why are we so arrogant? Who gave us this “god” complex?

When we don’t fully understand something or don’t know we simply say it must not/can not exist and therefore the patient themselves must be “mad” ????????????

Surely surely we have gone past this aged way of thinking ?

No, alas it seems we have not. We will not admit we don’t know. Rather make it the patients added problem.

I think it is sad and poor.

I only hope that none of these arrogant physicians ever actually come down with it as they may lose their egos in the process.

Google the semelweiss history – it’s interesting and very very sad. Sad because why can we not drop ego and rather try to understand what the very truth of the matter indeed may be.

The world – divided or united?

Where are we at in 2017. Have we learnt anything from our existence up to now?

What is life? What is quality of life? Who are humans? What is power?

From the year dot – and who really knows when exactly that was, humans have lived on earth and by definition had to co-exist. We have grouped ourselves into various different groupings. We have fought wars. We have progressed in many ways and regressed in others.

There are places on earth where justice exists and there are places where it does not. Most of us would prefer to live/be born where there is an inkling of justice and freedom?

So many people were convinced that Trump would not actually become president. They laughed scoffed and said it would never ever happen. It did.

Now here we are in 2017 in a fairly regressed place – I believe. Where one person signs into being orders that blanketly prevent movement of “free” people categorising them by a set of rules. Abortion is bad – terrible and to be frowned upon but living people who are living in a war-torn unjust places are even worse, cursed and must remain that way with no redemption? And America – the once – free world is now becoming an insular, inward focused country with walls around it. No boogy men or women allowed in. Are you really that narrow minded ? Mr Trump? The message preached sounds really quite extraordinary, quite two-faced, quite astonishing.

As the CNN reporter put it – americans risk of being killed in america by any one of these nations so called terrorists is a very very small number with the total counted up to now being zero.

However countries that provide profit to Mr Trump (whose citizens may be more dangerous) seem to be fine for the moment (don’t hold your breath though).

I wonder where this is all headed. In about 2 weeks a brand new landscape opens up across America – no longer the free world. No longer an american dream. No longer.

And yet there is support against Trump worldwide ?

I really wish that the way I see things is perhaps not the way they are – can someone point out a positive here? Is Trump actually doing a good thing? A thing I can not see?

A spoon full of sugar :)

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. This is a philosy that buys into disguising one thing as another. A way to make something that is hard easier. Something that tastes bitter taste sweet in order to get it down and in so doing to heal.

While this may be a technique that could work for say antibiotics, it is maybe not the way to go for a general philosophy in life. Sometimes we need to face the hard truth – the music even if it is damn hard to hear.

The hard facts are that simple carbs – boil down to sugar – in copious amounts are bad for you. Simply put sugar makes things stick to other things – your arteries and veins and organs – eyes and kidneys are unhappy campers if you load the body with sugar.

There are even some studies that show the effects of sugar on the brain being something similar to cocaines’ effect on the brain. And the more you have the more you need kind of scenario plays out here too.

How many spoons of sugar in that coke ? or fruit juice ?? Too many.

Think about what you drink.

Think about quality of life, and longevity with quality.

Think blue – diabetes, type 2 is preventable as well as treatable.