Why are we so sick?

I love to spend time in coffee shops – writing, doing puzzles, absorbing the life all around me. In this environment it is easy to overhear conversations – and sadly they often centre on medical matters. So many people are suffering from serious diseases.

One day I heard this:

‘David had his op on Thursday – so far so good. The doctor says the new hip should buy him an extra few months. But he’s a terrible colour – I think the new meds are knocking him around.’

At another table two young mothers juggled babies:

‘You remember Jenn – she’s going in for nipple reconstruction today after the breast removal. Her son Luke paid for everything because she didn’t have health cover. Her hair’s growing back finally. Isn’t it amazing what they can do now! But she’s had a shocking year – eight months of chemo then reconstructive surgery. She won’t be doing the family Christmas this year.’

Some of us nearing the age of retirement wonder how we will fill our days. But no need to worry. The gossip in the cafés says we will be taken up with specialists’ appointments, blood tests, endoscopies, diagnostic imaging and the torturous wait for results.

The following week at a different coffee shop three men met up – in Melbourne, caffe latte central. One fellow began:

‘I’m really glad we could meet up today – I have some news – some pretty bad news actually.  Well the long and the short of it - is I have been diagnosed with spinal cancer - and it has metastasised into my lungs.’

His two friends were gob-smacked and wriggled sheepishly in their seats. He went on:

‘I’ve had this pain in my back for ages and it was really niggling me – nothing the doctor could give me would make it stop. So he eventually decided to have a proper look – and there it was. It’s taken a few weeks for all the results to come back – so the waiting has been pretty awful. Apparently I’ve got nine months. But I’m all right with it – really I am.’

Ridiculously upbeat – he was trying to break the news gently lest they be too upset.

‘The doc – the oncologist, he says nine months. But the radiotherapist was a great bloke. He says there’s two years at least. I asked him what we do: “We zap it like crazy and knock it out. And if it comes back we just hit it again.” He was good, you know – easy to get along with.’

On the table behind him I was quietly praying, ‘Oh God, please help this gorgeous gentleman trying to protect his friends’ feelings, whilst grasping at straws being floated about by a well-meaning medical provider.’

Go into any coffee shop and listen . . . and you will hear conversations just like this. These are educated people – who heed doctors’ advice about eating healthy and getting plenty of exercise. They know their cholesterol level, take their meds, monitor their blood pressure – and have annual ’flu jabs. They do the right thing.

And yet - any of us can be struck down with dreadful disease for no reason the doctor can give.

Why are we so sick? As I reach my later life I am surrounded by friends whose parents are disabled with chronic ailments tagged ‘incurable’ and generally blamed on old age. We Baby Boomers have become a generation of carers as we observe and participate in the ageing of our mothers and fathers: their physical frailties, bone fractures, their on-off memories and fading awareness; all amplified by the side effects of polypharmacy – a slew of colourful pills and capsules for each day of the week.

Many of us are also confronted by the signs of our own ageing: menopausal complications, climbing blood pressure, respiratory issues, bone thinning, cholesterol, aching joints and ‘senior moments’ . . . on the same path as our parents.

Nonetheless we, Muggins accept our diagnoses with resignation. We learn to cope with breast cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, diabetes, Crohn’s and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. We sleep with CPAP masks, have regular cholesterol tests - and the dreadful side effects of cancer treatment. Some of us even cope with dialysis. We respect our doctors - and take our medications obediently, adjusting our lives around the demands of the illness.

We don’t even hope for a cure. Just that the money lasts long enough. All this research. All this fabulous modern technology. All this expense . . . yet no hope of recovery.

I am disturbed to my core.

Mindful of M. Scott Peck as he wondered about civilised society:  ‘Do we have a hole in the mind?’ [i] . . . surely stuff is slipping through the cracks?

To me - this does not compute. We, our families, our communities and nations cannot go on like this. Why are we making such enormous and increasing demands on our health services?

In other words . . . why are we so sick?

This is an excerpt from, ‘Unravelling the Mystery of Disease’, Manners, D.

[i] Peck, M. Scott A World Waiting To Be Born Bantam Books 1993