Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Hypertension 2: Pills Are The Solution: The North American Way!

I followed up my kidney stone visits to the hospital by finding a family physician—I did not have one at that time—and making an appointment, where he took my blood pressure and diagnosed me with Hypertension. When I saw him I recall my systolic pressure as being around 180.

Where did my Hypertension come from? Why did it suddenly develop when no prior doctors had raised an alarm? Personally, I blame the Presidency of George W. Bush, or the effects of a full moon (both do pretty much the same thing: they cause your heart to beat faster, make you get really hairy, and increase your desire to kill someone—a moment of silence, please, for Warren Zevon.

Or perhaps my high blood pressure came from 19 years of being a civil servant (try it sometime, if you want to get sick), investigating contraventions of a law. Being professionally suspicious for nearly 20 years can affect your positive view of humanity.

The diagnosis was a surprise. I did not feel sick, I felt fine. Well, I do have sleep apnea and wear a breathing mask at night, so I can often feel tired. And I am, well…let’s just say impolite people have compared me with Santa Claus and Jerry Garcia…think rotund. The truly bizarre aspect of having this life threatening condition is that you often feel fine right up until you have a stroke or drop dead.

My new family doctor carefully explained that exercise and losing weight were the best treatments for Hypertension. Naturally, I rejected such life altering methods. Exercise? Is that not running to nowhere? Do not people run because the police are chasing them? And dieting—if you can’t enjoy food, what is the point of being alive?

Besides: exercise and dieting sounded suspiciously like work. What was up with that? I live in North America! C’mon! I expect more from my medical care system than be forced to do anything myself!

The Western Medical Doctor (don’t read anything…yet…into the initials) doubtless saw my North American attitude in my eyes, so he did not bother pushing dieting or exercise. Why waste his time or mine? So, wisely, he quickly moved to option B, aka the North American Way: the Pharmaceutical solution.

Pills. Ah, yes. I felt right at home. Pills are how we are raised from birth in North America. Got a problem? Take a pill. We even call problems “pills”, as in, he’s a pill. You can pills to feel happy, to beef up your muscles, to lose weight. Our culture! We’ve got it nailed!

So guess what I chose: diet and exercise, or pills?

It is true that prescription medications are created to cure medical conditions such as Hypertension. Thousands of dedicated researchers, and consultants on retainers (or maybe wearing retainers if their teeth are crooked from chomping on too many pills), work for pharmaceutical companies whose only interest in life is to make life better for all of us. Profits for them are strictly a secondary consideration, as anyone with AIDS can tell you. In fact, I would insult all those dedicated Pharmaceutical companies if I did not take their prescription medications! Dare I spit on the life’s work of multinational corporations which make hundreds of millions of dollars of profits being selfless?

Who am I to deny anyone their destiny?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Dad.

Just so you know, I'm writing this on a spare, so you can relax. Second of all, Mr. Klassen isn't here today, but it'll be fine as long as we call in in the morning to say I wont be there for first class. Also, maybe I can swing an earlier appointment then 10:00.

See you when I get home.

-kay

Unknown said...

Hey daddy

Just so you know Im writing this on a spare, so you can relax. Second, mr Klassen isnt here today, but as long as we call to say I wont be here tomorrow morning, it'll be fine. Second, Im gunna try to get an earlier appointment then 10:00 tomorrow, I'm going to try for (30 ish, cause that gives her more time. Also, I remembered that I have a choral preformance at 12:20 ish tomorrow at a seniors home on ness, but I've told Mrs Weiler that I'm getting my hair done and I might be late.

See you when I get home.

-kay

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NED said...

The two best solutions for hypertension are proper diet and exercise