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  • From: EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Triage - was insurance
  • Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:59:08 -0500



Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:


This has been a good thread. It hasn't changed my mind but it has changed my range of views. The new view is appalling and disturbing
to me, but it's one I hadn't actually achieved before.

I feel like I've bared my soul here. Y'all know that I rarely get
involved in these things, but for whatever the reason, I needed the
distraction from real life. I also think it has been a good thread.
Likewise, my mind hasn't changed either, but I do think I have a better
understanding of what James originally meant and how he sees genetics
and astrology. I don't agree, but...



Marie's comment above was the catalyst. That's right. At the point
you are facing and accident of disease, all bets of odds are called
off. If you are heading at highway speed toward the car that has just run a stop sign, you ARE going to have an accident and statistics suddenly lose all meaning.

Exactly.


How big are those groups? The literature I read and the examples I know would tell me that the third group is quite large, I'd say over
99% of the population for any given condition. My suspicion is that
many participating in this thread would put the number much lower. But that's of no real importance to my point.

Much lower is right. I'd put it closer to 60%, if that high.
Before television, people ate, worked, exercised via working, and
enjoyed hobbies like baseball or basketball. No one worried too much
about diseases like cancer. Everyone seemed more to accept their lot,
their fate, and believed that some die young, and some die old. After
WWII, for whatever reason, I think TV played a part, people started
wanting to be like movie stars, look younger, feel younger, etc. They
started to want to to cheat time and aging. This mindset continued on
and got worse. In the 60's, two things happened...the surgeon general
ramped up an anti-smoking campaign, and vets returned from SE Asia
exposed to agent orange. IMO, these two events caused a large part of
the population to look at health in general. You didn't see fat folks
on TV much, (Well, there was Aunt Bee, but most 'stars' were young and
thin). The fitness craze began with Jack LaLane and folks like
Fixx...people watched the Olympics worldwide on TV, and athleticism was
revered. Through the next two decades, more and more studies were done
to determine what might or might not be healthy in our lives. Studies
on top of studies, arguments on top of arguments...the world got
involved...Asian things were in...African things were out..Celebrities
looked more beautiful, wrote more books about diet and exercise, and
suddenly, a large part of the population began to believe that they
could cheat the aging process, the disease process, and possibly even
extend their life. Of course, much of what we learned has merit, we all
know that smoking is bad, for example, but the problem with all of this
is that there is no way to look at the big picture. We can look at
coffee...we can look at aerobics...we can look at genetics...we can look
at red wine...we can look at immunity, but we cannot look at the whole
gambit of everything at the same time with any meaning. The average Joe
might drink 2 six packs a week, smoke a pipe, shoot some hoops with the
boys 3 times a week, always take the stairs, wear his seatbelt, eat his
broccoli etc. etc. but he might work as an exterminator where he is
exposed to chemicals all day. That's just a snapshot in time. Over the
course of his life, however long that might be, he may be sedentary for
years, or active for years. He may be a vegetarian for a decade or so,
or experience alcoholism for a decade or so. He may work in a coal mine
or sell copiers or turn wrenches or design computer software. Over a
lifetime, we are exposed to so many things, good and bad, that it is
almost impossible to to see what is really making a difference, if
anything. All we can do is piece together a bunch of snapshots...and
depending on who is doing the editing, we can come up with a different
impression of Joe's life.
TV and popular culture has brainwashed us to a certain extent. We all
now believe it is possible to avoid the nasty unpleasantries of life.
When someone doesn't fit the mold, it becomes "the exception", the
'enigma'. What if, just, what if, the enigma is the norm, and all that
we do, positive and negative, balances out in the wash of life?
Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?
I'm not saying I believe any of the above. Those are just random
thoughts I've had over the last few days.


What about individuals? What about the person who despite of taking
every precaution and making very prudent choices still falls victim
to some malady? Likewise what about the person who flaunts all caution to the wind and yet lives a charmed life? And that's were I
had such a boggling time focusing on the point because it is so foreign to me.

It's just as foreign to me. You come from one extreme, I from another,
and those charmed life folks are the enigma.



The thing is, there's no accounting for it. It happens, we all know
it and have witnessed it.

And there you have it. It happens. Shit happens, just like we said at
the beginning of this thread.


Who hasn't, as way of comparison, planted
some beans or cabbages in the garden and one day several of them just
die. Can't tell why, they just die. Who hasn't gone to their coop
to find a chicken, young and doing fine the day before, just keeled
over dead. Likewise we have a cat that early this year got into
(and lost) so many fights he was nothing but a mass of open sores, swelled and inoperative joints, and could not stand. We made him comfortable to let him die in peace and gave him no treatement of any
kind. He's fine now and besides a small notch in one ear, you'd never know he'd ever left the porch. Things happen for no reason and
things happen in defiance of all the stats and rules.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. That's what I have been saying all along.
You can't know why because you can't see everything. You only see part
of the picture. You can't know what is going on at a cellular level in
the plant roots at a particular point in time, and even if you could, it
is likely to change. A plant that grows quickly and is wind resistant
might have crappy tasting fruit, or perhaps succombs to a plant virus
and there is not a whole lot you can do. Gardening is like life in that
it is one grand experiment. It changes every year. Some things work,
some things don't, it depends on location, weather, seed quality, you
name it. There are too many variables and shit happens sometimes in
defiance of everything. That doesn't mean we give up or just accept
it,,,,we keep on plugging and planting..trying new things.

But more to the point here, if I found that I
had the precancerous condition for colon cancer, would I then throw two steaks on the grill because ..... I'm an individual case and all
the stats are suddenly called off?

I don't understand the two steaks on the grill thing.
I don't guess you would.
Okay, James, here's a question for you....
If you suddenly had rectal bleeding tomorrow, and had to go to the ER
where you were admitted and diagnosed with cancer next week, what would
you say caused it?



That's the view I am struggling to focus on. But here's my view: For people who really try to promote their health and make all the right choices and still get sick, I have all the sympathy and support
possible.
I am truly sorry. But those who wreck their health and
flare up in indignation that they contributed to their sickness ... and (this is the part) refuse to give up the bad choices because after all they are an individual and the prevailing wisdom doesn't apply to individuals ... I have .... less sympathy.

I suppose that's where we differ. I am more forgiving because I know
that people aren't perfect and none of us live in Candide's 'the best of
all possible worlds'. A child might be born under power lines, or next
to 3 Mile Island, or perhaps born to a parent who served overseas and
was exposed to defoliant or DNA mutating agents. That kid might grow up
and make all the right choices to no avail. We have no control on some
things, and perhaps, just perhaps, we are fooling ourselves that we have
control over anything that matters long term.
James, we know so little about so much in this world...science tries to
make sense of it, but we have a long way to go.
Another aside, back to genetics...
When I met my birthsister, and we are half sisters, for the record,
sharing the same mother, it was uncanny how similar we were. She's 10
years older than me. Facially, we look a lot alike. I'm 5'10 (used to
be 5'11) and she's never been taller than 5'4". Mutt and Jeff.
I recall our first few days together...
We sat alike...in the same exact unique postition, right down to the way
we curl our toes. We both held our cigarettes that same way and smoked
alike. Her husband was freaked out by it. Her son pointed out that we
both even scratched our heads the same way. None of these things could
be attributed to learned behavior. Science says that they
are...genetics doesn't cover that kind of stuff.
The next day, we had brunch in a restaurant. We ordered our burgers the
exact same way (no ketchup, no tomato, no onion, with blue cheese and
bacon and extra mustard). When we got up to leave, both of us, at the
same time, reached for some packets of salt on the table. We both
stopped and stared at each other. You see, since I was a wee kid, I
have always chewed on salt packets...I eat them, paper and all, but not
all salt packets are created equal...I only eat the ribbed kind. I was
29 years old when I met Paula, and had never met anyone else who did
that, but lo and behold, Paula did, and her requirements were exactly
the same as mine. She ate them, paper and all, and only the ribbed
packets. We both agreed that DQ had the best salt, followed closely by
Wendy's. :)
Now, what was it that caused us both to have that 'habit'? There has to
be some unknown genetic factor. There's no other explanation. We both
had a similar body chemistry that craved salt, only a certain kind, and
through experimentation, came to the same conclusions, despite the fact
that we lived 1500 miles apart, we came to the exact same conclusions.
If stuff like that is genetic,,,,IF,,, then the door is open for all
kinds of things to be genetic, to include addictions, like smoking..or
other typically 'environmentally related' disorders, like Parkinson's
Disease. Things like a propensity to curse, or to experiment sexually,
or to live on the edge, could all have a genetic link that we just don't
understand yet.
Most people believe that there is an equal balance between nature and
nurture. Some, like you, believe that nurture overrides nature, and
there are some, like me, who are in a very small minority, who believe,
based on personal experience, that nature is far more complex than we
can understand, and that nurture is less important than once thought.
Do not infer anything with that...that doesn't mean I'll order two
steaks.. :)

I think we've come full circle here.
I originally read/misunderstood you to say that you did not believe that
there was such a thing as genetic predisposition. Now, I see that you
do acknowledge that such exists, but that you don't follow the extention
of it that I do, that is, that you believe it can be overwritten by life
choices and I have my doubts on that.
Neither of us intends to just sit back. I certainly don't because I
believe in TRYING. I try to eat healthy because it seems like the right
thing to do. Luckily, I enjoy things like fish and blueberries and
other 'cancer fighting' foods. I TRY to quit smoking, and one day, I
will. I TRY not to speed, not to worry, and not to get all stressed out
by threads like this one. I TRY to get a good night's sleep, but it's
not always possible for a variety of reasons.
In the end, TRYING might not be enough, but I'm not perfect and it's all
I can do.

If I got lung cancer tomorrow, everyone would say....she smoked for 25
years and that's her fate. I would probably agree. I certainly
wouldn't want anyone's sympathy. I would wonder, too, how much the
exposure to known carcinogens like methylene chloride and PCBs and
pesticides affected me, if at all. As an environmental chemist, I used
to be awash in toxins on a daily basis.
If I got lymphoma tomorrow, everyone would say...she smoked for 25 years
and that's her fate. I would say, that it was because I took Enbrel and
by taking that drug to improve my quality of life, I rolled the dice on
lymphoma and lost.
If I got breast cancer tomorrow, everyone would say...she smoked for 25
years, and that's her fate. I would say that I was genetically
predisposed to it(I have the BRCA mutation), and made the wrong
choice..should have had the mastectomy instead of the hysterectomy, but
DAMN, my boobs were my best feature and I enjoyed them while they
lasted. :)

I gotta get some sleep tonight so I'm gonna end this here. I stretched
the chicken moat fence today and worked outside almost all day. I also
have a cold. I've got a super busy day tomorrow and the next day, and
I need to feel better. I think I've said all I can say on this thread
anyway.

Bev


--
BevanRon of EarthNSky Farm NW Georgia USDA Zone 7
34.498N 85.076W Bev is Earth, Ron is Sky





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