Hillbilly Medical Advice

     As you know, if you read my column, sometimes I just have to take out from my storytelling and tell you what's rattling around in my head that day. "But you're crossing over the line this time," you say? So, take this column with a grain of salt. You're probably right. But, having said that, there still could be a little something here one of you might be able to take away from this, and put to use someday.

     Nearly two years ago, something started feeling not quite right in my chest one day. Not really hurting, but I always knew, all day every day, something was different. Since the focal point was right where my heart should be, (never seen it, but I assume I have one) I went to a heart doctor. He put me through the paces. Wearing a monitor for a day, stress test, the whole ball of wax. Starting the same day this started, my heart started doing that little thing where it seems to skip a beat regularly. Not really skipping a beat, but off time a little, so the pulse feels like skipping a beat. I had experienced this before, many years ago. He put me on a pill to stop that. A beta blocker was best, he said, but I asked for something else. I already had heard beta blockers have certain side effects I didn't want. He agreed that was sometimes true. The pill he gave me did the trick, though I had to take 5 other pills every day, to counteract the side effects of it. It did the job, on the skipping thing. But the "different" thing was still there. Dr. Jansen sent me to a stomach man. He stuck his little camera down my throat, and had a look around in the stomach. I told him when it went into the stomach, be sure and turn it around and look at the entrance. My oldest brother died of cancer because a doctor failed to do that the first time. When he did, the second time, it was too late.

     My doctor found nothing. I had another test, this time for gall bladder problems. Nothing. I was beginning to look and feel like a hypochondriac. By now, this thing had moved down a little, became a stomach problem, as well as a chest thing. Gas was trapped and building up, getting very uncomfortable an hour or so after I ate.

     So, I went back to the stomach man. Gluten problem, maybe. He took me off gluten and dairy for five weeks, and gave me probiotics. Well, something he did this time helped. It was easing off, about gone. After five weeks, it was gone completely, and it was time to test. Barbara and I went out and ate a really big, greasy, pizza, just dripping in gluten. Still no problem. So, I tested getting back on dairy. No problem. Seems I can eat everything now, and after a year and a half of troubles, my problem never came back. I had began to think I had just reached that steep part of the slide. Seems probiotics fixed it.

     What with all the bad bacteria we kill out with antibiotics, seems we kill off the good bacteria too. We need those good ones. I now eat a billion good bacteria, probiotics, a day. And they and I get along fine. (That’s not really as hard as it sounds. One pill.)

     I asked the heart doc, "Since my heart 'skipping' started the same day this other thing did, can I get off that pill too?" 

     "Might as well try it. Doubt it will work.“

     It worked too.

     So, 2 years ago I was on 7 or so pills a day. After all that, I take one. Now, that's going in the right direction!

     Barbara got to having dizzy spells. "Positional Vertigo," the doc said. "But that's an easy fix. Joe Wall can fix it quick."  Joe wall is not a doctor, he's a physical therapist. But he specializes in this. Well, Joe just twisted her head around for a few minutes, the "Epley Maneuver." Told her to be real still for a day. I walked out thinking we had just been to a witch doctor. But it worked! Who woulda' thought it!? Don't try this at home. Google says it can cause stroke symptoms, if done wrong. Later, a woman doctor invented a variation of that which can be done at home, and it always works for Barbara. Sorry, I don't know the name of that procedure - Google, maybe?

     Most of us are allergic to poison ivy. But do you know, a pretty little plant that grows right beside it can take it away? Called Jewel Weed. When the seed pod on Jewel Weed starts to grow, and you touch it, it will throw that seed several feet. But that's off the subject. Anyway, gather that plant up, boil the juice out of it, freeze it in an ice cube tray. Just rub it on poison ivy when you get it. I had a coach friend that was desperate, so I made him up a batch. When I was about to move a few years later, he asked me to make him up a gallon of it before I left.

     I did.

     When I was teaching in Arkadelphia, I found a patch of Jewel Weed out Red Hill Road. Later I needed some, and I asked one of my students who lived nearby to gather up a bag full of it the next day. He was my biology student, and I knew he would recognize it. At class the next day, he was absent. Toward the end of the period, him and his Mama walk in. He had the bag of Jewel Weed, and he also had a cast on his arm. He had a bicycle wreck going down the hill to get it, but he still got that bagful of Jewel Weed for me. I just felt the need to go out to his house after school that day and spend a little time with him. A very special kid. That's what I liked about teaching. So many special kids!

     One of my renters decided to clean up his back yard in the spring. Turns out it was covered with poison ivy. He cut it, threw it in a pile with other brush, and burned it. The smoke put his neighbor in the hospital. When that juice evaporates, and you breathe it in, it becomes much more than a distraction real quick. Never do that!

     I knew a really nice lady who had a surgical procedure. A one night stay in the hospital was needed, the doc said. She died that night. Nurses are wonderful, but they can't be in every room at once. Nothing like a family member, standing over you, watching everything that happens the first night after surgery. I've never had a surgery, except when I was six, Dad and Mom just loaded all us kids up in our 1948 cattle truck, hauled us to the hospital, and had our tonsils all taken out at one whack. But anyway, like I was saying, if I have surgery major enough for a night stay in the hospital, I want someone who really loves me there, watching me, all night long. Someone bold enough to get out in that hall and scream, louldy, when they think there's a need. If you don't have that special person, and you live close enough, call me. I'll sit up with you. And I can get loud quick! Just ask Barbara. I would do about anything to keep from losing one of my readers.

     Another little thing I will do, say, if I'm going to have a leg operated on. I'm going to take a permanent marker, and write on that leg, "This one, Doc!" while I'm still in control of my senses and can do it.

     Dads were not allowed in the delivery room when our children were born. I've always regretted that. Now we can, and that's a good thing. I was talking to a retired nurse friend of mine one day, and she just had some things she wanted to get off her chest, I guess, about her career. She told me nurses were not allowed to deliver a baby where she worked. That doesn't sound so bad, on the surface, but what if the doc has a car wreck in his rush to the hospital? She went on to say that she had, on more than one occasion, pushed the baby back into the birth canal because the doc was not there yet. Since then, I have heard of  two occasions where the doc was late, and the baby was brain damaged for life, because it stayed in too long. Now, I know that's just something most people don't like to talk about, but it seems to me we all should be talking about that. 

     LOUDLY!

     Isn't it written somewhere, "FIRST AND FOREMOST, DO NO HARM." or something like that? Knowing what I now know, If I were the daddy, and I was in that room, I would be flinging folks right and left to get that baby out.

     I've read a lot of books about pioneer times, about how hard childbirth was, and it was horrible. A lot of babies and mothers did not survive it. But I've never read a passage about those uneducated folks pushing the baby back in. I doubt if any midwife ever did that either.

          

     You hear lots of people say, "I don't want to live to be 100." But I've never yet heard a 99 year old person say that. I suspect if I ever live to be 99, I will be clawing and scratching for every breath I can continue to draw. I still have a lot of stories yet to write.

Pat Gillum’s books,Spreading Wing and Forever Cry  can be found on Amazon. Both Spreading Wing and Forever Cry can be found at The Yell County Record office, at Gypsy JUNKtion in Plainview,  and at Hardman Interiors in Arkadelphia.

The Truest Friend – The legend of Tooter -  will be out soon, along with Dead-Eye Samantha.