Things They Don’t Teach You

Some people need to be preserved and protected.

I loved my Mother. She knew Shakespeare, was a math wiz, a writer, a painter, and best of all, my friend. I miss her. She passed away over 30 years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. Kind to a fault, everybody in town was her friend. It saddens me to think that her DNA was put in the ground, irretrievably lost forever. Unfortunately my kids will never know her.

People like my Mother deserve to live. You have to do everything in your power to protect them. My wife is like that; an unimaginable treasure. She’s good people. And fortunately, so is my mother-in-law.

Good people have to be preserved as long as possible.  My wife and I have power-of-attorney for each other.  I am a member of Alcor, and will be cryogenically frozen when I die.  My wife is ambivalent about having herself frozen.  I’m sure the future will need her wisdom & insight just as much as the present does. So if she kicks the bucket before me, she will end up in the cooler at Alcor, right next to me…. decision made.  It’s really hard to debate power-of-attorney at negative 346 degrees Fahrenheit.

A month ago, the doctor gave my mother-in-law the news of her bone scan. It wasn’t good. Severe osteoporosis. As with everything I do, I set out to research how this could be, and what to do about it.

If you examine our diets these days, we get very little of the nutrients from our food that God intended. Especially if you’re on a fixed income and artificial food also happens to be both plentiful and cheap. Artificial food is all the processed stuff manufacturers call “cheese,” nutrient re-added potatoes, and milk that has been pumped full of pesticides and estrogens. You might recall the scandal about the dairy industry: more than half of American cattle are injected with hormones to increase growth rate; dairy cows are injected with genetically engineered rbGH to increase milk production.  I won’t even talk about the pesticides they’re sprayed with and the garbage they eat.

Everything we eat is chocked full of soy, high fructose corn syrup, aluminum, and hydrogenated oil. If you eat these chemical/hormonal cocktails mislabeled as food, you might as well start buying bigger clothes and put your name on the list for a scooter-chair. Because very quickly you’ll be too fat to move, on insulin, and taking a dozen pharmaceuticals to control your myriad of health problems.

Reading through the literature, I find that a doctor will prescribe bisphosphonates for osteoporosis almost automatically; sometimes even if you don’t even have osteoporosis— “You’re the right age for it, let’s give it to you just in case.” And if your bone scan doesn’t get worse in a year, then it’s a success. No improvement, mind you—just doesn’t worsen. That’s a success?? Plus you have all these wonderful side effects to deal with: GI problems, head aches, as well as the nasty rare side effect called osteonecrosis. And did you know that once the bisphosphonates get in your system, they can stay there for as long as 10 years even if you stop taking the drug?!?!

I sought to find something that would IMPROVE my mother-in-law’s condition, not just stabilize it. And remarkably, there’s plenty of supplements (backed by clinical studies) out there that will make you better. The only problem with these “supplements” is that nobody makes any money off of them—therefore, they’re no good, they shouldn’t be considered, lets use the expensive drugs with all the horrible side effects that only possibly maybe stabilize but not improve your condition. It’s all about the money.