I LOVE WESTERN MEDICINE

(And Why I Don't Like Stingrays)

I LOVE WESTERN MEDICINE

The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it.

-Hippocrates

I love western medicine.

Wait, what?

Read on. I think there is a place for western medicine, just not as big as those who profit from western medicine think there is.

Here’s one reason I love it.

In October 2022, I was walking along Santa Monica Beach, on my usual two-mile roundtrip from the terminus of Ocean Park Boulevard to the Santa Monica Pier and back. Also, per usual, I walked along the shore, allowing the surf to occasionally wash over and cover my feet and lower legs.

Doing a daily walk is a cancer prevention and/or treatment tip. And this was my daily walk, where I could take in the sun and get some exercise and fresh air, literally bathe my lower extremities in the salt water, and enjoy the sights and sounds of kids, teenagers and adults swimming and splashing in the ocean.

I had done this walk hundreds of times over the decades. While the route was the same, every day was different---the weather, the surf, the people, how I felt---all variables that made each journey unique.

This particular day might have been one of the most unique.

As I strolled in the shallow water near the Pier while listening to a podcast, I felt a sudden, sharp and deep pain on the bottom of my left foot. I had stepped on something I couldn’t see on the ground in the muddy ocean water. It was a sensation I don’t recall ever feeling before, maybe an 8 out of 10 on the 1-10 scale of pain (ten being worst). And for the first few minutes, the pain was increasing.

I struggled to even limp out of the water to the wet sand. Whatever it was I stepped on or in, It brought me to my knees---that’s how much pain I was in. As I was trying to breathe my way through it, the wisdom section of my brain that was saying “this will go away.” It didn’t completely go away, but it did diminish some---which allowed me to continue my walk back to my car, albeit with a limp.

At that point, the why as to what happened was still a head scratcher. I honestly had no clue what I stepped on or in. At any rate, after getting in the car and driving myself home, I took a couple of Advil and hoped the pain would subside even more. I also did a quick inspection by holding my foot up to a mirror: there was no bleeding, no puncture mark, no clues----nothing to indicate what it was that I had stepped that could cause that much pain.

As the pain continued to slightly diminish over the next couple of days, I sort of forgot about the cause and figured that whatever it was I was on a good trajectory.

Until I wasn’t.

On the evening of day three after this incident, I was getting ready for bed and I noticed my left foot was starting to feel a bit numb. I was curious about it, but by that point the overall pain had lessened so much that I’m not sure I made the connection between stepping on something three days before and the sensation I was feeling now.

And then while lying in bed my foot started swelling up. And that scared me. Something was clearly going on, so just before midnight on the evening of day three I got out of bed, threw on some clothes, and drove myself two miles to an emergency room at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica.

Let me be clear: I’m no fan of emergency rooms. Anxious people hacking/coughing/sneezing, being cared for by their loved ones, or there by themselves trying to sooth their worries while waiting for however long the wait was going to be to see a doctor. And unless you had collapsed or were clearly in a life-threatening situation usually the waits for measured in hours, not minutes.

So I waited.

Finally, I was called in and taken to a private room by a nurse practitioner. Vitals were taken. Questions about why I was there were asked.

“The doctor will see you shortly.”

More time rolled by. If you ever want to know how to increase your blood pressure, try going to an emergency room in the middle of the night, filled with sickly people hacking and sneezing.

“Chris Joseph?”, called the nurse.

Yay! I was taken to a private room and told again “the doctor will be in in a few minutes.”

Blood pressure still rising.

Finally, the doctor walked in and asked me what happened. After reciting the story of stepping on something in the water at Santa Monica Beach, the doctor didn’t hesitate to tell me “you stepped on a sting ray!”.

Apparently, the emergency rooms in Santa Monica see a lot of this. And it made perfect sense---my younger son had been stung a few years back (which I had forgotten about), and occasionally one can see the top of a sting ray half-burrowed in the water along the shore as the tide would recede.

The doctor gave me a prescription for an oral antibiotic for the infection, and I was on my way back home. In another week, I was healed.

The moral of this story is this: western medicine is generally great for emergencies. If I’m hit by a car? Take me to an emergency room. Bit in the hand by an angry and large dog as I was last year? I’m going to an emergency room.

Western medicine can also be amazing for orthopedic injuries. For improving eyesight through cataract and lasik surgeries.

Western medicine definitely has its place. I would be the first to acknowledge its many scientific developments over the decades, especially in diagnostics.

But I’m not here to trumpet its strengths and virtues. The Big Medicine Industry (pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and hospital conglomerates) are masters at selling themselves to the public (while they are simultaneously lying and gaslighting us).

Despite this “success” story, there are too many things wrong with our very sick, sick care system. Let’s explore some of that in the next essay.