Medistration;
I have become aware
that my body has deteriorated. Not
through misuse, although to be fair there has been a sufficiency of that, but mainly
through the unsympathetic lottery that is my genetic inheritance. This fatal genetic lottery is compounded
rather than addressed by formulaic responses of the medical profession. I have
been advised by experts, that while some lifestyle habits do go a long way to
shortening a lifespan, there is also just the dumb luck of being born without
the bodily compounds that provide some people longevity.
Lets take cholesterol
as a for instance.
The humanoid has generally developed over the millennia from
being an opportunistic consumer of available foodstuffs. Trial and error in
tasting these foodstuffs had rather defining consequences which, while regional,
were quickly observed and slowly communicated between tribes of wanderers. Such gradual development and learning has
resulted in our ability to identify, consume or avoid a wide range of consumables
from animal to legumes, fruits to fungi.
If you were to set out to determine the genetics of your
inherited human lineage you would find the compounding of copulation over
millennia so complex it would confound solution. There is no chance of determining if, for
example, an individual’s prehistoric genetic forebears were mainly meat eaters
or gross vegetarian. One thing for sure
is that the tribes who were mainly meat eaters and consumers of fermenting foods
developed so that their fatty, ethanol spiked diet could be tolerated by their
uniquely efficient liver enzymes.
Gatherers, grazers and gross vegetarians had little need for what we now
know are the cholesterol breaking compounds.
So it was that by regional resources and the subsequent dietary division,
humanoid tribes developed or did not develop a cholesterol tolerance.
With infinite cross-breeding, and after tens of thousands of
years some of us humanoids won the cholesterol tolerant lottery and some of us did
not. This would be fine if the tribes
had stayed where they were and kept eating what they had always eaten. Globally
though, tribes have integrated and the food chain has long since altered to
present everyone with access to commonly desirable foodstuffs, and to satisfy
the enduring delight for alcohol.
Regrettably, for those who did not win the genetic cholesterol
lottery there is the inevitable prospect of what is now blanket-termed, heart
disease. Heart disease is any number of
things but mostly relates to the fact the heart can’t do what it wants to do,
it wants to pump blood as needed. Most
typically the diseased heart can’t pump as well as it wants to because
cholesterol and nicotine, but that is off topic, have a way
of gradually, irreversibly hardening and coating arteries, veins and chambers
of the heart. Vessels become affected by
a fatty crust that restricts flow, flexibility and function. This is not a pleasant thing to look at in a
corpse, especially if you are the corpse. Especially if there was a choice in
your lifestyle.
All humanoids have an enduring desire to continue to live,
an ability to reason how to ensure they do, and the intelligence to invent and
develop change. So it is that we all now
live in a population of chemically altered existences we term ‘on medication’,
some self-subscribed, most prescribed.
You never know if the person you are dealing with is effected or unaffected
by chemical compounds.
Who hasn’t benefited from pain numbing analgesics or from a
mood enhancing substance or some equally benign and preferable chemical
reaction? There is an underlying human presumption
of individual invincibility, in one’s own ability to overcome. And so it is, if presented with an option of
a shorter lifespan, we opt for treatment and medications which may extend our
time of reason.
In the case of heart
disease we are provided various chemicals to relax the vessels, to lower
cholesterol, to slow the heart, to calm the mind, and to reduce adrenalin.
Problem is medical practitioners are just not that clever. Because we are not all from the same blend of
genetic forebears the chemicals we use are at best designed for a presumed
average response but at worst they are intolerable for the individual. Treatment becomes a trial and error between
chemistry and the individual’s willingness to accept the side effects of
generalised chemical solutions.
Again the variety of responses is vast and the willingness
of the individual to adapt and accept is a mercurial thing at any time. What we end up with is a large raft of our
population being medicated for longevity but diminished by chemical side
effects. Given the current obesity,
alcohol and eating trends, people from twenty to eighty years of age are
consenting to chemical cholesterol treatment.
These treatments invariably have side effects which manifest in altered
movement and mindset. It is wise if you consider
this in your daily dealings with the general public, acquaintances and even
friends and family. It is wise to wonder
how many people you deal with are not partially or totally stoned out of their
normal state of reason.
No-one wants to rely on chemicals to live but the dilemma of
choosing longevity with side-effects over a limited future results in a frustrating
medicated existence. I have termed this
medistration.
Thankfully because we are such a developed life form, the patient
is told of the chance of side
effects , not really so they can decide, there is no decision, but so they are
aware that they may suffer, for example; swelling tongue, breathing difficulty, memory loss, skin
peeling, depression, muscle weakness,
loss of feeling, blurred vision and a long list of other behavioural and
experiential changes. Again, it’s a
lottery, but the person should expect to notice some of these in some form. As will you when you meet them.
Better than being dead.
But it does leave feelings of reduced capacity,
of regrettable compromise, the inability to rationalise an alternative, a
defeat, or a grudging acceptance. A
sense of medistration that is apparent in conversation, recollection or
attitude.
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