Insurance companies are coming up with some interesting and creative ways to get their clientele to be healthier. Humana finally realized that great, prophylactic, and consistent self-care is the key to lessening the burden of the high cost of medications and outrageously expensive hospital stays. To this end, I got a phone call from my insurance company asking me to opt into their newest idea. They wanted to send a nurse practitioner to my home, go over my overall health care, check all my medications for contraindications, and check up on of my current healthcare needs. I was impressed. Of course, I opted in! The nurse practitioner knocked at my door early yesterday morning, reminiscent of Dr. Welby, M.D., toting a black medical bag.
After we settled in to the visit, I took out my computer and showed her all of my recent blood test results via MyChart.net and shared with her all the medications I took. Seeing my tests and prescriptions in front of me was a good dose of reality about my age and current health in black and white and in small pill bottles lined across the table.
From a young age, I have always been the one who never wanted to take pills. I considered long-term health when I was in my late teens, as I was a vegetarian for 20 years, practiced holistic health, meditated, and did yoga. I would have been damned if I was going to mix holism with traditional medication.
Then one morning, well into my forties, I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without excruciating pain from osteoarthritis. After three years of suffering and trying every kind of holistic choice, I finally went to see a doctor at Vanderbilt, which started a discovery of the many, many things that were wrong with this human body. Alas, I acquiesced to some traditional medicines, but have continued my holistic practices, as well, even to this day.
Suffice it to say, twenty years later, the traditional path of medicine sat in front of me, including my latest statin for cholesterol, which I have neglected to take for three months because of some adverse reaction to my digestive system. High cholesterol? How can that be? I eat really well, am at an ideal weight, and DO YOGA! “COME ON, GOD!”
Now, I’m simply blaming everything wrong with me on my genes, even though I thought I had bought designer ones. Well, the nurse practitioner saw my blood test results that mirrored the problem with my high cholesterol and asked me why I wasn’t taking my statin. She told me that I was at high risk for heart attack if I didn’t take the meds, especially (and this is what pisses me off) since BOTH of my parents had heart disease and open-heart surgery. Not just one. They both have arthritis. They both have digestive problems. And everyone on my mother’s side of the family has diabetes, including three of my sisters! What about my body and its care was mine to decide? is what I keep asking myself.
“But, the last time I took the medication,” I told her, “I didn’t have a bowel movement for three days!” (I know, I’m really only sharing what’s pertinent here. Bear with me.) I told my primary doctor this information when it happened, and she just wanted to prescribe another medication for that problem. This is when I slammed my fist down on the desk, and bruised my flexor retinaculum, and said, “Absolutely not!”
I put down the pill bottle and hadn’t picked it up until that morning, sitting with my modern day version of Marcus Welby, M.D. Interestingly enough, in her kind Indian accent, her advice to me sounded as if she was channeling someone from the 1960’s. “Have you tried prune juice?” she asked.
I hadn’t tried prune juice, not since the prune debacle of 2000 when my friend Lisa showed up at my house with a bag of prunes, saying, “I heard on ‘Oprah” that if you eat just 5 prunes a day, you can relieve yourself of arthritic problems.”
Curiously, I tasted one. It was very delicious. So, as we continued to chat, I ate about fifteen. Two hours later, I was trapped in my bathroom until well into the night. The efficacy of prunes, to the extent that the nurse practitioner suggested is certainly not a lie. I tried the juice with the medication. Alas, I’m just fine. Who would have thunk?
Today's featured books are my two cookbooks. Also, if you click on the Amazon site, you'll see all of my 15 book— Cookbooks, Novels, Self-Help Books, a Yoga DVD! All great gifts from your friend—Bo Sebastian. Simply go to this link at www.Amazon.com or type in my name. Find great gifts for yourself, family members, and friends by supporting another friend in the process! Thank you.
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A Single Session w/Bo Sebastian
What would you feel like if everyday you loved yourself a little more…
What would you be if you loved and gave compassion unconditionally… to yourself first and then to others?
If you could imagine yourself so connected to God Source that everything you thought and every action you completed you trusted could heal yourself and, ultimately the world around you?
Create a Better Life with One Healing Session with Bo Sebastian
Call 954-253-6493 (All Sessions are done via PHONE, SKYPE or FACETIME.)
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If you are a gay man or woman, you may want to direct your gaze to my newest blog: Uncommon Gay Spiritual Warrior. This blog is an extension of my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/UncommonGaySpiritualWarrior/) and group meetings about the rare combination of spirituality and "being gay" defines the most important part of us, even in relationship. Join me at: http://uncommongayspiritualwarrior.blogspot.com/.
Bo works with people on SKYPE and FaceTime all over the world. He is taking new clients now. Call 954-253-6493 for information.
Take the time to look at Bo’s bookshelf of self-help books, novels, healing downloads, and yoga DVD. All of Bo’s books help people such as you, make SIGNIFICANT CHANGE with habits, find your SOULMATE, your PASSION, reach YOUR DREAMS, and dictate your own FUTURE.
Chosen to show his new hypnotherapeutic techniques on The Learning Channel (TLC) and also given the opportunity to teach at the world conference for Learning, and received the award of excellence for Helping Overcome Obesity in Nashville, Bo Sebastian is the writer and director of Finding Authentic You and Uncommon Gay Spiritual Warrior. Go directly to Amazon/Amazon Kindle to buy any of his wonderfully inspired books: ]
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