Why our medical system flawed…
Happy Birthday Daddy!
Today is my dad’s birthday, he would have been 74. I miss him immensely. And, I am constantly saddened that my daughter doesn’t have her Grandpa to grow up with, the best Grandpa in the world.
My dad died, from a flawed medical system. Yes, he had cancer. Yes, he had a systemic infection. Yes, he was unfit and ate the SAD (standard American diet) diet. Yet, his General Practitioner told him he was “healthy”, even as he complained for a decade of back pain, extreme exhaustion and was several pounds overweight, depressed with little daily movement. (all symptoms of tumor formation/cancer).
Let me explain America’s flawed medical system
The American medical system, also called conventional medicine, Western medicine, or allopathic medicine is influenced and partially designed by Pharmaceutical companies. If you research the rise of Pharmaceuticals in the 18th century, you’ll find companies like Merck, Bayer and Pfizer building their businesses on chemicals. Yes, chemicals, and as revolutionary wars required medicine, those same chemical companies started designing medicines, using…chemicals. This was seen as a great advancement in the apothecary space, the term used before “pharmacy”. Apothecaries were founded on Eastern medicine, or ancient Chinese medicine that had been around for thousands of years using herbs, spices and food to heal. And that is a basic understanding of the difference between Western medicine (pharmaceuticals made using chemicals) and Eastern medicine (using nature to heal). Now, there are many, many good and successful use cases for pharmaceuticals. But in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, American pharmaceutical companies saw a way to rapidly increase their business, not the business of healing people, but the business of selling more drugs.
And then came the influence into medical schools, Pharma companies, paid for medical expansion, medical conferences, incentivized medical schools for writing Pharma drugs into the curriculum and started giving incentives to doctors for prescribing their drugs; and that is the flawed medical system. Today, more than 2/3 of medical schools are funded by pharmaceutical companies, why, so that Pharma remains the standard of care. What is the standard of care, have you ever been to the doctor, they ask you what’s wrong, you explain, they give it a name and write you a prescription? That is the standard of care. For a Western medicine doctor to get reimbursed by insurance companies, and for their malpractice insurance to remain active, they must adhere to the standard of care, which always requires a prescription.
When was the last time your doctor’s office called you for a preventative check-in visit, where they run blood tests on over 100 biomarkers, from auto-immune conditions, to an extensive nutrient panel, to detailed cholesterol patterns and sizes? Where your doctor takes time to ask you about your diet, movement, mental health, spiritual thoughts, stress levels, sleep, toxin-less protocols, supplements, relationships and how you balance your nervous system daily (all components of multi-dimensional health)? I’m certain the answer is, NEVER, and if you have a Western/Conventional/Allopathic doctor that does do this, KEEP THEM and refer them to everyone you know. You got a good one. But typically, the protocol I describe above is called Functional/Integrative or Naturopathic medicine, and it’s amazing.
How America’s flawed medical system failed my dad
Let’s start with my dad’s general practitioner. My dad had been complaining of back pain, and extreme exhaustion for almost a decade. He was recently retired and instead of enjoying his retirement, he was exhausted and in pain. They say a lot of men get depressed in retirement, they go from being needed and having purpose each day to, well nothing to do. And this was my dad, although he tried to fill his time with socialization within his community, when my parents moved to Arizona, they were alone. It was a dream my parents and all their friends had for years, retire to Arizona, on the lake and spend their days boating in the sun. But when it came time for that to happen, they’re the only ones that moved. And they found themselves living their dream alone. At the same time, their first grandchild was born back in California. So they were bored, lonely and depressed, both of them. But, this never came up in my dad’s GP visits, he was just given a “clean bill of health stamp” and sent on his way. No discussion of his diet (which was the SAD diet filled with ultra processed foods), his movement (which was none), his social interactions (which were none), his mental health (he was depressed) or his spiritual state. But he was told he was healthy. There is a great cancer doctor that I follow, Dr. Leigh Erin Connealy, and she often talks about the early signs of cancer, all of which my dad had. She also says that cancer starts at least 10 years prior to your discovery. The reason we see late-stage cancers is due to the flawed medical system, coupled with ignored symptoms. Back pain, can be one of the most common symptoms of cancer. In fact, anything you feel in your body is your body signaling to you that something can be wrong, please listen, don’t ignore it. And if your doctor dismisses it, or says it’s normal, sleep more, please see out a Functional/Integrative doctor. My dad’s western medicine GP should know this, and certainly should have run comprehensive testing and panels to discovery why he was so exhausted and had back pain. That is what a functional/integrative doctor will do, they will find the root cause of your symptoms, period. You don’t stop seeing them until they’ve found that root cause for that back pain. That is a major difference between Allopathic and Functional medicine.
How my dad got cancer
I have no doubt as to how he got cancer. In the functional/integrative medicine space, it is well documented that cancer is caused by lifestyle. While there are some genes that can predispose you to cancer, your lifestyle can turn off and, on those genes, called epigenetics. Now, this is not to say we can predict who will or won’t, even with “good” genetics and a healthy lifestyle, BUT by reducing toxic exposures, optimizing your bodies healing systems, eating nutrient dense foods from nature, movement and low stress, you place yourself at much, much better odds against all cause diseases. This is because you are in balance. And if you do get any disease, you have a better chance at fighting it. For more information about this, please follow Dr. Leigh Erin Connealy, she has a great book called The Cancer Revolution , she has great preventative tips, and has a clinic in Irvine California where she treats patients with low dose chemo coupled with immune optimizing modalities. Also, go follow Dr. William Li, he has a book called Eat to Beat Disease and provides healing foods, (back to Naturopathic medicine, using nature to heal), to both prevent and reverse many diseases, including cancer.
Back to my dad, my whole childhood I remember him using Round-up, weed killer. He kept a manicured loan, mowed it every weekend, used the hedge trimmer, fixed every sprinkler himself and used weed killer on every inch of our lawns, front and back. My dad was a strong, resilient man, not afraid to kill a spider with his bare hands or use his bare hands for everything, so he did not use any protective gear when spraying this poison. Not only that, but I also couldn’t be certain he washed his hands afterwards either. Although meant to kill bugs, it is poison, period. Do you know what it does to bugs? It explodes their gut. And what do you think it does in humans? It penetrates the gut lining, leaving us with gut issues, like bloating, gas, irritability, IBS, crone’s, colitis, diverticulitis, etc. It DOES affect humans and there are studies that prove it’s link to cancer. The NIH states that you are 41% more likely to get cancer with any exposure to Glyphosate. The main ingredient in Round-up and most weed killers is Glyphosate. The same ingredient that kills bugs on our lawns, ALSO, is sprayed on 98% of crops in America. This is the most troubling stat, read that again. So, when you eat anything grown in America, unless it’s labeled Organic, it has been sprayed with Glyphosate. Your wheat is sprayed, so yes cookies, flour, crackers, pasta, your strawberries are sprayed, the corn is sprayed, yes that includes corn chips, popcorn, your soy is sprayed, that includes tofu. It’s all sprayed. And that poison is sprayed on the food. And then you eat it. So, not only was my dad exposed to copious amounts of Glyphosate from the Round-up he sprayed on our lawns monthly, but he was also exposed to it in most of the foods he ate. (note: this is why to buy ORGANIC. Organic literally restricts the use of any poisons. Whether it’s flour to make homemade bread, store bought pasta or produce, always buy organic, otherwise you are consuming poison).
Why are toxins bad? And how do they cause cancer.
Ok, so why is Glyphosate so bad, and how does it cause cancer. Essentially, our liver is meant to detox or get rid of waste, toxins, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, essentially everything that can’t be absorbed, i.e nutrients and minerals. But the liver has a limited capacity, think of a glass, once the glass is full, what happens? When the liver overflows, toxins get stored in your organs and fat cells. Now that’s a simplified analogy, it’s much more complicated as to how you digest food, the state of your immune system, it’s all connected. (hence the need for whole body and root cause care done with functional/integrative medicine). And with the influx of toxic chemicals introduced in our environment, about 40,000 new chemicals a year, we are inundated with toxins. We can never escape them, and all our livers are overloaded, called toxic load. So, assume you start with an empty glass or liver when you wake, for most of us, by the afternoon our glass or liver is full and we’re now storing the overflow in our organs and fat cells. We then detox at night, hopefully our detoxification system is optimized to completely empty the glass/liver (BUT, our standard nightly detox only clears the liver, it does not clean the overflow toxins in our organs and fat cells – that is a deep extensive detoxification that is very hard to accomplish – I’ll write a blog post on that next), or we start with a partially filled glass or liver the next day, and so on and so forth. This is why I coach on toxic load, called “Toxin-Less” living, I teach all age levels on how to reduce toxins every day. We can’t avoid them, but it’s critical that we reduce our exposure, i.e. reduce our toxic load.
Enter Glyphosate, Glyphosate remember is not only in pesticides, but also on most of our crops. So, even if you don’t use Round-up, if you play golf, you’re exposed to Glyphosate if you touch the grass (golf courses are the second most sprayed source outside of crops in America). If you play at the park with your kids, chances are the grass may sprayed with Glyphosate, so you may be exposed and not even know it. Then, add all that food we talked about, do you know if the chips at the local Mexican restaurant are from organic corn? If not, you’re consuming glyphosate, so on and so forth. So again, once our liver is overloaded, from all exposure by any toxins, those toxins get stored in our organs and can eventually attach to cancer cells and turn into tumors.
Cause #2, destroyed oral microbiome
Since my earliest memory, up until the last months of his life, my dad used Listerine religiously. He took great care of his teeth, or so he thought. In recent years we have come to learn that we have a unique and important microbiome in our mouth. The bacteria in our mouth is there for a reason, most of them are “good bugs”. They are there to keep the balance of the acidity level in our mouth and to eat the food we leave behind. And, as the mouth is the opening or entrance to the digestive track, there is a connection between our oral microbiome and gut microbiome. Now, there is “bad bacteria” that can cause cavities, just like there is bad bacteria in our gut that can cause dysbiosis. But there are studies that show when you destroy your beneficial oral bacteria, altering your oral microbiome, it can negatively impact your health, and heart. To read more about this, follow Dr. Mark Burhenne DDS and his website with loads of information on good oral health, Ask the Dentist. So, my dad destroyed his oral microbiome, daily, for well over 40 years, and it’s no surprise he had high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
Cause #3, poor Multi-dimensional health
My dad was a happy, quiet fun guy. And he lived the American life, an Illinois farm boy, raised to farm and tend to the horses. He moved to California in high school where he met my mom. They got married young, had kids young, and he worked for the same company for over 35 years. He did everything he was supposed to, everything America tells you to do. He ate the Standard American diet, worked hard, paid his taxes and listened to his western medicine General Practitioner.
He thought he was healthy, according to what America and the medical system tell you. But he wasn’t, and we only know this from tens of thousands of Functional/Integrative medicine case studies.
1. He ate the standard American diet, do you know what that includes. It’s the food pyramid or my plate that says to fill half your plate with veggies and fruit, that’s great but it says nothing about Organic. So even if people accomplish this with each meal, they are consuming copious amounts of pesticides/toxic chemicals.
Then, the next segment is grains. GRAINS. The same grains that are sprayed with glyphosate. I’m sure most people aren’t choosing organic crackers, bread, flour nor does the SAD advise about pesticides or eating organic. Second, grains ALL spike your blood sugar leading to insulin sensitivity, poor metabolic health, and eventually type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and more diseases. Healthy organic or ancient grains, like rice, millet, quinoa in small portions, like ¼ cup a meal is the optimal amount. But the SAD advising us to fill 2/3 of our plate with grains is causing Americans to be overweight with multiple diseases. The next portion of the my plate recommendation is protein, which is great, but again no mention as to the importance of eating clean proteins. In other words, cattle raised in Idaho to eat corn, oats and pumped full of antibiotics to make them beefy, is making us sick. The food they eat is sprayed with glyphosate and is a grain, usually a GMO grain stripped of its natural nutrients, leading to bloat and obesity in the animal, and then on to the human, what the animals eat, we end up eating. Then, the antibiotics they consume, which kills their good gut bacteria, will also kill our good gut bacteria, leading to gastrointestinal issues in our bodies. So, we should be eating clean, well sourced proteins, i.e. cows that graze only on grass, and grass that is not sprayed with glyphosate, and cows that are not given any antibiotics, period. It’s called, grass fed and finished beef. For poultry it’s called free to roam, for seafood it’s called wild caught. And for vegetarians, it’s ensuring soy sources are organic. The last portion of the my plate recommendation is dairy. So before talking about dairy, let’s just reiterate that the standard American diet, recommended through my plate is making Americans sick, overweight and causing disease, period.
Here is what functional/integrative medicine will teach you, and how we should all look at food:
a. Macronutrients = 1. Protein, 2. Fats, 3. Carbs from nature (fruits and veggies) and some ancient/organic grains
b. Micronutrients = fruits and vegetables
c. And back to dairy, dairy is included in the Protein macro. Clean, grass fed, free to roam dairy is best.
How I coach kids to look at food, eat anything that lives in nature Vs. something made in a building. That should be the new revised Nutrition recommendation.
2. Post retirement, he had little movement. He was never a man to “work out”, but his love language was acts of service, and he was busy. On top of working in a field job that required lots of movement, he was always busy, tending to our gardens, the yard, building cars in the garage, doing dishes, fixing boats, dune buggies and motor homes, getting gas in all the cars, helping us kids move, shop, carry our purchases, move again, carrying furniture, etc., he was always on the move. Until retirement, when a bit of depression set in, then the back pain and exhaustion.
3. Mental state and depression. Well, as mentioned, after moving to Arizona, he no longer had his community and daily social interaction. He was missing out on his first grandchild growing up, was in pain and exhausted.
The diagnosis and another flawed medical system moment
In August my dad told my mom that he couldn’t go to the bathroom, and it had been a week. Again, strong resilient man that can handle anything, waited an entire week. That is what caused the infection. I wish he would have told my mom a day in, then maybe we would only be dealing with cancer, but he waited a week. My mom took him to the emergency room in Arizona where they live. The doctors didn’t know what it was, they took an ultrasound of his abdomen and thought he had an abscess in his bladder. So they drained it. And that is all they did, then sent it home.
It didn’t work, my dad still couldn’t go the bathroom. It’s now been 2 weeks. They lived in a small Arizona town and that ER was the only in town, where do you go next if the ER can’t help you. So, they came to California. Now my dad not only can’t go to the bathroom, but he is also complaining of crippling leg pain. For the first time, my strong, resilient dad is visibly in a lot of pain and weak. Another week before they see a gastroenterologist who reviews the ultrasound from the hospital 2 weeks prior and immediately diagnoses him. It wasn’t an abscess but a fistula between his bladder and colon, which is the reason he can’t go to the bathroom, and worse, it must be removed, and my dad will need a (hopefully temporary) colostomy. Enter the next failed medical system moment. A very untrained, unexperienced and dangerous medical team and hospital in Arizona missed it, they could have prevented infection entirely and saved his normal bowel and urine function if they would have been trained to identify a fistula, are there not gastroenterologist specialists in every hospital? Did you know that the #2 leading cause of death in America is practitioner error? Chew on that stat for a minute.
And it gets worse. Following the colostomy surgery, he goes into infection shock, high fever and needs to be admitted to the hospital. He is seen by an infectious disease specialist that puts him on high doses of antibiotics to kill the infection, caused by the back-up for so many weeks. And it’s in the hospital, watching him in excruciating pain, still undiagnosed with unexplained leg pain, and now on high doses of antibiotics, we find out that he has bladder cancer. He is now being seen by his urologist who will treat the bladder cancer, an infectious disease specialist treating the infection and the gastroenterologist overseeing the colostomy bag and will eventually do the reconstruction surgery of his colon. But first, we must bring in the oncologist to talk chemotherapy. Four doctors.
The treatment and another flawed medical system catastrophe
The oncologist is insistent on starting chemotherapy right away. But I question this, he is on antibiotics, and I know that antibiotics kill your gut bacteria, the good guys, that will weaken the immune system, and you need your immune system completely optimized to fight cancer cells and to undergo chemotherapy, which is injecting poison directly into the body. I know this from my decade of research in the functional medicine space, striving for better health and longevity. I also know from Dr. William Li, that akkermansia is a bacteria in the gut that improves metabolic health, reduces inflammation and can prevent cancer. I also know that dark red polyphenols like pomegranates and cranberries feed akkermansia. So, I jump into gear and make him a gut healing drink I learned from Dr. Mark Hyman, filled with pomegranate juice, cranberry juice, probiotics and gut lining repair powders. My dad is at my house, convalescing while he awaits chemo, and every morning he drinks it with me. My dad was willing to do anything at this point, but the pull of the western medical system is so strong. So back to my questioning chemo right away…
I considered Dr. Leigh Erin Connealy for help, I was seeing her for preventative care and had told her about my dad’s diagnosis. Her clinic does cancer care, better, they use low dose chemo coupled with immune boosting therapies, like hyperbaric oxygen and high dose vitamin c. I sat my parents down and pleaded that they pause chemo, and see Dr. Connealy in Irvine. I knew that it was dangerous for my dad to start chemo. He still had an infection and was on high dose antibiotics, his immune system was weak, as antibiotics kill your gut microbiome, and your immune system starts in the gut, you need a strong and vibrant gut microbiome for your immune system to be optimized. I needed him to pause, fight the infection, repair his gut, strengthen his immune system, before starting chemo. But the oncologist was insistent and persuasive, he told my parents that my dad had 18 months to live if he started chemo right away. So they did.
I’m wondering, how did I know, after only a decade of research and no formal medical training about how to proceed, that antibiotics damage the gut, the state of the immune system and how it affects cancer treatments, how did I know this and his 4 medical doctors didn’t? HOW. Enter more failed medical system and another practitioner error.
Before my dad started chemo, his infectious disease doctor stopped the antibiotics, I questioned this, I made my mom call the 1 of 4 doctors to ask why, I didn’t agree, although I know antibiotics are hard on the gut, I knew he needed to be free of infection to start chemo. Apparently, the oncologist demanded he stop, and the infectious disease doctor said “ok”, but it all felt very individual. It didn’t feel purposeful and whole body, there was not one point person coordinating his care, but 4, quite frankly ego busting squabbling doctors. And 3 of the 4 were nasty, they were mad at my mom questioning their decision, which made her uncomfortable, so she stopped questioning, which made me worried and furious.
My dad started chemo, after his first round, he went home to Arizona before coming back 3 weeks later for round two. I sent them off through Palm Springs and booked them the La Quinta Inn for a luxurious treat after this horrendous ordeal. They both said it was the best night sleep of their lives, and the last one. They were home in Arizona for one night, when my dad went into septic shock. Why? Because he went off the antibiotics, and just riddled his body with toxins. I KNEW THIS, I PREDICTED THIS COULD HAPPEN, WHY DID 4 MD’s NOT FORSEE THIS!
My dad was air lifted to Las Vegas , admitted to the hospital, I rushed there, to find my dad. unresponsive and in so much pain. It was the hardest sight of my life. We talked to the original gastroenterologist who said he should have stayed on the antibiotics, I knew that. And he couldn’t answer why the oncologist and infectious disease doctor told us to take him off. So they didn’t agree, and it cost my dad his life.
He hung on for 2 days, and died. 2 months after that week he couldn’t go to the bathroom.
The Western/Allopathic/Modern medical system failed him at every point from start to finish.
So, now what. This experience has reignited my passion to educate and inform. Since the pandemic, I have envisioned myself coaching others on how to reduce toxic exposures, and optimize their health and lifestyle, I want to share what I know with everyone because it’s mostly hidden, you must dig deep to uncover it. I often write blog posts and safer swap narratives in my head. Now, 2 years past this traumatic event, I’ve started to process from the grief and anger, and I feel it is my service, my call of action to mobilize my ideas and stories, to share with others.
I am officially a Certified Integrative Nutrition and Health Coach. The “Integrative” means I practice a whole body and root cause approach, using food and nature as medicine. Sure, there are pharmaceuticals involved, I’m on bio-identical hormones that are prescribed, but our beautiful, brilliant bodies are meant to heal itself and keep us alive, and I have tools to optimize that power that can increase our health span. This is how I can honor my amazing and very missed daddy.