During the two years that I was studying for my masters degree, I would meet two of my closest friends every Sunday morning at a local coffee shop. We’d spend an hour chatting, venting, gossiping, and catching up on our lives (or lack thereof) over bagels and coffee, before the conversations would inevitably tangent off onto random topics. I miss those chats – and the insights into my friends I’d gain through them. So I thought I’d try to restart something along those lines on my blog. A chance to hear more from my readers… at first, I was trying to decide if I wanted something consistent: quotes/sayings, song lyrics, random current or pop culture events…. But I think it will be more fun, more free to mix it up. Just whatever I’m dwelling on at the moment. Hope you all have as much fun with it as I do.
A special issue Sunday Breakfast Club entry, one day early, in memory of all those who died on 9/11.
As today is the anniversary of the September 11 (9/11) attacks, I have been giving a lot of thought to how the world has changed since then. In the aftermath of this tragedy, I feel as if the world has become disjointed. Or, perhaps, it’s just that I am more aware of the seams between the world’s puzzle pieces now. Nevertheless, nine years later, we are still very much in mourning not just for the people who wrongfully died that day, but also for the innocence lost. … but what have we learned from this calamity? We have people threatening to burn Korans in a country founded on the beliefs of religious freedoms. … but I digress from a point that I haven’t even made yet: this lack of acceptance may or not have been so pervasive before 9/11, but it surely hasn’t gotten better since then… and it extends far beyond the realm of religion and politics. Many chronic disease sufferers would agree that it seems to be omnipresent in the medical world.
Maybe you remember the “Where is the Love?” song by the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake that came out a year or two after 9/11. Or maybe you don’t. It was, in contrast to the general merriment-driven attitude of most of their work, a pacifist plea. Debates about political, religious and moral convictions aside, I think their point is valid:
Yo’, whatever happened to the values of humanity Whatever happened to the fairness in equality Instead of spreading love we’re spreading animosity Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity (…) Where’s the love, y’all?
Where is our love for each other? If not love, then why can’t we at least muster up some acceptance and attempts at understanding? Maybe the question in this situation would be more appropriately phrased “Where is the empathy?” or “Why is there so little understanding?” Why are patients with medical histories documenting their years and years of painful existence being turned away as drug-seeking addicts? Why are the doctors who should be taking care to figure out what causes little understood diseases like fibromyalgia instead treating patients like whiny women who are just looking for some attention?
We used to just lock people away when we didn’t understand conditions like depression or bipolar disorder. It seems like an outdated notion, doesn’t it? Now that science has figured out some of the underlying biology, we use counseling and medications to help these people. The thing is, things haven’t changed as much as we like to think they have. Sure, we don’t lock up people with fibromyalgia. Instead we just treat them like societal outcasts. Doctors say the condition doesn’t exist, and without their validation of the disease society rolls its eyes at the people who are suffering.
As the population of people fighting fibromyalgia becomes more vocal and ads for drugs like Lyrica that are aimed at fibromyalgia increase, the topic rises closer to the forefront. We aren’t going to sit back anymore and let our doctors tell us, however indirectly, that we aren’t actually ill. A doctor treating patients with illnesses like fibromyalgia requires both signs (objective, observed by the doctor) and symptoms (subjective, what is experienced by the patient) to properly treat the patient. As in they can’t do it without us. After all, who would they be treating? Fatigue and pain are symptoms – and as far as I know they haven’t figured out how to measure what we perceive without our input. So why are we battling with these people who are supposed to be caring for us? Doctors are supposed to help those in need of medical treatment, but instead we are being blown off. Where is the empathy and understanding in that? Where is the commitment to healing (or at least alleviating suffering) that their profession was founded upon?
9/11 was a horrific tragedy. We are right to be mourning the loss of these people. … but why can’t we remember these people by trying to change the mentality that leads to events like these. A focus on an “us” vs “them” mentality, doesn’t really get us anywhere. I’m not delusional. I’m aware that reaching that kind of understanding on that kind of scale is a remote possibility, but we have to start somewhere. Why can’t that somewhere be in the doctor-patient relationship? As we fight wars overseas, let’s not forget that there are people battling for their lives at home too.
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