OntheWilderSide

It starts on the front of the refrigerator.  “The Healthiest Foods on Earth.”  A two-page primer from apple to watermelon, touting immunity to male fertility support.  Inside the refrigerator, natural and organic foods only.  On the countertop is the Jack LaLanne juicer, the Magic Bullet, the handy food chopper plus, the food saver vacuum sealer–all items familiar to us because they are constantly hawked on the midnight cable channels.  Hanging from the kitchen cabinet door are plastic bags for recycling:  one for plastics, the other for aluminum cans.  The house and car are filled with reusable shopping bags made of recycled materials.  By the way, a new car was in the works, and not because of the cash for clunkers program of the Federal Government.  An American-made hybrid was preferred–keeping U.S. workers working.  In the back seat of her Ford Focus is a booklet, “Living in a Healthy Body:  A New Look at Health & Weight.”  What I’m trying to describe is someone working very hard at changing a typically indulgent “American” lifestyle into one more respectful and healthy for the body, healthy for our earth.

So, in an act of preventive medical care, my aunt Hazel went to the doctor to have a colonoscopy.  We are all bombarded with television commercials advising us to have a colonoscopy.  I know in the black media, those ads abound.  And so, dutifully, my aunt abided by those suggestions for healthy choices and had her first colonoscopy.  What the family knows is that her colon was perforated.  That’s when our journey took us on a wrong turn. Read more »