My mom is the most complacent and irresponsible peson I’ve ever known; eats nothing other than the most vile garbage availible, wouldn’t exercise if you paid her to do so, smokes like a chimney, and subsidizes my brother’s smoking habit. What’s more, she started smoking shortly after recovering from breast cancer five years ago, right after she recieved the second chance she didn’t deserve.
She is the world’s poster child for developing a long list of self-induced health problems and then taking an even longer list of medications to save herself from the consequences of her shit lifestyle. I’ve been chastizing her relentlessly for 10 years, but her typical response is to smack her lips and say that it doesn’t matter what she eats because she takes vitamins, or that the cheeseburger she’s eating is healthy because it has a slice of lettuce on it. The most insipid rationalizations I’ve ever heard.
Today I found out she has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Ghe thoroughly deserves it, as well as what she’s going to get during the brief remainder of her life. She disgusts me to the degree that I really don’t have any sympathy for her, and would almost rather see her die than go on medicare in a few years and get free medical tretment she doesn’t deserve.
But what disgusts me even more is that her cardiologist has never even mentioned the necessity that she quit smoking, despite the fact that there is an undeniable link between smoking and CHF. My mom thinks doctors are gods and totally capitulates to whatever they say, which is why it has always made me sick to no end that her doctors have never bothered to place even the mildest emphasis on lifestyle change. And I’m not necessarily suggesting that she would change her lifestyle even if the doctors did properly emphasize it, so don’t think that I’m trying to displace the blame here.
But when a patient’s LIFE, her continued existence on this Earth, depends on her quitting smoking immediately, and her pathetic so-called doctor doesn’t even fucking mention the subject, and instead just adds another handful of pills to her already outrageous medication list, it really inflames my cynicism toward the medical establishment. Something is really fucked up in this country. I don’t know what it is, but somewhere along the way, everbody just lost their fucking minds.