Today was my annual physical exam.
I was placed in a room with a window facing the medical rehab hospital where both of my late parents stayed at various times throughout the last decade of their lives.
As I sat there reflecting on my parents’ final two decades, I remembered their kitchen cabinet and counter filled with bottles of medications.
Hitting age sixty-five last month, I now have new insurance cards and invitations to “wellness programs” such as regular cancer screenings, cardiac calcium scores, routine immunizations, and the like.
My doctor suggested starting me on the conveyor belt now, of which I declined.
She knows I want to be untethered to allopathic disease surveillance and management as much as possible.
But she still asks; just in case I’ve changed my mind now that I’m on Medicare.
She saw me for the first time in December 2021. I had scheduled an appointment because I was in a lot of pain. Unbeknownst to both of us at that time, I was suffering from appendicitis.
After CT scans and ultrasounds, I had an emergent appendectomy. . .on Christmas Eve.
However, thirty minutes before wheeling me into the operating room, the surgeon discussed a white spot they’d found on my lung. She seemed to be more concerned about that spot than my precarious appendix.
So, less than three weeks after that appendectomy, I had a PET scan.
The PET scan revealed possible lung cancer. . . which snowballed into the next four months of more tests and doctor appointments. A cancer doctor even told my husband Kurt and me that it was most likely stage four lung cancer that had metastasized.
To say I stopped living throughout those four months is not an exaggeration.
The anxiety of being trapped on the medical system’s conveyor belt was overwhelmingly all-consuming.
Until. . .
One day, I suddenly realized there was something worse than dying—and that was not living anymore.
I cancelled every appointment and jumped off the conveyor belt.
I walked away from all of it.
I sought trauma-informed therapy instead.
At the same time, a friend’s non-smoking sister was also diagnosed with lung cancer. She chose the route of aggressively treating it via chemo/radiation.
And she passed away eighteen months later.
My friend, a licensed physician, told me he thought the aggressive treatment plan was harder for her body to endure than the actual cancer itself.
A month after I jumped off that conveyor belt, I got bit by a tick.
IV’s of strong medications saved me life (and much prayer!).
And more recently, I got a serious eye infection. I was grateful for antibiotics!
I’m not totally opposed to allopathic medicine—it certainly has its place. However, I am skeptical of being put on a “wellness program” just because I celebrated a milestone birthday.
Here’s to living each day to the fullest; knowing that God has already ordained each day of my life on this earth.
I may jump on Medicare’s wellness program next year.
But not today.
[Disclaimer: This is my story, my experience, and my opinion. This is not medical advice! Certainly, there is a proper time and place for wellness programs and disease management.]
Emily Boller, wife, mother, artist, and author is on a mission to create expressive works of art in her lifetime; and to bring awareness to the potentially harmful traps of diet-wellness culture. In her free time, she loves to chase sunrises, grow flowers and vegetables, and can homemade soups.