I am the captain!

Last year, after I had a heart attack and then had quadruple bypass surgery on my heart, I was under the care of a LOT of doctors. I mean, after I went home from the surgery, almost every single weekday, I had at least one doctor’s appointment. Some days I had more than one. Or I would have a doctor appointment with one of my doctors and also need to go to the lab for a lot of tests of one kind or another.

One thing that is particularly frustrating when you are under the care of multiple doctors on a regular basis (not just occasionally) is that the doctors tend to contradict each other. For example, one of the doctors will prescribe you a certain type of medication, but a few days later when you saw another doctor he would get upset that you should be taking that particular medication and would change you to another medication instead. Meanwhile, you already bought a 30 day supply of medication A, and basically, all you could do was throw it away and switch to medication B instead. In general, in a conflict situation like this, I would almost always go with what my Cardiologist recommended since it was a heart condition that was threatening to kill me.

The day finally came though, when I got very frustrated with all of the conflicts between doctors that I put my foot down (not speaking to the doctors, rather talking with my wife). It told her that I was tired of dealing with it all, and I did not want all of these different doctors dictating to me what I had to do, because it would change in a few days anyway when I saw a different doctor. The timing of my total frustration and decision to stop “following” what I was told was about the time when I needed to see fewer doctors. As different problems were gotten under control, I would be released by the doctors who were helping with that particular situation.

A week or two later, I had an appointment with my Cardiologist, and I was still in a sour mood about all of the conflicting information. When I entered the appointment with the Cardiologist, he told me that I would no longer need to see him anymore, because my heart had recovered so well that I no longer needed to see him any longer.

He said:

I am turning you back over to your Internist, he will be the Captain of your Medical team from now on.

My response was probably not what he was expecting to hear. I said, “Sorry, you made a slight mistake there…. he will not be the Captain of my Medical team. I am the captain of my medical team!”

After this deep frustration with the multiple doctors, I had already decided that I was going to take control of my health. That does not mean that I do not see doctors. But, now I consider them to be consultants who advise me, but I am the decider. Sometimes I don’t think the advice is good, and I tell them that I won’t be doing that. I always present my plan to them, tell them that this is what I will be doing, and ask for them to evaluate my plan. In most cases, they agree and say that it is a viable plan, and they will sign off on my plan. Sometimes they disagree, but unless they tell me that my plan is very dangerous or something like that, I generally go with my plan and not theirs. One example is the type of diet I am eating. Pretty much none of my doctors agreed with me doing a Low Carb, High Fat diet, but now that they are seeing results, they can’t believe it, and they encourage me to keep doing what is working!

Fasting? Well, no doctor would go near that. But, now that I have reversed diabetes, lost weight, and all of my blood tests are looking great, they are all excited about it.

As I have told you many times, my diabetes is gone. My Endocrinologist agrees that I no longer have diabetes. Some months back when I told him what my plan was, he told me that the goal that I expected to achieve was impossible. But, now I have already achieved the goal! I did not set out to lose weight, to be honest, my goal was to reverse diabetes. Losing weight was only a great side benefit.

After my doctor saw the results the first time he saw me after I started fasting, he said he loved the results and told me to feel free to fast for whatever lengths of time I desired. I told him that I wished he would tell his other patients about this so that others could benefit. He told me that in his view less than 1% of people would be capable of doing fasting. I explained to him why I thought he was wrong. I also told him frankly that he is not healing anybody through his practice. He even tells his patients (as all doctors do) that they will never be able to reverse diabetes. He gives them medicine and insulin. I asked him if diabetes got better after they started using insulin and oral medication, he said: “yes, their blood sugar goes lower.” I then asked him “So, after a year are you able to get them off these medications?” He said no, actually after a year they would usually need more insulin, and more oral medication too! I told him that means diabetes has gotten worse, not better. Of course, I spoke to him in a respectful way. I like this doctor. He is smart, and he is also very curious about the methods that I have been using, and the results that have happened, results which he told me only a few months ago were impossible. I have a feeling that he will switch to supporting fasting and a low carb diet. I hope he does.

Yep, I am the captain of my health team now. If there are doctors who don’t like it, I will replace them with somebody who is willing to join on my terms. It is my health that we are dealing with, and I should be the captain… the person calling the shots. That is how I feel.

What about you, are you the Captain of your team? If not, I think you should be. But, you have to educate yourself and stay on top of research if you want to be the captain too!