My mother thought that unless you were bleeding that you weren't really sick. Aches, fevers, and high temperatures were normal occurrences for children and I didn't miss a day of school from 1959 to 1966, despite twice suffering from extreme cases of poison ivy. If she was in charge of Health Care in America, the budget for medical treatment would drop to zero and this past month my younger brother ignored a nagging chest pain. It wouldn't go away and being covered by a union plan he visited a hospital in Cambridge.
My dearly departed mother must have been rolling her eyes in heaven, until the doctors announced that Paddy was in immediate need of a by-pass operation.
"When?" Paddy had tickets to the Bruins-Canadians game that evening.
"Tomorrow morning?" The doctor was dead serious.
"I'll see you in the morning then." My younger brother had paid scalper's price for the seats.
"Yes, you will, but you're not going anywhere." The doctor explained to my brother that this was a life or death issue. His wife further begged him to stay overnight in the hospital. Paddy had one condition.
"I want a bacon-cheeseburger." It was a last meal request. His diet consisted of meat, fried foods, and more meat.
Two weeks earlier I had met him in New York. His wife's cousin was marrying a Brahmin Hindu from Bombay. I was taking care of his two kids. He stormed into the hotel room later that night. A large bag in his hand.
"Damn, the food at the rehearsal dinner was uneatable. Veggies and more veggies. I'm not a cow. You think that they were trying to kill me with veggies." He pulled a double cheeseburger Happy Meal out of the bag. His kids laughed at his resistance to healthy food. He was a real American and his diet had almost put him in an early grave, but he wasn't giving up so easy.
"I want a cheeseburger. I want it now." He was a little child and the nurses treated him as such. No cheeseburger and the next day Paddy went under the knife for 8 hours. A quadruple bypass. Only a quintuple bypass is more extreme. The doctors discovered that his coronary system and arteries were in horrible condition. The hospital kept him in the ICU for several days and then released him to his wife.
"What about my cheeseburger?" He whined on the way home. His kids yelled at him and his wife threatened to make him walk home. He was in no shape to fight with them and whimpered, "No more cheeseburgers. What kind of life will I have? Damned veggies."
His loving wife says that Paddy is suffering meat withdrawal. Vegetables are pushed around the plate without reaching his mouth. He's basically gone on a hunger strike and his stubbornness is endemic to most Americans. The main cause of illness in that country is the food. People east like pigs. Their diets of soda and fast food are taxing the health care system to the breaking point, but no one is willing to look in the mirror and see themselves as the major reason for their ill health.
Me, I eat good.
It's my drinking that's the killer.
My younger brother's brush with death taught me a lesson.
No more Pina Coladas.
