The Mending Map - guideposts on the road back to health

What is health? When I was on a lecture circuit after the publication of my first health book, one of my col­leagues in the nutrition and health field opened his talks with that question. Then he would proceed to tell a graphic but amusing story:

Three elderly men were sitting on the porch of the retirement home, sharing tales on the challenges of age. The first, and youngest, said, “What I wouldn’t give for a good, satisfying stream. My poor ole bladder just dribbles.”

The second gentlemen chastised him. “You think that’s bad. Well, I haven’t had a good b.m. in so long I can’t remember what it feels like to not have my bowels hurt.”

Then the third, and senior of the group, spoke up. “You punks just make me sick. Every morning at eight o’clock I have a good healthy stream. Then at ten o’clock sharp I have a good healthy bowel movement.”

He paused…. “Now, if I could just get out of bed before noon….”

Of course, the audience would roar with laughter, and the lecture would be well launched.  I think there are two definitions of health:

1. Health is subjective and personal. It’s how you feel compared to how you want to feel. For the life-long diabetic, a day with stable blood sugar could be day of good health. The cCancer patientson chemo might say that they he/she feelspretty darn good the day after the vomiting stops. The burn patient could relish the day he doesn’t have a painful de­bridement, and the child with the broken arm feels great the day the cast is removed. 

OR, 

2. Health is defined by medical tests, measuring your results against a standard. A doctor would say that the dia­betic is still diabetic, even during a day of normal blood sugar; the patient on chemo still has cancer, even if they feel on top of the world; burn victims have a variety of health challenges to overcome; and the child with the healed broken arm may still have calcium absorption problems.

How do you define your health? If you prefer the second definition, put this book down and read no further. I am not a health professional and therefore cannot and will not make any diagnoses or prescribe any treatments. There are thousands of advice books by doctors, PhDs, nurses, and nutritionists. 

If you like the first definition, this book is for you. It is gleaned from years of personal experiences and research and what I have learned as a layperson and healthcare con­sumer. I’m not a health professional—I’m a journalist—but it seems to me that many people do not understand healing. When the body is injured or ill, the patient must be responsi­ble for healing because HEALING MUST COME FROM WITHIN: 

· from the body and what we feed it; 

· from the mind and what we think; 

· from the soul and what we believe. 

All three steps are vital—like a three-legged stool—without all three true healing cannot occur. I’ve had a num­ber of serious health challenges in my many years of life, and I’ve been told on more than one occasion that my affliction was perman­ent, that I’d never recover. Well, I not only recov­ered, I regained my health, and this book has the formulas that worked for me.

A few years back I ghost wrote a book for Robert A. Nash, M.D. entitled Common Sense Medicine - a medical doc­tor’s prescription for health care. Scattered throughout the book were Doctor Bob’s “Common Sense Prescriptions.” Since I am not a health professional, you might say that the book you are  holding is the lay-person’s Guidepost to health. So, let’s get started!