The Cure

As a prospective nursing student, I believe in medicine. I believe in antibiotics. I believe in pain killers. I believe in lysol. Four years of taking Biology classes will do that to you. In almost all of my classes, a bacterium will be mentioned in class and we will quickly go over how dangerous it is for humans, but the conversation always ends with "but we have treatment for that now." It's comforting to know that even scary sounding disorders like tuberculosis and MRSA have very good treatments. Therefore, while I'm a strong believer in a healthy diet, plenty of sleep, regular exercise, and a low-stress environment, I also believe in medicine, surgery, and disinfectants.

I realize that not all people think this way, and maybe I'm naive for feeling this way. My roommate, for example, feels the exact opposite. Where I will run to student health or Patient First at the first sign of a cold for fear that it's something more serious (or maybe in hopes that its an infection instead of a virus so I can just take pills to make me feel better instead of waiting it out), Megan goes for a run to flush it out of her system. She has never had any vaccinations and instead of going to the doctor regularly, she visits the acupuncturist. And then there's my boyfriend, who never took a Tylenol for his frequent headaches prior to dating me. He believes in drinking water and sleeping for a long time. After I bought him a bottle of ibuprofen for 92 cents, he has become much more comfortable when he gets these headaches. Sure, he still drinks water and sleeps, but he's also in less pain when he does this.

I guess I just get confused when I hear so frequently that they want to keep their bodies pure from most medicine to keep it toxin-free. I think that's an excellent way to think... if you live on Pandora. The reality is that we are constantly exposed to carcinogens, extremely harmful bacteria, toxins, and other chemicals. The food we eat is painted with preservatives and pesticides. Maybe fighting fire with fire isn't the best way science could have turned when it comes to illness, but we're currently practicing the "best" possible way of treating disease. I guess as someone who is a strong believer in science and continuing her education to learn more about these practices, I will always believe that the cure lies in a pill bottle or on an operating room table, but maybe there is more than one cure. While "trends" such as the acai berry fad, a glass of red wine a night, cranberry juice flushes, and blueberry and brocolli diets are usually proven quickly to be hardly effective if at all, I suppose it's a nice thought that there is one magical food, vitamin, or diet to make you live for 200 years. I sincerely do hope that a magical cure for every illness is found, but for now I look to the few science geniuses working on cures for cancer, AIDS, and other horrifying death traps.

Either way, I believe there are certain "cures" for everything out there. We just need to figure them out.