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All Better? Why go to Rehab?

They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no. -Amy Winehouse

My mother is home from the hospital, where she arrived weak and dehydrated last Thursday. She thinks that an antibiotic made her ill.* My mother uses a wheelchair but she can stand up and she can walk with a walker. She couldn't use her legs when she went to the hospital, but by Monday, she could transfer herself from the bed to the wheelchair with no help, just someone to spot her.

The hospital wanted her to go to rehab, but like Amy Winehouse, she said no, no, no, for good reasons:

  • She felt well enough to go home.
  • Rehab is expensive.
  • They feed you a crappy diet at rehab--crappy meaning full of carbage. It's especially unhealthy when you're diabetic, like my mother.
  • Got normal blood sugar? They're johnny-on-the-spot with the orange juice to jack it back up.
  • Mom was assaulted at a rehab center a few years ago. The person was never brought to justice.

Being home and careful about her diet, Mom's fasting blood sugar is getting back to normal--111 this morning, down from 257 after the regrettable waffle breakfast at the hospital. She's back to puttering around the house. It helps that she refuses to take the statins her regular doctor ordered and lower her insulin dosage as the doctor at the hospital recommended. She doesn't have heart disease and her A1C is 5.0--that's a normal level. Why should she change her medication?

I think most medical professionals are caring people, but some are too eager to sell their services and products, which can do a lot of harm to patients' health and bank account balance in some cases. Let the patient beware.

*Too late, I found that coconut oil might have cured the infection.
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Comments

tess said…
yea! i'm glad she's better, AND has the sense to do what her body and REAL science say is good. :-)

June 20, 2013
Lori Miller said…
Mom's not a science buff, but she knows better than to take something that's working and do the opposite.
June 20, 2013
Anonymous said…
"•Mom was assaulted at a rehab center a few years ago."

Oh my God! That's awful. I'm glad she's feeling better, Lori.
I think a lot of medical types WANT to feel that they are doing good, and it just wouldn't occur to them that they may be actively harming people.
June 20, 2013
Lori Miller said…
She was assaulted by a staff member and sustained a brain injury that left her barely able to speak for a week. Sad to say, some conventional medical treatments will do worse than that. No doubt, it's hard for medical professionals to admit they may have been harming people.
June 20, 2013
Lowcarb team member said…
Lori your mom must feel so much better for being at home and "back to puttering around the house" Just the fact that she can and is doing so must make her feel so much better. Wishing her a continued good recovery

All the best Jan
June 21, 2013
Lori Miller said…
Thanks, Jan. She took away my father's statins yesterday, so he should start feeling better soon, too.
June 21, 2013
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