Good word HW.
My parents in law are far and away the most perpetually sick people I have ever known, and have been for decades, primarily because they spend a good part of their lives at the doctor's office(s), believing everything they are told, taking every medicine prescribed for them whether or not it works, and whether or not it is compatible with everything else they have been prescribed. They are true believers, and the medical community has led them around by an imaginary ring in their noses for most of a lifetime. Every conversation of any length at all revolves around their poor health, their medications, and their next appointments. You couldn't convince them that this has been done to them by their doctors in a thousand years.
As a contrast, my wife was diagnosed with MS a year and a half ago, and was told early on by her neurologist that she has one of the most aggressive cases this doctor has ever seen. We were told that if she didn't take one of four seriously nasty drugs for the rest of her life that she would be in a wheelchair in short order, that her vision would get worse, her memory would be lost altogether, yada yada yada.
We rejected and renounced most everything she was told by most everybody she saw at the neurological clinic, began to do research for ourselves and found that a large percentage of MS patients feel that they know much more about their disease than the medical community does, that they are much better off without the toxic meds, and of course that their doctors for the most part don't want to hear anything about people who are doing well apart from their doctors and their drugs. We have sifted through medical journals, clinical trial documentation, hundreds of testimonials, lawsuit transcripts, etc. We know what we're talking about.
In essence, we chose not to believe much of anything that the medical community told us, and then chose to listen to and believe a large amount of what other MS patients are saying, because it is after all they/we who have the disease, not the doctors.
Above all, we choose to believe that ultimately God is the Physician, He alone knows what is truly wrong with my wife, and what it will take for a complete healing. So just like my parents in law, we too are true believers, but we have chosen to believe pretty much the opposite of what they believe, and we have chosen to believe Someone altogether different than who they have chosen to believe.
My wife gets better by the week, in every measurable way, from strength and mobility to state of mind, things she is able to do once again, memory and sense of humor. We as a family feel that she is "returning" to us bit by bit, piece by piece, day by day. No DMD meds, no clinical trials, no experimental procedures (what is up with doctors and the guinea pig thing?) no nurses at the house, nothing.
Her doctor on the other hand paints an ever more grim picture with MRI's, stories of other patients, reflex tests, "If you were my sister" scare scenarios, etc. I should make it clear also that my wife is in no way in "remission" - from the doctor's standpoint, in every measurable way my wife is getting worse.
Like you said HouseWolf, it's all about what you believe.
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"We have to rebuild in a way that you will not be victimized by a similar storm again, because we don't - we're just wasting money, and we're essentially engaging in false advertising that what we're doing is restoring you to your situation that existed before the storm.”
Joe Biden