Grace -
"Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 94 November 26, 2001
A THANKSGIVING TO REMEMBER
I'm not sure when this issue will be mailed, due to
the holiday. I'm writing it on Thanksgiving Day, November
22.
I depart today from commentary on war and recession
and similar unpleasant news. This is a day to give thanks.
Because of what happened to me this week, it is uniquely a
day for me to give thanks.
On Monday, sometime around noon, my stomach began to
hurt. Initially, I thought it might be because the new
pants I was wearing were too tight. I took them off and
looked at the waist measurement. Same as usual. Then a
horrible thought occurred to me: maybe I had gained weight
-- before Thanksgiving-to-New-Year!
The pain got worse through the day. By 6 in the
evening, I was vomiting. Actually, I was experiencing the
dry heaves. I had not eaten since lunch.
For the next 8 hours, the pain got worse, and it was
continual. As far as I could remember, the only constant
pain I had ever experienced that matched this was an
earache I had 48 years ago.
I prayed. I walked aimlessly in circles. I drank
water, hoping to overcome the dry heaves. Nothing helped.
So, at about 2:30 in the morning, I did the unthinkable. I
woke up my wife and had her drive me to the emergency room
at the hospital, a half-hour drive.
I hate hospitals. I'm glad they are there, but I hate
them. Also, with my high-deductible health insurance
policy, I hate the expense, which is close to $1,000 a day,
plus the physician's fee. But the pain was so great that I
thought anything was worth trying.
At the emergency room, they put me on a pain killer.
This helped. They ran tests on me the next morning. They
found the problem: a one-inch gall stone. They recommended
the removal of my gall bladder. I told them I wanted to
check with another physician.
At about 7 in the morning, my personal physician
visited me. Because I rarely get sick, he barely knows me,
but he showed up. He also recommended the gall bladder
removal operation. He gave me the name of a physician who
specializes in this. At about 9:30, the other physician
showed up. He had already performed one gall bladder
removal that morning. So, I agreed. I was willing to do
anything to escape the return of the pain I had
experienced. But I did negotiate the price as best as I
could.
By noon, the operation was over. It took about half
an hour. He did it by inserting a miniature camera through
my navel, and removing the gall bladder from two other
incisions. The procedure is a decade old. There will be
no large scar -- not that it matters when you're my age and
you don't like to go swimming anyway. But there will be no
photo of me, as there was of Lyndon Johnson, holding up my
shirt to show a 6-inch scar to photographers.
Here I am, two days later, writing about it. I'm sore
when I walk around, but that's about it.
I learned the next day that my surgeon had conducted 5
gall-bladder removals on Tuesday. This is a common
ailment. Talk about a specialty! Here again we see the
wonders of a high division of labor economy. I bought the
services of a man who has done this, he estimates, a
thousand times.
Thirty years ago, I concluded that the greatest
invention of the modern age is the anesthetic. Even if you
need it only once in your life, it's there. It was
invented in 1844 by a Georgia dentist. Without it, a
surgeon could not do much more than hack away at a
gangrenous limb, with other people holding down the
patient. We all know the scene: "Gone With the Wind" in
the church-hospital.
I gave thanks for anesthesia two days ago, and I give
thanks today.
I also give thanks for capitalism. It has made
possible the high-tech world where a miniature camera lets
a surgeon see what he is doing under the patient's skin.
I give thanks for a personal physician who shows up at
7 in the morning, and then comes in to see me at 9 in the
evening. He didn't have to, but he did.
There are billions of people today in China and India
and Africa and Latin America who do not have access to such
high-tech healing. I recall the agony I was experiencing
two days ago, and I think: "How long could anyone
experience that, without hope?" He would die a slow,
agonizing death, unable to eat. He would starve to death.
We in the West are greatly blessed. Modern medicine
is not good at preventative care through nutrition, but
when it's time to cut, it cuts with great precision...."
Regards, Don |
