I’ve gone through a number of issues and changes in recent years, and few have been more disturbing, frightening, complex than my decision, finally made this week to abandon the mainstream health care system.

I am not the sort of person viscerally drawn to alternative medications, not until recently. I came to consciousness about health care when I came to see how tainted the medical system has become by money, politics, fear, greed, pharmaceutical companies, medical suppliers, tests, regulations, lawsuits and lawyers. And how bad these people made me feel, how frightened and confused.

I last saw a doctor nearly three years ago, a young man I liked. We had become friends.He told me he hated the pill factory he was working in. Lawyers told the doctors there they needed to prescribe things – tests and pills -so that people couldn’t sue them for doing nothing. “We don’t look for health,” he said, “the system doesn’t work on health. We never let the body heal.” I appreciated that. He said he no longer knew how to diagnose a patient,  only to order tests and write prescriptions. He told me to get a vegetable mixer and start using it.

This confirmed what I had been feeling. For some years doctors had been frightening me, telling me things that did not come true, ordering tests that were not necessary, cautioning me about things that might do me in down the road, warning me about my body and my life.

Doctors told me I needed to be on prostate medication, so I wouldn’t get cancer. And pills and tests and meters so I could manage my blood sugar. And sleeping pills to help me sleep, and blood pressure and cholesterol medications so I wouldn’t have a heart attack. No doctor ever told me I might manage these things myself, or that nutrition could affect these things, or that the side affects of these medications could be far worse than the illnesses they are supposed to prevent. I came to see this use of fear to bully and overwhelm anxious people into tests and medications in a system that seemed to me ravaged and corrupted by lobbyists and congressmen and bureaucrats. As an aging person, I do not want to be part of a system draining the country, threatening the young, and promoting notions of aging and death I found truly horrifying and unacceptable.

I am healthy, and in fact, getting healthier, on no medications of any kind. I feel good, have much energy and happiness in my life. I feel strong, finally about my decision, even though much of society would consider me mad and irresponsible. A good friend begged me to stay with conventional medicine and challenged me to defend my decision. I can’t, I told him. It’s not an argument. It’s how I choose to live.

As I got older, I did not want a life bounded by doctor’s visits, tests, pills,  pharmaceutical visits, struggles with insurance company or private and personal decisions. How quickly that could become the focus of my life, my conversation, choke my creativity and energy, alter my sense of self, dignity and control. I wanted to control how I age, and then, how I die. Not compatible  with mainstream medicine. I went to a spiritual counselor, began meditating. I found a massage therapist, and began to explore energy work and its affect on the body. I studied nutrition and have altered almost everything about shopping and our diets ( I shop and cook in our family ). I chose my own form of exercise, being active on the farm and walking daily. I am learning about the connection between the body and the soul, and the need to consider both in any kind of issue relating to health.

The people in my health care system are people I can talk to – they make time for me. They make me feel healthy and safe and give me many good ideas about how I can be healthier. They do not make much money and they never frighten me. They love what they do, and it is a pleasure to talk to any of them. I look forward to seeing them. They do not have TV’s in their waiting rooms showing cancer and diabetes ads sponsored by drug companies. That seems very healthy to me.

I am meeting next week with a naturopathic physician, and if he accepts me as a primary patient, I will leave mainstream medicine behind totally, and for good, barring an accident or some illness that requires it.

I will keep my health care in case of emergency. This is how I feel, not how anyone else should feel. It is not an argument. It is a choice.

I like the sound of this new doctor. In his questionnaire, he asks me what three things I expect of him:

I said first, to be my physician. Secondly, to help me be healthy and age well. And finally, to help me die well and out of the clutches of a system driven mad by greed and fear and insecurity.