Wellness and Disease

Our most recent class featured Jill Hoffman, a local ND, and her lesson introduced us to blood chemistry and analysis. It was so interesting!

One small idea was mentioned between the urinalysis discussion and the fact that neutrophil numbers increase with stress: our clients will manage their own diseases, and we will do what we can to help provide wellness.

Jill was not in an earlier class when we discussed expectation and attachment to outcome- essentially, we need to model a "not affected presence" and let people who come to us for care proceed at their own pace. We can't force them, we can't superimpose our own agenda, we can't take their path personally. And yet here she was, driving that very point home.

She came to it by way of the sample CBC we were looking at. A lab report gives individual results, as well as a range of 'normal' results outside of which are disease states. Often, we were referencing a text by Weatherby and Ferguson, NDs, simply called Blood Chemistry and CBC Analysis. These two redefine the 'normals' on these tests to provide narrower ranges for optimum health, not the wider disease states.

Jill said that we are looking for wellness in a small range, and that we can't look for diseases. In this country, we will run into legal trouble with the medical community by suggesting that we do. And yet, people will come to us with a list of things that need fixing.

 The idea that we are providing wellness, and NOT alleviating/removing/eradicating disease, is a profound one for me. Wellness is often only recognized by its absence, because our society identifies with and labels by our problems. I imagine that the act of shifting perspectives, of redefining responsibility for care and health, of positioning myself as a teacher or coach will be a never-ending dance.