Dink

Hello Everyone,

My name is Amy Hitt, and Al is my twin brother. Just kidding! But, we were born on the same day. I just happened to arrive a few years before he did. Al is actually my second "double" cousin, I think. Something like that anyway. No matter what the title, it is still nepotism.

I have enjoyed reading all of the wonderful articles since Desperate Houseflies began, and I am honored to be a part of it. When Al asked me to join the magazine, he told me to pick a topic, so I picked health, and here is why . . .

In 1999, my eighty-year-old grandfather, “Dink”, finally succumbed to his life-long (or at least during my whole life) battle with heart disease. Interesting things is, as I understand it, it wasn’t his heart that quit working and caused his death, it was his kidneys that got him. Why? After thirty some odd years of taking a handful of synthetic medicine every day, his kidneys said—no more will we process these foreign substances. And, they just stopped. And, he had grown so weak that he just stopped as well.

To me, my grandfather was a wonderful man—full of humor and art. During the last couple years of his life I watched a man, who had always been sick ever since I had known him, go from just sick to debilitatingly sick—from “ I need to rest a bit” to “ I need to rest a lot”—from “building this house has worn me out” to “I almost couldn’t get out of the bathtub today.” And, as I watched him fade away, because Western Medicine couldn’t save him, I started studying Eastern Medicine, and I’ve been studying it ever since.

Now, I have no idea if Eastern Medicine could have kept my grandfather alive longer. He lived a very long and full life as it was. But the question of why some people get sick and stay sick, while others don’t—boggles my mind.

Early yesterday morning, we lost my forty-year-old cousin, Michelle, to cancer. She only lived six months after she found out she had the disease. She left behind a husband and a fourteen-year-old daughter.

I work with several people who have some sort of cancer.

Tennessee, the state I live in, is on the top ten list for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Why? I have no idea. Mississippi and Arkansas are right up there, too.

Is it the way we live or eat or think or believe? I just don’t know.

So, on some level that is my quest, and I welcome you to join me.

I intend to use all types of sources on my quest—Western Medicine, Eastern Medicine, Religion, Psychology, Philosophy—you name it.

Here are a couple of quotes to think about for next week:

“… what we believe to be the precursor of all life-threatening illnesses—negative thinking.” You Can’t Afford The Luxury of a Negative Thought by John-Roger & Peter McWilliams (1988)

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” I Corinthians 3:16

Thanks!