I hate doctors, and I don't want to go (take two)

The title sums it all up. I hate doctors. When have they done anything good for me? Every time I go, it turns out to be "nothing".

So should I conclude that it will always be "nothing"? The "it hasn't happened up to now, so it won't happen in the future" philosophy sucks rocks because it's illogical. It simply isn't true.

I am at the age - God, I hate that word - where I maybe need to worry. This is the time people are told to have screening tests like colonoscopies (which I always call colostomies by mistake - I freaked out a friend once by telling her I was supposed to have one) which scare me half to death because I've been told they can be agonizingly painful. One health forum had a comment from someone who said she would take her chances with serious disease rather than go through that again.

My husband collapsed on the floor about a year ago, and paramedics and police rushed over. Made me wonder why everyone ignores me when I have a medical problem, but then, he's male and considerably older than me. It might be heart disease, after all (because we all know women don't have heart attacks!). In the hospital they put him through a meat grinder, doing every possible diagnostic test on him. The follow-up was even more rigorous, cardiac, neurological, urological, bowel and guts and everything else they could ream out.

The result was exactly nothing.

So I don't want to go to the doctor. I don't want to go to the doctor because I've had some symptoms lately that are probably nothing, but at the same time scare the hell out of me.

It's funny, because Bill and I have talked about how we can't afford to live as long as our parents did (all four them were well over 90). In fact, we may have trouble affording our 70s. We've joked that if we make it to 80, we'll kill each other, kind of like a duel where we both shoot at once. But what if he misses, and I don't? Will I be charged with murder, or merely self-defense?

It doesn't sound good.

I think about cancer, everyone does, or do they? I don't know, I don't interview everyone in the world, or on the street. The thing is, people with cancer are usually seen as heroes, brave souls who keep smiling no matter how much it hurts. In contrast, don't ever get a psychiatric problem, for no one will visit you in the hospital with flowers and balloons. They will not. Talk about being left alone, but that is what happens. At a time when you are at your most vulnerable and in need of comfort, people shrink back in dread. They don't even talk about it except in whispers. This is not an idle statement, but based on some 50 years' experience. But I am doubted there, too. How can I even think that people could be so callous?

But cancer, now! There's a great opportunity for bravery, for heroism, for stoicism in the face of pain, and lots and lots of warm get-well wishes. Flowers, candy, visitors to perk you up, tons of Facebook encouragement, and So Much More.

Do I sound just a little bit cynical? I have my reasons.

I don't think I have cancer. So why go? I have this niggling worry. Shouldn't I just ignore it? I have had alarming symptoms for EIGHT years, with no relief because I've been told "we can't find anything" and "there's nothing we can do". Do I want to be called a hypochondriac? But how can you be a hypochondriac if you hate doctors and stay away for years at a time?

There is something cold and frightening about the medical assembly line, the way you come out the other end feeling like dressed meat ready for the oven. There is a "NEXT!" feeling that only seems to get worse over the years. They literally call it "processing patients", and see nothing untoward about it. Too many patients, not enough time, because the equipment is absurdly expensive, the tests take forever and suck up resources, and it's usually for nothing. 

But we are stuck with it. In the past, if you had cancer, you just died. Probably horribly, because there wasn't even a good way to manage pain. Unlike today, when it's the banner illness that has spawned a million fundraising walks in every color of the rainbow, it was heavily stigmatized: people didn't even say the name. Probably this was fear, a dread that "something" had taken you over, colonized your body and was eating away at you beyond your control. This "something" would suck out the marrow from your bones, cause you to waste away to a skeleton, and probably drive away all but the most loyal family members who probably prayed that it would all be over soon.

All kinds of stuff has been written about illness, its social and emotional significance, etc. Usually the sufferer is blamed for not having it all together emotionally, for having "unresolved issues" (as if everyone doesn't have those). I wonder now if it isn't just bloody bad luck. Have you noticed how unevenly luck and blessings are distributed in life? Ain't it a bitch, and don't you wish it was different? People still get sick and die, in spite of all that fancy equipment. I've had five friends die in the last few years, and three of them were only in their mid-50s. One who was exactly my age at the time pulled his truck over, opened the door, and fell to the ground dead. Perhaps his fate was better than the woman who battled breast cancer for years, or Glen, one of the most beautiful men I have ever known, who escaped from a psych ward, swallowed a bottle of pills, and was found frozen to death beside the railroad tracks.

Oh, and that's another thing: the war imagery we use, especially for cancer. She "battled" breast cancer, she "waged a valiant struggle", and sometimes she "triumphed" or scored a "victory" over it. I wonder why we do this. No one questions it, and when no one questions something I just get furious because we are PEOPLE, not cattle! My feeling has always been that you should question everything, especially loony social trends. The war imagery not only renders the sufferer especially valuable for being a "good soldier" (and we still think the military is special, no matter what anyone says), it places the whole thing at a safe, fictionalized distance, as if we're watching a World War II movie on TV or going to the Cenotaph for 45 minutes to watch old men stand in the rain.

Ah, the stoicism, the smiling in the face of doom. I wonder why people feel they have to do this, why it has become such a cultural imperative. If I had cancer, I think I'd raise bloody hell and be so hard to get along with, NO ONE would come visit me (a situation I should be used to by now). Then again, maybe I'd be terrified. I know I would not be stoical. I'd be shit-scared and probably miserable from all the clinical attention, the being fed through machines with no one talking to you.

I've heard it said that quite often, when you get your diagnosis, the doctor comes in the room, says to the patient "you have cancer", then turns and leaves you sitting there alone. If I don't go, I won't hear that, will I? These guys are sons-of-bitches, aren't they? Are there any good ones? Well, OK, my brother-in-law, he's a Gunning man and as far as I'm concerned they're all great, but he lives all the way across the country.

If I don't go, I don't need to hear any of that shit. But if I don't go, this little scritchy-scrabbly feeling in my gut may not stop for a long time. If ever.

Our girl at the Federal Election!

My 15-year-old granddaughter Caitlin helps her CTV News reporter/Mom cover the Federal Election in Canada! While the NDP did not sweep the country as hoped, local Vancouver representation is stronger than ever. Note how Caitlin's sweater matched Jagmeet Singh's turban! Most adults aren't as politically aware/astute as Caitlin. Wow, what a girl! I literally watched this kid get born, and it amazes me how every stage of her life has unfolded so far. More great things to come!

She comes sailing on the wind

Her wings flashing in the sun

On a journey just begun

She flies on!

And yet you will weep, and know why

Spinning W. C. Fields doll

Oh, Emmy, Emmy, EMMY!

I still find this painful to watch. A woman whom I thought was an environmentalist (with a second channel devoted to beekeeping and raising free-range hens) is shilling for Clorox Ultra Clean disinfectant wipes. Single-use wipes, whether flushed or thrown out, are a worse environmental hazard than plastic straws, though people seem to think they just sort of "disappear" after they use them once and discard them. Not only that, but they are loaded with chemicals that will NOT ONLY kill bacteria, but all manner of living things. She gleefully pitches these things, shaking the huge plastic silo beside her head, pulling it into frame dramatically, popping open the top and pulling out one after the other (for of course it takes half a dozen wipes to clean up after preparing one dish!), with a gleeful look that is almost dizzy with joy. I don't think I have ever seen her so pleased.

I don't get it.

Her fans say things like, "But Emmy WOULD NEVER use a product which is harmful for the environment." This is the same "would never defense" that comes up in sexual assault cases. Upwards of eleven BILLION wipes a year end up choking marine life to death, or spewing carbon emissions as they are incinerated in landfills.

No, Emmy. No. 

Just no.

EMMY! You let us all down!

Oh, how, how do I get myself into these states of disillusionment? And why do I always (always) feel like the only one who notices these things on YouTube? For every time I notice them, or at least dare to say anything about it, I feel like I am attacked from all sides.

So why am I so surprised at what happened with Emmy (emmymadeinjapan)? Emmy is YouTube’s sweetheart, a Chinese-American who tastes, tests and prepares foods, not just from all over the world but from every part of history. Her treatment of usually-disdained subjects like prison recipes and Depression-era food substitutes is respectful, intriguing, and take us to culinary places we wouldn't otherwise go.

But there is a snake in Eden, and everyone is being very quick to look away.

I've been subscribed to Emmy's channel for years (until yesterday), watched most of her videos, and felt engaged and interested in at least three out of four. But judging by all the lively and downright loving comments from her 1.6 million subscribers, it’s obvious that her personality is a huge factor here. There is a sweetness about her that is not cloying, a sometimes-wacky humour, an open, adventurous and non-judgemental quality we hardly ever see on the internet, and an effort to find SOME good even in her most “iffy” food experiments.

When I discovered she has a separate channel dedicated to beekeeping, raising hens, and other forms of urban homesteading, I assumed she was a serious environmentalist who would be passionate about saving the bees from the alarming wave of extinction about to claim them. Surely she would be aware of  the relentless environmental degradation which has brought her beloved bees to this perilous state, and the mountains of inert plastic we’ve buried our sweet earth under.

But I was wrong about this. So wrong. 

Like most big-box YouTubers, Emmy took on formal sponsors some time ago, with the ad sometimes repeated throughout the video so you can’t just click it away.  Up to now, most of these seemed like  products she endorsed and used herself, like fresh  food delivery, glasses frames, etc. She talks these products up in her personable, accessible way (and in a clear voice that many find soothing). In other words, she has a natural gift for flogging products and making sales.

BUT.

The last video I began to watch was a recipe for some kind of spicy Korean chicken, and I prepared myself for something entertaining – when  she introduced her sponsor for the video.

CLOROX ULTRA CLEAN Disinfecting Kitchen Wipes.

To my profound discomfort and growing dismay, she smilingly and uncritically introduced and demonstrated these single-use, chemically-laden things as something you really need to use for kitchen cleanliness and safety. In fact, she kept pulling them out of the mammoth plastic silo with the CLOROX logo blaring on the front, excitedly demonstrating them with great grinning swipes that just made my heart sink. 

Emmy. 

She did this maybe three or four times in a twelve-minute video. Once I put my jaw back on, I started to look deeper into the subject, which made me feel even worse.

Kitchen wipes, baby wipes, ALL wipes, are single-use. Non-biodegradable. Loaded with bacteria-nuking chemicals, they have plastic in them. Yes. Plastic, that thing the earth is drowning in, that thing which takes up space as big as whole countries and which will soon inhabit more of the ocean than fish. Discarded single-use wipes (whether the manufacturer claims they biodegrade or not) either end up in our already-perilously-endangered waterways, where fish and wild animals die from ingesting them, or in landfills, where they will sit for more than a century, oozing toxic chemicals and not breaking down at all. In fact, the only way to get rid of them is to burn them, spewing out toxic carbon emissions.

These cleaning things? They're not. Clean. At all. 

It was not hard  for me to find horror stories about disposable wipes and the grotesque results of using them once and throwing them away. I had already heard about “fatbergs”, giant lumps of foul waste the size of a BUS, which completely block water systems and are made of BILLIONS of discarded wipes fused together with kitchen grease.

Another article I found stated that single-use antibacterial wipes are about as ineffective and unnecessary as antibacterial hand soap. In other words – it’s a bust. They do nothing that ordinary soap and water won’t do. One article stated that no matter WHAT you wipe your kitchen counter with, the bacteria will begin to regenerate in 20 minutes. A cloth dampened in plain soap and water - and add a few drops of vinegar and/or bleach, if you want - will do just as good a job, and you can throw it in the wash and re-use it. But the massive corporations that push these things have scored a major victory in creating a “need” – a useless, expensive, environmentally disastrous, bogus need. 

I don’t know why I allowed myself to feel so astonished, so – hurt about Emmy’s cheerful, sunny and somewhat sickening endorsement of this environmentally-indefensible product, and how her fans all fell into line and congratulated her on getting the “big bucks” she deserves. Others (strangely) insisted she will put the money she earns back into her videos and into raising her sons, as if they needed to justify or defend her choice of product before anyone even dared to challenge it. Which, as far as I can see, no one did.

When I posted a few dismayed comments after the video, there was quite a lot of angry and nasty backlash (which I expected) from her fans, claiming the links to articles I posted were fake, ridiculous, wrong, and even used words like “MAY harm” and “MIGHT destroy”, rather than “the whole world is going to hell because of this”. I was being dismissed as some kind of party-pooping tree-hugger. I almost heard them saying, "If Emmy does it, it MUST be right." (Or does Emmy's endorsement somehow "make" it right? That's even more frightening.)

I should not have been so naïve about the smoke-and-mirrors world of YouTube. Emmy the beekeeper and hen-raiser is not putting her money where her mouth is. You can’t tell me she doesn’t know about these environmental risks, and how irresponsible it is to not just use but to SELL this toxic shit to the people who love her.  One irate commenter lit into me and said, “Emmy HAD to use that  Clorox wipe. It’s a safety issue. She was cooking CHICKEN!” (I did not remind her that it took her more like six wipes to disinfect the counter.) But what about the other 1.6 million people she is selling them to? Emmy is a trusted figure, a conservationist, a BEEKEEPER for God's sake, and if SHE says it's OK, then a lot of people will think that it somehow must be.

Even if we put all that aside – which I can’t – there is the fact that YouTube “influencers” do just that – they set an example, for good or ill. Emmy is so pure in other ways, so loved, so wholesome and tenderly nurturing of her hens and her bees, that surely we can look the other way and just let this one go by.

BUT. NO.

Climate scientists know that time is running out. So what’s one more huge, sterile-looking, Emmy-dwarfing plastic silo of Clorox wipes? It sure seems to be making Emmy feel happy, judging by her dizzy joy in using them. Watch Emmy swipe, watch Emmy swirl those toxic rags around on her gleaming counter! The studied camera-angles and her exuberant but well-timed-and-practiced body language turn her into the ideal corporate shill.

Is this what eventually happens to you when you get famous? It's a clear example of either moral blindness (and it's hard for me to imagine that someone as  smart as Emmy doesn't see how destructive this product is), or the ruthlessness that seeps into your personality when people tell you a thousand times a day how wonderful you are. 

One way or another, her slightly scary exuberance swooshing and swirling these things around will sift down to the benumbed consumer, who has largely given up on saving a doomed planet. And then there are the kids (including her kids). They pick up on all kinds of things, such as: it’s OK, even desirable, to use and promote and sell chemically-laden pollutants (which don’t even work!) to make money for yourself. 

Emmy, if you love your subscribers the way you seem to, and if you truly care about the planet you live on and its precious wild things, DITCH the corporate sponsorship and the dreadfully damaging products they spew. You don't need them, your subscribers don't need them, NOBODY needs them. No doubt she is oblivious to the profound disconnect between flogging wipes and keeping bees, and most of her fans will continue to support her no matter what she does. So I have unsubscribed from her channel, and from now on will trust no one in the sad, scrambling con game that is YouTube.

ADDENDUM. This is an excerpt from an article in a UK paper that summarizes the environmental catastrophe of disposable wipes. As I look at the gifs I made of a grinning Emmy gleefully pulling out and using one wipe after another (not even using the same wipe twice!), it makes me feel queasy. And sad. 

"Campaigners are urging the government to phase out the astonishing 11 billion wet wipes used in this country each year, many of which are causing an environmental catastrophe. They are behind 93% of blockages in UK sewers and are even changing the shape of our rivers as they pile up on beds and banks.

Scientists say many people are unaware of the damage the wipes are causing, with the vast majority containing non-biodegradable plastic. The industry has flourished with a broad range of wipes for removing make-up, cleaning all types
of skin and surfaces, looking after babies’ bottoms and also to apply insect repellent or sunscreen.

Within the last decade, City to Sea said there had been a 400% increase in the number of used wipes found on beaches. Founder of campaign group Natalie Fee said: ‘The problems with wet wipes are threefold. Those that are flushed, clog up our pipes and sewers and contribute to giant fatbergs. This then makes our sewage systems overflow and other plastics spill into our waterways and seas, putting marine life at risk. Those that are discarded in the bins will often end up in landfill or get incinerated, contributing to carbon emissions. Ideally, we want people to stop using them and treat them like they would any other single-use plastic.’ 

'There are products being used every day in our bathrooms that we don’t think of as plastic that are causing terrible environmental problems. But people are completely unaware. They know about single use plastics, like cups and straws, and they change their habits. But manufacturers do not put proper information on the packing about the amount of plastic and even hint these things can be flushed, which is disastrous. It shouldn’t be possible to sell these products without making clear how harmful to the environment they are. People need to know there are alternatives out there that do not choke our rivers.'

Weird, fake Paganini gif

Buy this guy's stuff!

Digital art by ChetArt (Chet Phillips). Buy it now!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChetArt?ref=hdr_shop_menu&section_id=20382669

MOTHRA!

It's another Mothra Monday