Is This As Good As it Gets?

I love the line Jack Nicolson says in the movie, “As Good as it Gets” where he tells the woman he is in love with…“You make me want to be a better man!”

The waist length silky blond hair, the perpetually laughing eyes, match perfectly with the slightly mischievous and cute smiling red lips of the energetic and joyful seven year old girl that bounds into my treatment room.

That she is intelligent beyond her years is obvious as she rattles off the memorized carbs, protein, and fats in one slice of three different brands of Ezekial bread. She has had to grow up faster than other girls her own age. She has been diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes.

She holds herself very bravely in the face of over 2000 needle pricks and insulin shots per year and dutifully passes on opportunities to sneak candy or sweets.

As a doctor practicing American Biological Medicine I know from the research that this form of Diabetes is supposed to be incurable. One research article I found even said that there has never been a cured case.

I ponder her life.

Is this as good as it gets?

She was not born with this malady.

She was fine for years and one day it all changed for unknown reasons.

The initial doctors never stopped to even ask “Why is this happening?”

Like so much of conventional medicine’s answer to collections of symptoms… “We know what to call it…and we know how to manage it…better get used to it, because this is as good as your life is going to get!”

She smiles up at me bravely and even joyfully as she gleefully tells me another joke as I treat her.

She understands American Biological Medicine is striving to help get her body into its most optimum functioning and integrity as possible.

She understands I cannot personally heal even the simplest paper cut. She knows that only her body can correct this problem.

All I can do is the best I can do.

I have grown quite fond of this girl with the indomitable spirit.

I am pushed to go beyond what is accepted. Though I cannot not say it aloud I want to scream...“No! This is not as good as it gets! Not on my shift!”

Like Jack Nicholson’s movie line, I want to tell her, “You make me want to be a better doctor!”

I salute you all who struggle to maintain the quest of restoring your health and life!

Dr. David A. Jernigan Share