Weekly Warning Words

     In the dusk's late light, I had stepped off a wall thinking this was the trail I followed in California. I took a bad fall as I came down on my right foot. I felt that I was badly hurt but kept walking boldly to my temporary night quarters. By the next morning, my right thigh seemed swollen & felt hot. Two days of unaccustomed rest didn't cure my worries. Yet, I made it to L.A. Airport & back home to Kona.

     Too early the following morning, the pain became unbearable & my right leg unusable. An ambulance delivered me to the Kona Hospital - much too slow because 2 half-witted first-aiders tried to reset my hip bone & also check heart, lungs & lots more in spite of my cursing them for their labors of no love. Five hours later, a phi-sickian in the Emergency room sedated me. I was told that a podiatrist would arrive in a few hours & take good care of my needs. Meanwhile, X Rays had been taken & retaken to right something wrong, in 20 different positions. Thus, John W. Bellatti, MD, met me in the flesh. Still benumbed, I had to sign an irresponsibility document, long pages in small print. "Only a formality" while I couldn't see, hear well or think. I had no idea what, where & why things developed in the slowest possible way as I was pushed or pulled to an operating room. After hours more of wait & no see, because I might have eaten something (which I had not since the previous noon), an expensive anesthetist put me to sleep. My 3 days of helplessness cost Medicare & HMSA (more than some 20 years ago) $20,000. Weeks later, I saw many pages of tools & fooleries charged to me. Counting 70 items of no real significance I soon gave up on trying to protect taxpayers. When I limped away on crutches, I left a nicely cushioned matrass to a lucky finder as I had to report to dock Thor Bellatti in his consultation compartment only a mile away: "Can you see the tiny scar in your side? I used only a tiny blade on a lather drill to drive 3 steel screws through the 2 parts of your broken femor. Hardly a drop of blood. Wonderful! The break will heal in a month, etc."

     The weekly visit to Bellatti (just for him to X Ray) & the painful & expensive physical therapy elsewhere made me wonder about the man's expertise. In the 9th month the pix still showed a wide gap to the left while the now thickened right bony area still showed where bone was shoved inside bone. I felt crippled, outraged & violated. Did this invasion of my bloodstream restir my prostate cancer which had been dormant & most negligible for a few years? Was the costly operation necessary? With some help, I got hold of the first X-Rays before the Bellatti attack on my health. I asked a famous surgeon to tell me what she would have done for me & to me. Her answer: "This looks like a clean cut; the broken parts of your femor leave no airspace. An elastic ladies garment & a week of rest would almost glue the parts together in a month."

     The good lady had also shown the X-Rays to 2 colleagues. When I told her what my surgeon had done to me, she called it medical malpractice. "Nobody doing this to a living person should be allowed to practise medicine." Yet, when I asked for her written affidavit, she shrunk back. Neither she nor her 2 partners would bear witness against a colleague. Only if I was sued by that butcher, all 3 would have to stand by me.

     Sad-faced I returned the telling plastics, then I told the evil one about a lady's judgement. Bellatti retorted that he was the specialist; the woman didn't know what she was talking about. Only when he learned who she was, he relented: "I am always willing to learn." I barely suppressed my: "You incompetent bastard; how many more will you cripple or kill?"

     I am too sick to go to court. But if that butcher would only sue, I'll have a great trial lawyer, 3 doctoral witnesses & a short list of folks also crippled by this Kealakekua monster, including a woman whose broken arm he misshaped, so she is in perpetual pain.

     And how did I acquire my prostate cancer? Drs. Boone, James, a late cardiac doctor & 3 others seemed to have conspired sending me to Dr. Rodgers, at that time the only urologist in Kona. Yes, I had to admit: "I have to get up a few times at night to urinate." Had I already traveled again & met dozens of non-American physicians who told me that nowhere in the civilized world an operation is recommended or allowed to tackle a little night fluidity. One of my young travel partners said it clearly: "Better to pee 2 or 3 times a night than take bloody risks of cutting where it hurts; cuts have serious unforeseen consequences when the bloodstream gets invaded by dirty liquids." However, that was 5 years too late.

     Dr. Rodgers had already cut into my prostate 3 times in a year, twice with overlong hospitalization at an enormous price when I had no insurance, the 3rd time in his office. Each time I was forced to take my blood and urine flow to the W.C. 5-8 times a night & more often during the day. I shrank from the tall, old beef cutter and drove to Hilo with a hiking friend. A urologist from East India let a young servant do it to me, the first time at the hospital, the 2nd time in his own office. Then he got honest: "You will need the recut about every 3 months until you die from possible complications."

     Obviously, the scars all the way to my bladder obstructed more than the cuttings removed. The urine was my ruin, but I let myself go. Went hiking again with the clubs which I founded & voyaging around the world - until I felt too sick, weak & maladjusted. Dr. Silber had me take a blood test because he felt some growth. The PSA was warningly high. He referred me to Jon K. Lattimer, MD, a new Kealakekua urologist. Another blood test & Hilo Hospital. X-Rays & low-body immersion in picture-perfect imagery. I could see the cancer in red discolor. Emergency treatment! Cancel your trip. Ask back your $4000 payment etc.

     After waiting a few more weeks, I moved into a modest room connected with Queen's Medical Center for 6 or 7 weeks of radiation treatment, 5 days a week. I was the first patient Tu. through Fri. & the last on Mondays. That gave me 2 ½ days in Kona to work my garden & carry bagsful & a knapsack full of passion fruits to the hospital & Waikiki Beach. Did the long walk between Queens & Waikiki, the hard work at home & the many fruits save my life?

     Perhaps so. For of the 106 prostate cancer-patients I met at Kona, Hilo & Honolulu hospitals 104 are dead. Only tall Hank & short me are alive although all were much younger than I.

     Canadian, English, German & other specialists were sure that the greed of American physicians & eagerness to reap the money harvest caused prostate cancer. These observations I wrote up with the request for worldwide pursuance of all circumstantial evidence. But the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine didn't have the decency to confirm receipt of my epistle, nor did they author a scientific investigation. With what result?

     Now there are ever more money-hungry violators of the former Hippocrates Oath even in advanced socialistic cultures. We have more prostate cancer cases than ever before. It is the money-maker for hospitals, surgeons, assistants, insurance companies & pharmaceutical companies. With the masterful assistance of President, Vice, Dr. Frist, a truly Evil Empire has been built around this cancer alone. If these bandits win on November 2, all their other evils will also come to the fore & enforce an early Armageddon - for Christ's sakes.

     I got to mention something good, interesting but no more provable. About 65 years ago, I was the only half-trained elementary teacher at the "Asia Seminar" under Dr. Tongg, in Shanghai, China. I even became there Director of Education & Curriculum. Our graduate students were mostly teachers I was the only one who taught what I had never studied. As an avid reader, I had come across the legend of bone marrow which produces red-blood platelets for continued growth or yellow fat tissues.

     With aging, pressures near the surface of the scull make fat replace blood, starting in back "Soon you will be able to call me a bald fathead." We discussed remedial action & agreed that men should give long & vigorous massages to the top of their head, many times a day, even if brittle hairs fell to their feet. 2 of the aging teacher-students took hours following the non-doctor's advice & actually recovered with thin hair their early blank and bleak spots. Unfortunately, no witnesses were left within a year. Both were executed by Chiang-Kai-Shek. Had they not openly explained that they refused to bomb other Chinese, even if they were Communists? They would drop their bombs in the Huang-Ho (River), get an award from the Reds, would be indoctrinated & sent to bomb the Nationalists. Some of my students flew many times each way until discovered. Would other radicals work equally hard on their sculls?

Week 57- October 20, 2004 - Demonstrative Democrats or Reed-Publicans?

October 13, 2004 - Week 56 - Practising With Licence

BY DR. BRUNO J. KEITH