Dear Dr. John sincerely,
D. Brian Burghart
bria nb@ new srev iew. com
ILLUST RATION BY MELISS A BERNAR D
Conventional medicine was fun for a fling, but I have to see other doctors now
Dear Dr. John, It’s with a heavy heart that I
say this. We’ve been together for so long. I can’t remember the first time you saw my naked body. And now that I’ve passed 50 years, you want to move to the anal stuff. I mean, it’s not that I’m not looking forward to our kinky new play—because I am—but I feel we’ve grown in different directions, and I know that while I’m going to continue to see you for the rest of my life, I’m also going to have to see other doctors—not the least of whom is that cardiologist that you recently brought in for a sick three-way.
I know this has got to come as a shock to you. Let me set your heart at ease: It’s not you, it’s me. No. Fuck it. It’s you. I don’t know when I realized that there was something flawed about our liaison. It might have been the very first time I came into your office, and you looked at me so lasciviously. “Brian, your blood pressure is a little high, why don’t we put you on some meds to bring it down.” “Well, I’d rather lose a little weight and handle it that way.” “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that, but I’ve never, never seen anyone actually maintain control for the rest of their life through diet and exercise.” But I did—for more than a decade now. Then there was the time
you wanted my gall bladder removed because I had constant heartburn. Turned out my belt was too tight. Thank goodness my friend John Murphy mentioned the possibility to me. It seems like you should have known something about that. And then there was the diabetes. The spats we had over that one: “I think I can fix it with diet and exercise, doc.” “Oh, just have a little bit of this Metformin, it’ll make it easier to take the weight off.” Of course, it turns out that Metformin causes something called “peripheral neuropathy,” pins and needles in the hands and feet. I can truly say you made me tingle. Fortunately, just a week off the Metformin, and the tingling’s already fading. I never was diagnosed “dia-
betic,” but I did fight the “metabolic syndrome” to a standstill—despite the horrible advice from friends and lovers—and now I daresay with a Hemoglobin A1c of 4.7, my numbers are better than yours. And now it’s the heart. It started as a little tiff over whether I’d take statins, based on the results of a bad blood test. “People who take statins live longer” was the argument that finally sold me. I took one, simvastatin, and it damned near did me in. Angry at work, unable to sleep, forgetful, distracted—a recipe for destruction for a journalist who requires a certain level of attention to detail. Oh, you tease! “So go get a Cardiac CT scan, and prove to me
you don’t need to take them; let’s see if you’re not in the bottom 10 percent. You’re making me look bad, the other doctors would say, ‘Are you crazy? This guy should be on statins.’” So I got the scan. I paid for it out of my pocket since insurance wouldn’t. And that’s when you broke my heart: Athrosclerosis. That’s quite literally a death sentence without an execution date. In fact, cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer in America, with more than 800,000 deaths in 2005, according to WebMD. Unless I die in an accident, I will die of atherosclerosis. Probably not today (not before I finish this letter, anyway), but it’s about 50-50 that I’ll have an “event” in the next 10 years. It may be called a stroke or it may be called a heart attack, but it’ll be from these calcified arteries. “No,” you said, “there is nothing that will remove the blockages, but statins will help prevent it from getting worse.”
“Dear DR. JOHN”
continued on page 12
OPINION
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GREEN
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MUSICBEAT
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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS
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THIS WEEK
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MISCELLANY
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APRIL 26, 2012
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RN&R
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