Holistic Health Leader Loses Mother Due To 'Neglect, Mistreatment And Lack Of Proper Care'
Michael Torchia personally experiences the horror of modern medicine
It's always painful to lose a loved one and it is never easy. But when you lose your mother and it very well may have been preventable, the feeling is magnified hundreds of times over. But this is exactly what is happening to my friend and personal trainer to the Hollywood stars Michael Torchia right now.
The leader of the Holistic Health Foundation received quite an eye-opening experience about the state of medical care in the United States of America recently after his 80-year-old mother suffered a heart attack. When he flew from California to Atlanta, Georgia to be with her, Michael was shocked by what he saw and could not believe the seeming lack of care and concern by the hospital treating the woman who gave birth to him.
On Sunday, Michael Torchia's mother passed away due in part to the "neglect, mistreatment and lack of proper care" as Michael put it in a brief column he wrote entitled "Hospital Doesn't Understand Life, Hastens Death." This is but a microcosm of a much bigger overall problem with medical treatment in the 21st century and should remind you why it's not always a good idea to trust and believe the so-called health "experts" in the world today.
Here's the story about what happened to Michael's mother in his own words:
I wrote recently about my mother, a Type-2 diabetic for most of her life, with a malfunctioning heart valve from birth. After age 80, she began having congestive heart failure attacks a few times a year. Every time she would have these attacks, I would fly out to Atlanta to help her with my expertise in holistic methods of healing and knowledge of nutrition.
Shortly after my treatments, she recovered quickly and went back to a normal lifestyle. I realized the power and healing ability of energy work from years of working with Reiki Masters from around the world. In addition, I have studied and utilized Reflexology with all my clients for over 20 years.
Two weeks ago, my mother had a heart attack and I immediately flew to Atlanta to help her recover. She was in the prestigious cardiac care center at Piedmont Hospital and doctors informed me that her body was slowly failing and she should be sent to a hospice to spend her last few days of life.
Refusing to accept the doctor's suggestion, I reviewed her medical charts and medical stats on her heart monitor. I began utilizing music to help stimulate her heart rate. The mind controls how fast or slow the heart will beat. It is a proven fact that the heart beats to the beat of the music and we cannot control it, so I asked the nurses to play classical music to stabilize her heart rate and maintain her blood pressure.
My mother's daily food chart showed she was barely consuming 500 calories a day which was causing her extremely weak condition and inability to talk coherently. After revising her food and water consumption, performing reflexology, energy work, giving her words of encouragement and lots of love, she made a dramatic improvement.
She went off her most of her meds and was supposed to go through physical therapy and return home the following week.
Unfortunately, after I returned to Los Angeles, the hospital doctors immediately moved to her to a general care section of the hospital and did not give her the personal care as we requested. The nursing staff went back to not feeding her enough calories, removed all monitoring equipment and never performed physical therapy, which was a crucial part of her recovery stage.
Instead of attending to her needs they ignored her cries to help her sit up, because her back was severely cramping. After the nursing staff got tired of her pleading, they strapped her legs and arms down and doped her up with sleeping pills.
Obviously, even in the most prestigious hospitals they do not believe in holistic healing and just rely on medicating patients. It is such a shame that most doctors have no respect for holistic methods of healing because they help people live better quality lives.
My mother died November 4th, 2007, suffering from neglect, mistreatment and lack of proper care. Statistics from universities around the country prove our health care system is not working and people are dying that could of survived longer and better quality lives. My mother was such a blessed woman to live a long and happy life and did not deserve to suffer at the end, she deserved to pass gracefully...
Obviously, Michael Torchia is hurting with the passing of his mother. But he makes some really good points about how doctors and others in the medical profession seem to just go through the motions of protocol rather than treating the individual. I understand they have procedures for handling various health issues, but we are not all the same and customized care is sometimes needed.
I'm not saying his mom could have been given a few more days, weeks, months, or years to live had they provided the attention she obviously needed. But it should anger anyone to hear of such traumatic conditions going on right here in America. When we talk about the state of health care in our culture today, these are the kind of nightmares that make you want to turn to holistic and alternative health options as a means for getting healthy and staying that way.
Livin' la vida low-carb is a nutritional holistic health method and is roundly criticized by most doctors, nutritionists, and medical "experts" as a dangerous fad that will lead to heart disease and a whole host of health problems. And yet the evidence in real people like me says otherwise. I'm as healthy as I've ever been in my entire life, my weight is stable, and I am more energetic and excited about life than ever before!
If I had stuck with what the doctors told me to do to lose weight and get healthy, then today I'd be a hungry, miserable low-fat dieter struggling to lose weight on my 500+ pound body, irritable that I would be stuck eating disgusting fat-free cheese and tofu, and mad at life that it would deal me such a cruel fat. But I didn't! I turned to an alternative that worked for me and it's still working four years later.
Let the story of Michael's mom remind you why you have chosen a path that runs counter to the conventional wisdom that prevails in the medical community. When the people who are put in charge of taking care of your health when you are in need just allow you to wither and die rather than try to make you better, then you'll be happy to know you have made the right decision for your health by sticking to the healthy low-carb lifestyle. It's a decision that I know I'll NEVER regret!
You can e-mail Michael Torchia at michael@operationfitness.com.
Labels: doctors, health, holistic health, low-carb, Michael Torchia
posted by Jimmy Moore at
11/05/2007 10:33:00 PM
4 Comments:
That's one of the worst things about living far away from family. It is my strong impression that being near a family member who's in a hospital or nursing home, dropping in to visit frequently, can make a difference in the care they get. It's not that the people who work there don't care -- but the staff is usually overworked, communication is poor, situations constantly changing, and there's always a tendency to revert to the norm. Even a simple thing like extra milk for my father at meals depended often on one of us being there to snatch it and feed it to him.
I have often been appalled that the medical staff of the hospitals I know, e.g. Yale New Haven Hospital, do not take care to ensure that their patients eat properly. Of course, the medical staff, including the nurses, leave it to the dietitians, management, and kitchens - I doubt doctors or nurses weigh in on the offerings. I have often wondered how these medical professionals expect people to be cured of their diseases or heal from their surgeries as quickly as possible in a condition of malnourishment.
The trays of food may arrive in the room on schedule, but food does not appear to be nutritious. It's cafeteria food prepared for patient menus. Tasteless, empty calories, vegetables cooked to death, industrial salad dressings, etc. - often low-fat, high carb choices. I don't mean to pick on Yale specifically, where the medical care is probably superior, but it's typical of what I know from visiting it and other nearby hospitals.
My mom is a recently retired nurse. She really needs a hip transplant but she refuses to be hospitalized. She'd rather life in pain than face the real dangers of hospitalization. I know of very few health care professionals who have any faith in our system.
In Europe things are certainly not better. My father, who died an awful, painful and slow death in a "prestigeous" University hospital as the result of a series of compounded blunders - after the then in-vogue ultra-low-fat Pritikin-style diet gave him heart problems and a brain tumor - was not even released from the hospital after his untimely death.
The funeral people returned empty-handed, with an empty coffin, because his death was deemed to be "an incident". That's bureaucratic proza for a series of colossal blunders. They froze him (literally!) and first I had to "identify" him as being indeed my father, as part of some stupid bureaucratic procedure.
I was in my early twenties then, and completely off-balance from what happened, but if I had known then what I know now I would probably have demolished half the hospital, brick by brick, to get some answers.
It was (and still is) an outrage how patients (and their next of kin) are often treated within the medical system. True care and respect are rare indeed. And as far as I can see, things only have worsened since. I know one thing for sure, though: my (very old) mother won't be the victim of the sickness industry, and their perceptions of "care". Over my dead body.
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