Julie Pippert: Using My Words

When I tell people that pollution made me sick, I get one of two reactions: absolute agreement or utter disbelief. I'm not sure why we’re so skeptical that we have a serious pollution problem in our country and that pollution is unhealthy. I think it’s an understandable disbelief, though; it’s the same disbelief we feel when people do terrible things to other people on purpose. But it happens, such as polluting our environment with harmful things---however inconvenient it might be to accept this. It's inconvenient to believe that the industry that makes Houston so prosperous is also the thing that is most harmful to it. It's inconvenient to believe that there are harmful pollutants in our air, water, soil, food, shampoo, cosmetics, and yes, even our children's toys. It's inconvenient to believe that these things---these everyday things---could seriously harm us and our children. But more than that, it's scary, so it's easier to turn our faces and hide from t...

Today I had another appointment with the endocrinologist to discuss the treatment failure and the next step to keeping me functional. No wait, forget functional; I'd like to be well again. You know, healthy, with energy and a mind. In general, as a rule, rather than as a rare exception. See, here's the perplexing thing: my body is acting like it has tumors. But it doesn't. We tried treating me as if I did have the tumors and that stopped the symptoms but created a new ball of problems. So we stopped treatment. My main question is why? My next question is how do we fix it? The doctor visit today was confusing because there really wasn't time to have an actual conversation; it was, instead, a simple exchange of information. He'd been lecturing all morning and was running late, so I felt like I was spinning in a tornado. However, he proposed a new theory, the first time I've heard a doctor mention this although as I've slugged my way through the syrupy thick ba...

It turns out that the human body is a fragile thing, delicately connected through balanced and interdependent systems. If one domino falls, the rest will collapse inelegantly behind it. It turns out that my body has done this. It turns out, that despite modern advances in medicine and many tests, we will not know why this has happened, and my doctor tells me, in fact, we are not even really sure what has happened. We can, it seems, only see the effects, and treat it as best we can, piece by piece, that way, and cross our fingers. Cross our fingers. Cross our fingers that if we shut down the system and reboot, it will come back up working properly. I'm not a big believer in luck. Luck to me is the popular kid who only notices me when she needs answer to homework, which isn't very often because luck is quite bright enough on her own. When luck grants me a favor, she is quick to ask for payment. Have a baby, lose a cat, for example. In order that I see proper balance in the univer...