Suburban Shamans and a MRI

The rhythmic drumming of the machine pounded as the cold gadolinium pumped into my veins. It was really strange at first, feeling the liquid move through my body. Like ice water on a hot summer's day, it flowed up my arm, across my chest and into my head. I panicked at first, feeling the foreign substance invading my body move without my control, but with the continual drumming of the machine, I eventually settled in.

I couldn’t move my head at all. It was packed in tight with foam and a weird plastic donut that gave me narrow vision of the blank white surface of the machine's tunnel. I stared at the surface, thinking of a conversation I had had with my friend. It started out as any other ordinary conversation, but we eventually got talking about the silliness of holistic medicine and how people believe essential oils can solve all their problems.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy essential oils and see value in them, but I do believe there is an extent to how valuable they are in medical practices. Yes, a diffuser filled with peppermint can bring a cleansing feeling to a room, but I don’t think there’s any amount of Tea Tree that will cure cancer. Now I hear you, your conversations with your local suburban shaman are probably very convincing, but the medical field has been backed by hundreds of years of research with proven results, while your holistic medicine is backed by hours in some dude's backyard with questionable results.

Alright, I can already hear the angry responses stating plants are backed by millions of years by the earth, and ancient civilizations used plants for healing for thousands of years. Yeah, I get that, but let's be honest, those civilizations were running around in animal furs and had skins strapped to their feet. If I had to guess, I would say they would have preferred a trained professional who knows exactly how to treat an illness over the witch doctor who used leeches as a treatment.

Now, here's the thing, as much as I’m goofing on holistic medicine, I’m kinda into it. I may sound hypocritical, but I’m honest by saying I trust the extra spicy Tai food I order when I’m sick, over going to the doctor and being prescribed ibuprofen. I take turmeric every day, and I have a deep fear of prescription drugs, and I find it so irresponsible for the medical field to hand out pills like they're candy. Now the pharmaceutical world is a conversation for another, but I do believe there is a line on which modern humans balance upon.

I don’t believe it’s healthy to only trust modern medicine, but I would be a fool to deny science. I mean to think I began having these vertigo episodes a couple of months ago, feeling helpless, and now I’m in this machine taking images of my brain, and in a couple of days, I’ll know exactly what's going on. If this was a couple hundred years ago, they probably would have tied me down and cracked my skull open to get the demons out, but luckily for me, I live in an unbelievable age. An age where I get cold chemicals pumped into my arm, and I lay in my undies in a white tube, listening to the bassline of a Daft Punk song pounding my ears numb.

It was honestly an incredible experience that had my mind racing at the thought of if we are here today, where will we be in fifty years? Where will we be in one hundred? And where will we be holistically? Will that shaman still be in his backyard picking herbs from his dying garden, denying human advancements?

While I laid there listening to the machine drum, feeling the gadolinium in my veins, I stared at the white surface and noticed something; a small blemish in the white surface. I fixated on it, thinking that even in all things man has created, no matter how perfect they are, you will always find imperfections.