Prompted: Day 6 — The reason you believe you’re still alive today.

I told you I was gonna go out of order.  I wanted something a little bit happy, so I decided to go with this one today.

I am certain that I'm alive today because of medical technology.  Better Living Through Chemistry is not a joke in my world, for sure.  Had I been born 100 years before, or even 50 years before I was, I strongly suspect I wouldn't have made it out of my childhood.  If I did, I doubt I'd be healthy at all.

First off- I was a C-section baby, both for my own good and my mom's... so there you go. That's one.

When I was 3, my eyes had to be corrected multiple times.  While my vision isn't great and never will be (in fact I'm DamnNearBlind without my contacts in), I'd have been blind were it not for surgical procedures that fixed unconnected nerve tissue in my eyes. I'd also be cross-eyed, as any photo taken of me before that time can attest.

I've had tubes in my ears 6 times.  Given how very susceptible to ear infections I am now, I can only imagine how much worse it could have been. My ears are just such that they're chronically screwed up, and even though we've abandoned tubes and other surgical options, if I didn't have my hit of antibiotics every time they act up (something like 8 times a year, or so), I'd probably be deaf.

I've had my tonsils and adenoids removed, because I used to get tonsillitis to the point that I'd have serious trouble breathing.  My childhood and teen years were full of allergy shots because I was allergic to every part of nature you could find.  I had a recurring issue with staph (we named him Cletus) that required 4 surgeries to get rid of for good, and while I'm not thrilled with the most unbecoming scars left from that ordeal, that would have killed me in my 20s.

Ultrasounds, blood workups, and other testing have let me keep an eye on my kidney disease, too. Would it have killed me by now if I didn't know about it? Maybe.  Maybe not.  It's hard to say, but I'm certain that it helps a lot. 

I have no doubt that on my own, I'm on the losing side of Natural Selection.  I'm the one that Darwin was talking about... and even if it's cheating, I'm thrilled that science and medicine have kept me going even if I wasn't programmed for survival in the first place.  How awesome is that?


This post is part of the 30 Days of Truth Challenge .