Where there is risk there must always be choice
When I go to the grocery store, I like to choose the foods I put into my body. I feel very fortunate and grateful to have this choice and the ability to buy as many fresh fruits and vegetables as our family can eat in a week. In fact, we go to our local Farmers Market each Saturday that we are in town, because, when given the choice, we prefer to support our local farmers and to eat fruits and vegetables that have been organically grown and freshly picked and animals that have been raised in a humane and natural way. We choose the farmers market when we can and when the grocery store is our best option during the week, we always choose to shop around the perimeter of the grocery store and skip the center aisles filled with processed food and sugar, because we feel this is the best choice for our health and well-being. I do recognize that currently not everybody has the choice or makes the choice to approach their health in this way.
When I got married, I was very grateful to choose my partner. This was a very personal decision and I was extremely thoughtful about the man who God led me to and who I chose to spend, God-willing, the rest of my life with.
I could give many other examples, but whether it is food, drink, our spouse, or any type of medication or drug, what and who we allow inside of our bodies is a deeply personal and critically important choice.
Just yesterday, Chris and I went to a new medical practice with our children. While this is an integrative medical practice, I felt the doctor we initially saw was not honoring our role as parents to make informed decisions for our children. As parents, we of course seek expert guidance from the medical field, both traditional and holistic, and we choose what we feel is the right decision to move forward with after receiving as much guidance as possible from multiple sources. Yesterday, each time I asked a question, I felt a general annoyance from the person who thought they knew best and did not need to thoroughly answer all of my questions to help me understand their perspective and opinion as I weigh it with the perspectives and opinions of other medical professionals whose guidance we have sought. Without adequate answers to my questions, we were unable to make an informed choice for our child. Thankfully, my husband encouraged me to mention this to the practice and they very intently listened and placed us with another professional who did honor our role as parents seeking the absolute best guidance for the health and well-being of our children. While the decision/outcome may or may not be the same, a collaborative and informed approach to healthcare is of the utmost importance to us. Weighing benefits and risks to each decision is critical. This must always be a choice for each individual and for their family.
For many children and young adults who have been injured or killed after receiving a COVID vaccine, the benefits of the vaccine did not outweigh the risk in their circumstance - for most children and healthy young adults and for many others it does not and our country is pressuring them to play roulette rigged for the dealer with their health. In other instances, the statistics may be in favor of the person receiving the vaccine in which case it is likely their best decision given the urgent nature of the circumstance. The decision of what to inject into a person’s bloodstream is up to each individual and their health care provider(s) to thoughtfully weigh and decide together using as much information available as possible - not as much coercion as possible.
The ability to choose hits preciously close to home for us, and I am sure it does for many, as our daughter was injured by her first round of childhood vaccines. As parents, this was devastating and very scary, and we have since learned an incredible amount about health and how to support it in more holistic ways. We know that vaccines did not serve our daughter, they in fact hurt her and due to this experience, we now choose to support her health and ours using alternative and also science-based methods. Health is not something we take lightly and we are not alone in our frightening pharmaceutical experience - we are actually quite fortunate, because sadly on this journey we have met many families whose children were more significantly injured and even killed following their wellness visits and CDC recommended vaccine schedule execution.
We are not anti-vaccine, we are pro healthcare choice and we believe that when it comes to health, there are many different and science based ways to approach it. I write this to share perspective and to support others who wish to retain their healthcare freedom and as a reminder of the critical nature of informed choice so that each person can make the best healthcare decisions for themselves and for their families. Vaccination can provide protection to self and others and it can also have detrimental health consequences, as we and many have experienced. Fast food, excessive sugar intake, cigarettes and alcohol, and a sedentary lifestyle can make one more susceptible to disease while also more easily able to spread it to others. Alternatively, a clean and healthy diet, exercise and stress management can provide an enormous amount of protection to disease thereby protecting self and others while also freeing up hospital beds on multiple floors. It is my wish that policies would reflect the critical nature of nutrition and movement (and breastfeeding) for our health and give access to and education about whole and healthy foods for all and in such a way acknowledge the multifaceted nature of health and the responsibility of the individual to choose how they best approach it.
Thoughts to ponder.. What questions have you asked your healthcare provider(s) while making important medical decisions? Have you ever sought multiple professional opinions? Did you weigh your own intuition when choosing which opinion to trust and move forward with? Do you believe each person should be able to choose the means by which they take care of their bodies and the way they feel is most responsible to make their bodies a less likely vessel for disease for themselves and for the greater community? If you are an employer, do you believe your employees deserve the right to make their own informed healthcare decisions? Do you feel vaccines and boosters need to be created for each new disease and variant or should we use policy and resources to research what constitutes health and well-being and educate and support our society on how best to cultivate it thereby addressing not only COVID but a significant number of other diseases additionally?
“We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.”
Thomas Aquinas
Photo: Our breakfast table in Davidson, North Carolina