Sundays of willing to will

Missing from church

Last Sunday, I had a lie-in. It would have been one church service to attend as it represented the beginning of the judicial year, a civic service with the High Sheriff of Manchester being the main celebrant ahead of the judges, lawyers, officers and officials of the law, the civil service, the mayoralty, along with county and council officials.

As a church steward, apart from ushering in the congregants, some lead the officials in procession at the beginning and end of the service. I would have been no use in the setup as I would not have had the strength out of fatigue and other discomforts.

Selling funny remedies

Yesterday, I was up quite early and had at first wondered if I would attend the sung eucharist at church, but with the force of will over the concerns about my ability, I got up, showered, dressed up and hailed an Uber taxicab to take me to church.

As my voice was in the spectral end of waned, as I explained to the driver the apparent predicament, I was regaled with a tale of a black Frenchman who had herbal cures for cancer. A friend of his had refused medical treatment and shelled out about £1,500 for these medicinal goods that were packaged in something to make you draw a sharp breath that he had been conned.

It transpired that his friend having cut out meat, changed his diet and ingested these snake oil concoctions on presenting himself for new medical tests had not eradicated prostate cancer, however, it seemed contained and stable for years after, and his doctor advised he continued whatever was helping this non-progression of the cancer.

Making the medical case

All through, I had my misgivings, no effective medicine for prostate cancer sits in a backwater grotto to be purveyed on YouTube channels where the spirit of hypochondria can so easily possess you and you believe you have any ailment that presents without an effective diagnosis.

I took his word for it but made the case that if medical science has clearly diagnosed a condition, medical science must have the last say on whether that condition persists or has been cured. Whatever route you choose to procure a cure is left to you by miraculous intervention, medical treatment, or some herbal remedy that seems efficacious even if not subject to any peer review, just the positive reviews of patrons of that service.

The more pertinent issue is that we should all get tested and be assured of our situation, knowing there is nothing to worry about or that something demands immediate attention.

Easy does it

I arrived at church to a hearty welcome from everyone as I took my seat and well, sat through the service except for the reading of the gospel and when I went for communion. In the end, I was offered decaffeinated coffee, and chatted to other friends, before I was given a lift back home.

I realise there is a lot I desire to do, but much of it cannot be done because the strength and capacity are not there. Sometimes, it is just the thought of a journey that wearies me that my better judgement is to abort the idea. The side effects are still a bother, it might take a while to fully recover.

The Village Church I did not even bother to attend, though, I must send them a note about the end of my treatment and my recuperation.

AIDS cure or homosexual lure in Iran

Between herbs and chemicals

Any development in alternative or herbal medicine that offers to give palliative comfort, therapeutic cures or prophylactic remedy for the diseases that rage amongst mankind today is very welcome.

I have many a time refused synthetic medicaments that pump the body full of chemicals providing temporary respite to a point that the body can handle no more and the person expires not so much from the illness but from the treatment – but who would own up to that?

Cures for serious pain that then lead to heart attacks, treatments for cancer that leave the person hanging on to a thread of life, in fact, I am convinced that many have not died for the reason that they have a stronger will to live rather than them reacting to the effect of the toxins they have to ingest with side effects, if recounted, would make a Stephen King horror novel look like a kindergarten colouring book.

Herbal clams making me puke

Even so, the big healing, cure or remission people are looking for is one for HIV/AIDS, this has been hitting the headlines faster than I could raise commentary, only last week the President of Gambia suggested he had been curing AIDS with herbs, in people who have been invited to his harem, my views on this were not half derisive, I was enraged.

Now, I read that Iran has also laid claims that it also has a cure for AIDS, a claim that has been out since September 2006 and reported by the Science Daily – this has been further developed to a herbal cure for AIDS or in some cases used in some combination therapy with existing chemical compounds that make up current HIV/AIDS treatments.

Of nuclear herbalists

Iran being a closed country and one with which countries like America has not had any diplomatic relations for 37 years, it is unlikely that we might really get essential corroborative detail of this development just as we cannot ascertain if Iran’s nuclear programme is purely peaceful or has militaristic tendencies.

Now, I would hope that the quest to find a cure is altruistic and compassionate to a larger degree than commercially driven for the benefit of blockbuster inventions and profits that Big Pharma is too indulged in to offer benefit to mankind.

Institutions like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are also spearheading research sponsorship to develop drugs that impoverished countries and their people need and this is laudable.

A cure or a lure

Concerning Iran, my concern is whether this cure for AIDS is really one that its people should flock to for treatment or it is a lure to encounter the wrath of Sharia Law in the administration of punishment to the extreme.

At least, up till last year a number of teenagers were executed for being homosexual and that raised hackles in the Netherlands when our matronly Minister of Integration had to be forcefully dissuaded from deporting homosexual asylum seekers back to Iran on the whim that she had been assured they would come to no harm.

Thankfully, the young men were saved from the ideology of rule-keeping to the exclusion of commonsense and compassion, we all did breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Numbers to numb some

However, Iranian statistics suggest that most HIV/AIDS sufferers 62.3% are drug addicts who inject drugs and would have been infected through needle sharing, 27.9% have acquired the disease through unknown causes and 7.4% by possible sexual contact.

It would be interesting if checks are first made for needle marks to determine the druggies, background checks to determine the heterosexuals and possibly what is left over might be fit for the mob and the gallows – it does not bear thinking about.

Believing the best

Again, I want to believe the best of this situation, if indeed the Iranians have had a breakthrough on something that has foxed the whole of Western civilization over the last 30 or so years, they have a gift for mankind that far outweighs a prissy little nuclear tiff that is getting America too hot under the collar.

My only other concern about these herbal remedies is after the Gambian President’s announcement, maybe one of the reasons President George W. Bush is against stem cell research funding is because the Crawford Shrub or the Prairie Chapel Flower is being tested as an efficacy against Alzheimer’s disease – you never know.