The Good Doctor told me a number of things over the course of our weekend that may get you angry enough to speak out:

1. AIDS is curable. We can eradicate AIDS by manipulating the disease's genetic code, as in Polio.

2. We haven't eradicated AIDS because it's far too profitable for the medical/pharmaceutical industry to allow people to go on dying.

3. Stem cells won't cure Alzheimer's as Alzheimer's is a progressively degenerative disease of the brain. The brain has only so much space. Once it is taken up by dead zones, there isn't anywhere else in the brain to put new, scientifically generated cells.

4. Back surgery is a no-no. almost never ever works, in any circumstance. My uncle has had five surgeries on his back to no improvement. Zero. Cero. Told me the best thing to do for my neck is lift weights. Strengthen the muscles. I knew that already. Then she did everything but ask me exactly HOW I managed to herniate a disc during sex... ahem...

5. If you are obese and have disc problems, if you aren't willing or able to lose weight the old-fashioned way, the best thing for you to do is have gastric bypass surgery. All other surgeries - discs, joints - will be recurrent throughout your lifetime until you do lose the excess weight.

6. 99% of patients don't want to know the truth. They ask for it but when they hear it, they decide it's not what they wanted to hear after all and either get flat out enraged at the doc who's told them the truth and/or keep seeking other opinions until they get the one they want.

7. Schizophrenia is, indeed, a genetic thing. Not caused by trauma, although trauma can bring it out (not unlike diabetes in that respect). This apparently is old news except to everyone but my Psycho 101 teacher and the NEW text book he used in which is stated the old information of childhood trauma being the actual cause of it. "If it was trauma that caused it, there'd be a helluva lot more nuts out there than there are," said the Good Doctor to zippy. "Also, there wouldn't be any schizophrenics from healthy homes." Oooohhhhhh, the voice of REASON! I wished I known that BEFORE I went down the dark path of trying to figure out what happened to Huggy in his childhood that made him turn out the way he is today.

8. Of course, that's not saying nothing happened during his childhood that enhanced his instability, I'm just saying.