I think of myself as being an OK writer, I’m not great but I also don’t think I’m horrible at it either. I see myself as being more of a logical thinker because my academic strengths are math and science, and not so much an emotional thinker because I’m not so good at reading and writing, it’s sort of my academic weakness. With that said I also definitely know the importance of reading and writing because people need those skills to advance in life. Such as reading street signs, or the newspaper, knowing how to write a job application, or a letter to someone, these skills are needed in everyone’s life.

In my portfolio I have the three assignments I felt I did well in. The first being an ethnography which i chose to do on the subculture of people who go to Planet Fitness gym. I chose this place because it relates to my theme of health and medicine from it being a gym. And also because it was a good place that I would have access to go in and observe what goes on everyday, and because my mother was already a member there and now I am as well.

The second piece i did was the text wrestling assignment where i chose to read the article Letting Go because it had to do with my theme of health and medicine. The first part being about the summary of the article which is about how modern medicine is good at prolonging life of terminally ill patients at their discomfort, but also more about how much more of a good option hospice might be for those patients to consider so they can spend their days at home with family and friends in comfort, which has also been shown to prolong live in those patients. The second part being about my response to this article and my thoughts and opinions.

The article I am reading is Letting Go by Atul Gawande. In the article he talks about a big issue in healthcare, which is how modern medicine is good at staving off death with our advanced interventions, but sometimes they are to good at staving it off because in many cases doctors dont know how to focus instead on improving the days these terminal patients have left. And even in some cases the doctor will know that he or she should focus on improving their last days but they still wont because most the time they want to try and get as much money as possible from an insurance company, or they also may have new drugs that are in trial stages still and they will bring up that drug to the patient in order to get them to try it so the doctor can see how well it works. Even if the doctor knows it wont help the patient, which can give the patient and their family false hope or even make the patients condition worse than it was.

Atul Gawande starts the article by talking about a patient named Sara Monopoli and her familys struggle to overcome her unexpected lung cancer. When Sara learned of her terminal condition she was nine months and 3 weeks along with her first pregnancy. Her condition started off with nothing more than a cough and some back pain, but then an x-ray revealed that her left lung had collapsed and her chest was filling with fluid. After the x-ray an oncologist sat down with her and her family and broke the news, the doctors wanted to start her on treatment but first they had to induce her into labor, some time after her daughter Vivian Monopoli, seven pounds nine ounces was born perfectly healthy. Sara was only thirty-four, she had never smoked or lived with someone who had, and she excercized and ate properly, which goes to show poeple that something life threatening can happen at any moment and usually when we least expect it. Once her child was born they started looking at treatments, the first being a new drug at the time called Tarceva which targets a gene mutation commonly found in lung cancers of non-smoking women, her doctor told her that eighty-five percent of patients respond to the drug some of them long term. The Tarceva caused Sara to get an itchy acne like facial rash and numbing, while she also had to have a small permanent tube surgically placed in her chest to be able to drain the fluid in her lungs. After then also having a pulmonary embolism, test showed the Tarceva wasnt working, and the doctor then recommends two more drugs called Carboplatin and Paclitaxel, The Paclitaxel caused an extreme allergic reaction so she was switched to Carboplatin plus Gemcitabine. Even after none of these treatments show improvement she is again switched to another drug Pemetrexed, which studies showed it could produce much longer survival time in some patients, in reality however only a small percentageof people gained very much, and that was in patients who unlike Sara had responded to the first line chemotherapy. And even though Sara wants to pursue treatment its easy to see how her doctor is somewhat making her worse, he keeps giving her new drug regiments even though the doctor should know some of them wont work. She then had a CT scan which not surprisingly showed the drug once again wasnt working. Atul Gawande then starts talking about her going on rounds with a nurse named Sarah Creed who works with the hospice service. The first patient they see is a seventy-two year old woman named Lee Cox who has pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and uncureable lung disease. She had chosen hospice and moved in with her neice because her disease left her unable to do most task and she needed a constant oxygen mask to breath. They then meet with Dave Galloway and his wife Sharon who are Boston firefighters who have a three year old daughter. Dave has pancreatic cancer which caused him unbearable pain and had caused tumors to form in his abdomen and his intestines which doesnt even have a temporary fix, so the medical team gave him the choice of intensive care or hospice, and he choose hospice. At first Dave seemed to have only days left, but his nurses and family got to work making him as comfortable as possible and they taught Sharon how to keep him clean, and she seemed most capable. Perhaps because she was a firefighter, she was determined to take care of Dave to the end, and had the resiliance to do so. Dave Galloway eventually died at home, and at peace surrounded by family and friends, a week after Lee Cox died as well. Gawande then goes back to Sara Monopoli who had met with her doctor to go over her options. Sara knew her condition was incureable, she had given her wishes for her daughter Vivian the week she was born, Sara wnated to keep going to the next treatment but it seemed they were out of choices and Sara did not want to die in a hospital bed. Unfortunetly Sara’s fate would not be similar to the others. Her condition only kept getting worse as she had gotten a second diagnosis of cancer in her thyroid which spread threw her glans. She was also diagnosed with pneumonia which in a way reassured her family but in fact made her breathing much worse and the next morning was put on a ventilator in the intensive care unit, her wish of passing peacefully at home might not come true.

As I step into the gym at Planet Fitness I noticed a lot of people doing many different things. There are young people and old people. All different nationalities of people, Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, French, Italian, German and many more. The walls are painted purple and white. I am greeted by a cheerful employee who asks if I would like to take a tour. He takes me to the machine room, where there is every kind of workout machine to think of. There are rowers, treadmills, stationary bicycles, elliptical, and arcs. Machines to work your arms, biceps, triceps, shoulders, and chest. Also machines for legs, abdominal machines, the bench press, and free weights. There are televisions all along the wall in front of the machines to watch if need be, with a different channel on every one. There is also a room that has a training obstacle course where every minute a different exercise is done for a total of thirty minutes. Another room with balance balls, kettle balls, medicine balls, stretch bands and free weights and yoga mats for yoga and stretching. And finally a quiet room where there are recliners that massage for relaxation, and of course the locker room with the lockers, benches, and bathrooms, an showers so that everyone can get ready and change and store their stuff away safely.

The Planet Fitness employee tells me with proper exercise and nutrition, you can control, manage or completely avoid 60 – 70% of illness such as high blood pressure, osteoporosis, heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, stroke, cancer, and the list goes on and on. Working out improves your self-esteem, confidence, and lengthens your life. It also aids you in getting better sleep, and giving you more energy and stamina throughout the day. Exercising can also slow down the ageing process, and helps improve your sex life. Last but not least, a healthy lifestyle builds and maintains strong muscles, joints, and bone structure, while simultaneously increasing your immune system. Being healthy is not just a lack of illness, it is a positive balance between mind, body, and soul.

The employee tells me to feel free to look around on my own for a few minutes.  As I walk around I notice a mother an daughter working out together, a group of employees from the business down the street working out together, there was also a group of elderly people doing stretch exercises.  I think to myself this is a good place to socialize, make new friends, and therefore maybe new patterns made that will get you to go more often.  In order for your social life to affect your life in a positive way, you need to create a healthy environment to socialize in, a physically friendly environment.  Which is what they have here at Planet Fitness, I believe they do have a nice environment to workout in, and they set up the gym nicely and keep it as clean as possible everyday.  So surround yourself with people who believe in this healthy lifestyle and encourage your friends and family to join you, think about how important keeping your body healthy really is.  I then thank the employee for all his helpful information and for showing me around, and I think to myself “Maybe I will join the gym after all”.