Doctor David Fisher On Surviving COVID/Masks/Keeping Mom Out Of A Nursing Home
In this episode of The Babylon Bee Podcast, Kyle and Ethan talk to Dr. David Fisher, one of The Babylon Bee's longest-tenured writers going back to the Adam Ford days when The Bee was still funny. David Fisher is a physician with Doctors Making Housecalls in Durham, NC and is board certified in family medicine, geriatrics, and palliative care. He is the author of How to Keep Mom (and Yourself) Out of a Nursing Home: Seven Keys to Keeping Your Independence. They talk about the politics and science of COVID, the myths and censorship surrounding a certain medicine that shall not be named, and how to exercise your fart holders. Topics Discussed Is COVID a hoax? Do masks do anything? What is the deal with the drug that can't be named (the H word)? Doc is recovering from COVID Any thoughts on that video of "medical doctors" that is going around? Banned by Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube Health impacts of the lockdown Visiting loved ones in the hospital How to keep your mom and yourself out of a nursing home Laughter is good medicine Subscriber Portion "Doc Savage" answers The Babylon Bee subscriber questions that were submitted to us and not screened at all. Also mentioned: Archaeologists Discover Prophet Daniel's Weight Loss Diary Report: Baptists' Impressive Life Expectancy Linked To Casserole Consumption Church Service Canceled After Guitar Cable Identifies As Female Joel Osteen Launches Line Of Pastoral Wear: 'Sheep's Clothing'
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Brian Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
Yes, welcome to the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
I'm Kyle Mann.
I'm Ethan Nicole.
Today we're actually joined by another Babylon B writer.
Uh-huh.
Oh, he goes back before me.
Goes back to the old school times when the Babylon Bee was good before they sold it to that right-wing nut, Seth Dylan.
This is Dr. David Fisher.
How you doing, Doc?
Hey, guys.
Great to be here.
He's clearly a doctor because he has a giant man purse that holds like tongs.
It's a side bag.
European bag.
And like the mirror head thing.
You put it on your bag.
What's in there?
Yeah, what's in that bag?
Leeches.
Okay.
Garlic.
Tools for bloodletting.
Leg saws.
Jar of urine.
Bone saws.
I guess it could be any bone, really.
It's like that witch kit that we talked about in the weird news the other day.
Oh, the vampire killer?
Vampire slaying kit?
Yeah.
Something like that.
Jar of teeth.
My patients love the old school bag lens of air of legitimacy, I guess.
Yeah.
Because your patients are old people, right?
Yes, they are.
So they like when you show up with the bag.
Yeah, you didn't do your introduction.
Do they call you a nice young man when you come in?
All the time.
That's why I went into geriatrics because even when I'm like in my 60s, they're going to be telling me I'm a young man.
Well, Dr. Fisher is one of the Babylon Bee's longest tenured writers, having written for us since 2016.
He's a physician with doctors making house calls in Durham, North Carolina.
And he's board certified in family medicine, geriatrics, and palliative care.
How'd I do on the pronunciation there?
Got it.
Palliative.
Palliative or palliative?
You say palliative.
Okay.
Yeah, I said palliative because I think that's how Jess says it.
My wife is a nurse.
Palliative.
And he's the author of How to Keep Mom and Yourself Out of a Nursing Home: Seven Keys to Keeping Your Independence, which is available on Amazon.
So hi, Doc.
Yeah, here he is.
So we thought it'd be interesting to talk to you because you're a doctor and doctors have this authority right now because of COVID.
You have to be like, you got to listen to doctors so we could talk to you and then we could just get you to say whatever we want everybody to believe.
And then just you could kind of be a puppet and then advocate whatever we want.
Yeah, I got your memo before the podcast.
I'll just read off the proscribed answers.
Actually, I have even more authority because I'm recovering from COVID myself.
So you get bit by an elderly person that had COVID checking their heart rate.
The gums.
They're getting me with the gums.
I thought it would be interesting topic.
So this is how committed I am to the bee.
I purposely infected myself last week just to went around licking doorknobs and drank a jar of COVID.
Hold the nose closed.
It's pretty brutal.
Okay, yeah, tell us.
It's all okay now.
It's been about a week and Chills, fever, aches, like it's like flu on steroids.
I was just in bed, you know, nursing myself through it.
So, how could you tell it was different from the flu?
Like, if someone had, if you hadn't heard the word COVID, and would you think, oh, this isn't just the flu, there's something else going on here?
Yeah, well, there are a lot of things that overlap, like the muscle aches and the fever and the chills.
Um, I had a little bit of cough, respiratory, some get more respiratory symptoms.
I did get that weird thing near the end where I lost my taste and smell.
And that's unique to this, it appears.
I mean, thankfully, I didn't have a serious case.
I felt awful, but I mean, I was never in danger of going to the hospital, but yeah, it's it's just I can see how people with lung disease, heart disease, et cetera, could really succumb to this.
I had a lot of pleuritic chest pain.
I think I had inflammation going on in my lungs.
I got on some meds right away.
Hydroxychloroquine?
Yeah, are we allowed to say that word?
Or will we?
Yeah, we might get Facebook.
Hydroxychloroquine.
H-O-C-Q.
Actually, we do come with a fake code name for it.
Yeah.
The thing.
You know, the thing.
You know, the thing.
Fish tank cleaner.
CQ.
Actually, I didn't take it.
I was.
I would have had I gotten more respiratory symptoms.
So you're ASIC?
And yeah.
So did you like inject yourself with bleach or anything?
Lysol right into the veins.
No, I took azithromycin.
I took vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc, which studies say are helpful.
And I think it helped.
I mean, the main reason I'm better is because I have an immune system that works.
So whenever you feel a new symptom, do you get out your little recording?
You're like, patient is exhibiting cold sweats and abdominal cramping.
For himself.
Yeah, for himself.
For yourself?
He starts to go crazy and starts like, gets out the clipboard.
How are you feeling today?
And then he runs around to the other side.
Writing yourself all these prescriptions?
That would have made a good TikTok.
Should have done that.
So what's your conclusion now that you've had COVID?
Is it a hoax?
It was not for me.
No.
So how'd you get it?
You didn't wear a mask around?
I was just a 101.5 fever.
Oh, yeah.
Did you go to a Trump rally and not wear a mask?
How did you know?
If you had gone to a Black Lives Matter rally.
I only had it and I was exposed and from work.
Yeah.
If you had gone to a Black Lives Matter rally and not worn a mask, you'd be fine right now.
It would have been fine.
Because it's crazy.
Because what do you think?
Isn't this crazy medical science?
Herman Kane went to a Trump rally and didn't wear a mask.
He died.
Yet, have you heard of anybody who went to back a Black Lives Matter rally and died?
Amazing.
I haven't heard that.
Nobody has.
Of anyone.
It's really, it's shocking.
We haven't.
The cures right there.
It's like hydroxychloroquine, or I mean, fish tank cleaner, but in a different form.
What, what I just really boggles my mind is, you know, I've actually prescribed a couple of patients the H-word, and it's because they were at risk of at risk of going to the hospital.
Sorry.
Sorry, continue.
We should censor with the flower bath 350.
Oh, there we go.
Yeah.
So, just say it and we'll censor it from here on out.
Okay.
So, you prescribed the patients what flowerbed.
And the thing is, I don't know for sure if it kept him out of the hospital, but what boggles my mind is there are a lot of studies that say looks like in combination with the zithromycin and the zinc and the C, it may benefit the patient.
And as a doctor, I know which of my patients are more at risk from the potential side effects.
We did EKGs, we monitored, you know, potential interactions.
And so, you know, just this idea that everybody's trying to get in between the doctors and the patients.
And I had a discussion with my patient.
I told him about the risks, the possible benefits, and we made a decision and we went forward.
I mean, it is really weird, the politicizing of it, just because the word came out of Trump's mouth.
Yeah.
It's so weird.
It seems to be the case.
I mean, science is supposed to be open inquiry, open discussion.
Hey, this, you know, this doctor did a four-week study.
I mean, we can't do a randomized double-blinded controlled trial in eight weeks, but we can do some observational studies.
And oh, look, this doctor showed there was some benefit and nobody was harmed.
Why can't we at least consider that?
I mean, my fear was somebody would end up in the hospital and I didn't try what maybe was, you know, going to help them.
And I would be committing malpractice by not bringing all tools to bear.
So did you have any Democrat patients who you had to lie about what it was?
You're like, this is called hydroxalox bing-dong.
That was my first question.
Are you Republican or Democrat?
Before I tell you this medicine's name, what did you vote for?
Let's quickly scribble on it.
Before we make any treatment decisions, you support Trump.
Or the other thing that could really get you in trouble is if you give some to them, then they're like, oh, by the way, I'm a Democrat.
And you're like, oh, and then they see the bottle and they're like, and they die of the fact that it's hydroxychloroquine.
I can't say that.
But yeah, it could be lethal.
I don't know.
So sorry.
We're milking that one.
So what do you make of the video that came out with the doctors that are like yelling at the camera?
Apparently, the lady believes like the aliens have alien sex DNA or something.
I couldn't, I'm not following all the stuff.
Voodoo mummies or something about that.
Yeah.
You know, I've had patients with like pelvic inflammatory disorder, and I never knew that spirit husbands might have been the cause.
Spirit husbands?
Was that one of the things she said?
Spirit husbands?
Yeah.
Was that on the video, or is that something that came out about her?
That's, I think that's something she claims some sort of you're having sex with demons in your sleep, and that's what causes your issues.
Anyhow, wow.
Where'd she come from?
How this lady?
Like, well, there's a group of doctors, right?
But then Trump shared that video.
I think that was a little irresponsible.
I think it's unfortunate.
The extreme nature of it gave flowerbed a bad name.
I mean, I just want doctors and patients to make decisions together based on the science and leave all this stuff out of it.
Yeah, that's really sad.
Felt like too far when I saw it.
I was like, she's acting like it's a miracle drug that can just solve the entire there is a cure, and it's called a cure.
Yeah, she's acting like COVID is over.
Yeah, people go too far the other direction.
And I think because Trump supports it, they want it to do great.
And then those who don't like Trump want it to fail, which I think is really sick.
But yeah, it's weird.
It's just weird.
That is worse.
We act like Trump's the bad guy here because he's over pushing this drug.
Really, if you really want the drug to fail, it's a little worse.
When the media was breathlessly reporting one study that showed a couple people had some, you know, adverse effects from it, I just didn't understand that at all.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We got a couple deaths, guys.
Let's hit the big news.
So, so in a video.
The other irony is, um, you know, flower bed is generic.
It's cheap.
It's widely available.
The pharmaceutical companies are not making any money on it.
So if you're anti-big pharma, you would want to promote this.
Does Trump have stock in it?
Is that what he's trying to get it to go big?
There's no stock in it.
I mean, having stock in it.
I don't know how stocks work.
It's like having stock in dirt or something.
It's been around 50 years.
Yeah.
It's like flowerbed.
I think he has stock in oxygen, you know.
Kind of the same.
So in a video from 2013, Dr. Emmanuel attributes infertility, impotence, and gyneological conditions to evil deposits from spirit husbands.
A phenomenon where demons and witches have sex with people while they sleep.
Demons and witches?
Demons and witches, yeah.
Those are from different realms, right?
The demons in the spirit realm of the witch.
Maybe the witches are controlling people.
Like in a swamp or something.
And then they're teleporting.
So the witch teleports into the bed in a spirit form.
Emmanuel also said there are people ruling this nation that are not even human, describing them as reptilian spirits who are half human, half E.T.
I believe that.
I mean, that's.
I missed that class in medical school.
She's probably in a different witches.
I must have skipped that one.
Well, I do recommend applying witch hazel to a scrape or a burn.
Hemorrhoids.
Your video just got glitchy, and you look like you got possessed by it.
It looks like that guy from Goonies.
Oh, really?
Does it look weird on your end, Dan?
Okay, that's good.
No, it's just us.
Never mind.
Okay.
The spirit husbands are under control.
Yeah.
They're attacking.
It looks crazy right now.
No, you can't see that.
So it looks fine.
Yeah, it's hard for me to look at.
It's like JFK.
Uh-oh.
After he died.
Oh, geez.
Sorry.
I can't say that.
Sorry.
Okay.
So, regardless of if these people are quacks, right, on this video, what do you think of like big tech banning medical information or opinions or advice?
Yeah, that's the other side.
I said, well, yeah, taking the videos down.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's anti-science.
I mean, science is supposed to be an open inquiry.
We're looking at all possible treatment options.
We're studying these things.
And again, physicians and medical personnel are trained to look at studies.
I mean, I read medical studies and I look at how it was performed.
And, you know, I don't just wait for it to tell me what to do.
I balance all the information.
And then, I mean, it really does look to be politically motivated when you have The antithesis of science is to have a preconceived idea about your conclusion before you investigate whatever you're investigating.
So if you've already decided this thing's bad and now we're going to try to find proof to support our bias, I mean, that's the definition of bias.
And so, you know, if a study came along and said, hey, look, this actually helps, I get the sense that everybody's decided already.
Well, no, that's, we can't accept that information.
That's the definition of bias.
So it frightens me that, you know, the ability of a patient and doctor to have a conversation about available information can really be harmed by this when people are getting a lot of their information from Facebook, Twitter.
And it's already biased.
And so it's scary.
Yeah, it seems like thinking it's a miracle drug is not the best.
I mean, there's not evidence for it being this miracle drug that's solved every problem.
But it seems even worse to have this stigma to stigmatize it to this point that if it helps, you're not going to take it because there's some political position that it, or, you know, it's just so weird that you would stigmatize to this point that somebody would actually need it, but they're not going to take it because of the, they're taking a political side.
Yeah, and there's a couple state medical boards and pharmaceutical boards that are putting all these restrictions for doctors to be able to prescribe this.
Wow.
But the thing is, if it were a new drug, for example, and we suddenly found out it was harming people, sure, I get it.
You pull it off the shelf.
We do that all the time.
This thing's been around for 50, 60 years.
We know how to use it.
We know what to look for.
I just, to suddenly put all these roadblocks, we use stuff off-label all the time.
You know, we use things that aren't the FDA says, okay, you can use it for this and that, but we also find, oh, it also helps with this.
Well, we're going to prescribe it because we know how to safely do it.
I mean, it's just, we're applying restrictions like we've never done before.
I mean, everything we do in medicine carries some risk.
We know that.
So we have that discussion with patients and we've just applied principles here that we've just never applied before.
It's really frightening.
Very weird.
What do you make of masks?
I want to get like, there's so much misinformation or just, I get, you know, people, some people are so convinced that you have to have a mask on at all times, even when you're sleeping, and others think it's a, I need no dang mask.
It's like a, the mask has become like the black avatar for Black Lives Matter.
The mask is like the, it's like, but it's on your face to let you virtue signal for the, I don't want people to die or whatever.
Again, it's become like a political statement.
Right.
So what's the reality of their effectiveness that you know of?
Well, COVID-19 is a, is a respiratory illness.
It's transmitted through aerosol droplets through the air.
So if you wear a mask, you do reduce the risk of transmitting if you have it.
And there is an incubation period.
It seems anywhere from two to five days from when you get infected before you know you have symptoms that you could potentially cough on somebody and transmit it.
And viruses need a host to replicate.
Their whole job is just to replicate.
So a mask does reduce the risk of transmitting to someone unknowingly.
It also Protect you a little bit, but it mostly is protecting the other people.
I've heard this illustration that the droplets or whatever, it's like mosquitoes going through a chain link fence.
I saw this picture going around on Facebook.
Do you know if that's accurate?
The size of the virus, it just goes right through the holes in people's masks.
No, if you have a well, maybe a cheaply made one.
If you have a surgical mask, it has wearing like t-shirt material on their face.
Yeah, so that doesn't help.
Okay, so you mean a lot of it all?
Like all those antiphosyle ones everyone's got on?
You don't think that helps at all?
Maybe a little.
I mean, just like anything is going to reduce suspicion because I cough and like now it's all wet instead of being out here.
Like, maybe that helps.
Like, if you're offing out chunks of phlegm, they're not going to shoot across the room anymore.
So, that's good.
If you have projectile vomiting, it's going to be really gross if you vomit.
If you have projectile vomiting, sure, the mask goes through the mask.
You might want a mask with a hose on it or something.
You might want a t-shirt that you don't care about.
Yeah.
So, what about singing in church?
Does that wait?
Were we finished with masks?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Well, you know, and then you got the N95, which are the ones that actually protect you from, you know.
Oh, so those protect you, the N95s do.
Yeah, minor signs and masks.
They keep stuff from getting in.
Oh, okay.
So, if you're really worried about inhaling coronavirus, you wear an N95.
So, you can still get it from touch and stuff?
Yeah, and then if you touch your face, maybe that's why Dr. Fauci said put on goggles because people aren't disciplined enough not to rub their eyes.
You don't realize how hard it is to not touch your face until someone tells you not to.
Like, right now, I just said it.
Now I feel like I got it.
Everybody, touch your face right now.
Don't touch your face.
We just made a bunch of people touch their face.
The first person to touch their face is shot by a sniper in the raptors.
Like, say it to a crowd.
I'm curious who would go down first.
How about you?
Basewick's going to take us down for spreading COVID.
Spreading it.
Hey, we're just trying to be honest here about it.
We just want the truth from Doc.
You're a doctor.
You have authority.
Putting the political and government mandates aside, I think wearing masks scientifically has been shown to reduce transmission of not just this, but viruses in general.
I mean, if everybody wore a mask through flu season, we'd probably see less flu.
Right.
You know, so what about in certain, because I always feel like when I'm at the park, it's a sunny day.
We're outside.
Everybody's pretty spread out.
Right.
People walk around.
People have masks on and they kind of stare at you like, why aren't you wearing a mask at the park?
And I'm like, because the sun kills it fast, right?
Like, to me, it makes sense to not sit in the park with a giant mask over your face.
Yeah.
If you're going to be in close quarters where you think you might get within six feet of somebody and indoors, makes sense to wear one.
If you're outside at a park, I mean, unless you're going to cough or sneeze at somebody.
Hopefully you know to do the vampire or whatever.
Yeah.
The dragon.
Cover your mouth.
Cover your mouth.
I mean, the average cost.
And even singing, you brought up singing.
You have to sing for an extended period of time, it appears, to transmit the droplets to the point where there's enough viral load being sent through the air to transmit to somebody else.
So, you know, if you're in a hymn singing church, you're probably fine.
If you're singing Good Good Father for 20 minutes.
Yeah, just don't do 20 repetitions.
So this is really good.
This is really good for us.
This could be great.
We can go to our churches and say, you can't sing these monotones.
Hymns are okay.
We go back to the old hymns.
Yeah.
So, from the doctor, we've just heard modern worship songs much more likely to get you sick.
Because probably those really high-pitched bridges are worse, too.
Like, that's more COVID coming out.
But if you're just going, you're harmonizing.
Yeah.
I couldn't think of a hymn off the bat.
Where the key's like a river.
I'm getting like a Dr. Seuss song.
It's a Disney song or something.
I don't know.
Sorry, Doc.
Amazing Grace.
Yeah, amazing grace.
But you can do the bridge, the new bridge.
They add that bridge because that's no repetition.
Yeah.
Repetition kills.
Straight from the dark lesson here.
Doctor's orders.
Yeah, they can't do that.
Cut that part out.
So if you sing modern worship songs, you're angry.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think that's the one good thing that's come out of COVID, maybe.
So let's talk a little bit about the health impacts of the lockdown.
You know, we just talked to Steve, writer, whose wife passed away and he wasn't able to go visit her in the hospital.
She didn't have COVID, but she and his two sons, I got a 10 and 13-year-old.
They weren't able to visit her the entire time she was in the hospital and ended up not being able to say goodbye to her.
You know, we see a lot of things like increase in depression and suicide and anxiety.
So I work a lot of times it feels like the solution is worse than the problem here.
What's your take on that?
I know you talk a lot about laughter being the best medicine and positivity and happiness helping in more ways than we realize.
So what's your take on the health impacts of the lockdown?
Yeah, I think one thing it's hard to measure, and that's what's hard about this, is we can measure COVID cases and deaths and hospitalizations.
We can't necessarily measure somebody's level of depression or how this impacts their mental health.
But I've seen the impact firsthand.
For example, I go to a lot of nursing homes and I have couples who, you know, he or she lives in the memory care unit for people with dementia.
And then the spouse comes and visits every day.
But because of these Medicare-mandated lockdowns, you know, a husband who's been visiting his wife every single day for years suddenly can't visit her.
And she has dementia.
So she can't verbalize, you know, the impact of that, but it's certainly impacting her.
Because now what's happened to, you know, my familiar husband who comes and feeds me breakfast every day and now he's disappeared.
I mean, it's, and you can't explain it to someone in that situation.
So it's, it's happening in thousands of nursing homes all over the country.
And I understand the reason.
I mean, you have, we have seen COVID outbreaks in vulnerable populations that have been deadly.
But at the same time, it's brutal.
I mean, it's really hard to watch.
I mean, you guys got staff in those places.
Yeah.
There's obviously precautions you can take with a janitor or a cafeteria worker or whoever.
So clearly there's ways to get people in.
Like I don't get how those people are essential enough to get, you know, to be able to get in there with a mask and gloves or whatever it is that you need, but at least one family member, how that's not seen is essential.
I think that didn't hit me until I heard Steve's story and went, like, holy cow, like it is essential.
Like to think that somebody could be in the worst days of their life.
Like just to take somebody, your loved one, just, you know, take my wife away from me for three weeks.
Just pull the rug out from under me and then put me in a little room where people come by at night and stab me with needles.
Even if I'm not sick, that's that's torture.
That's literally like a horror movie.
Yeah, and then add on being a little sick this past week.
I've been quarantined and I have pretty much not anybody.
Yeah.
It's it is.
It's really hard.
And like I said, it's hard to measure, but you're exactly right.
We do, you know, there's got to be a way, right?
Like, how hard is it on you guys to get a visitor in?
Is it really that would overwhelm the hospital to be able to do that?
Or is it a lack of PPE or what is it?
Like, what's the excuse?
The excuse is losing Medicare funding.
No, really.
If you're a nursing home that gets Medicare funding and you.
So Medicare has put this rule out.
Yeah, this is all coming from CMS, Medicare.
So if you get Medicare funding, you are and places I visit have had auditors come in and they have they insist on the staff demonstrating all their PPE, which of course is that makes sense, but they also are enforcing these visitor rules, which, yeah, it all comes down to your definition of essential.
And yeah, to so the one way we get around it, well, one area where you can get around is if hospice is involved.
So if somebody is on hospice, Medicare relaxes the rules where you can have someone who's in an end-of-life situation and allow family members to come and visit.
But I've still had patients miss the final moments because of that.
And it's, it's, it's, it's really, so yes, I agree with you.
If we would just follow the same rules, you know, you got to wear a mask.
We got to check your temperature.
You have to prove that you haven't been exposed.
Why not have one family member?
Yeah.
And it's this government mandate.
That's what's driving this.
What do you say to the idea that somebody actually, their conditions could be worsened by having no family member or connection like that?
It's a hard, I mean, you've actually think I saw it personally.
I have a great aunt who died a couple of months ago who was in her late 90s.
She had dementia.
Her sons would visit her every day and then they just had to stop.
And she was kind of maintaining and then she just started to deteriorate.
You know, you're not getting fed a meal by someone you're familiar with.
You know, now you have staff that you don't necessarily know as well.
And at the very end, they let the sons come back in.
But at that point, she had declined significantly.
I mean, I think it was those visits that was keeping her going.
Yeah.
You know, what's your purpose of living at that point?
So, and I think it is happening.
I think we're going to look back and see.
I don't know how we're going to measure it.
But I also worry about, you know, when they're locking down hospitals from people who have heart failure or, you know, other chronic illnesses and they're not, they're afraid to go to the hospital.
So meantime, their issues are because they don't want to be separated from their family.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What crazy decision you have to make?
I know I need to go to the hospital because I'll probably die, but do I really want to be separated from my loved ones now until I die?
Like, that's a crazy decision to have to make.
You're so right.
We've made this Faustian bargain with safety and COVID that we don't really make with anything else.
Like you have just as much chance of getting in a car wreck driving to the hospital, potentially.
Maybe, I mean, okay, maybe it's not as much of a chance.
But the bottom line is, you know, we don't, we don't, we've never locked down like this for anything else.
So at what point are we willing to accept some risk for the other things that we value, like those personal connections that you're never going to get back?
I mean I i've i've, i've literally had, you know, husbands in tears who didn't get to see their wife of 60 years in their final days, because and it's just brutal.
So what is Medicare's reason for doing this?
Like, do you think it's?
Like, do they just go?
We don't want things to get out of hand and too many people die of covet.
We're trying to keep the numbers down because we have to pay for all of it.
Like, what is the actual?
Well, I think you're wrong.
I think when the initial stuff happened in Seattle at the very beginning, and you had these big outbreaks and lots of people dying, everyone just panicked and and said, you know, we gotta, we gotta lock this down, we gotta prevent any.
Uh, because we knew so little.
I guess what's frustrating is we know a lot more now in terms of how it's transmitted and who's most at risk, and I i'm i'm, we've tried to figure out creative ways.
I mean, there's people who are doing, you know, visits through windows and face time and different ways to uh uh, and that works if you understand what's going on.
But for someone with dementia or cognitive impairment those are the patients that have suffered the most.
I think yeah, they don't understand.
The little person on the screen is a real person.
Like they think that's a tv that's turned on or something right, right.
Or or like you see your loved one through the glass and like why can't you come in and give me a hug?
You know yeah yeah, Steve was saying the last time they saw his wife in person alive.
Uh, you know, they were in the parking lot and they they flicked the lights in the room so they could see up there in this grid of windows, which one she was in, and they saw her little silhouette up there and they're down.
Him and his boys are down in the car and they all they could do is wave at her and he said that she basically plunged into a horrible depression after that.
Yeah, because they were so close.
But so far, you know, it's just like can't imagine that being the last time I saw my wife.
Sorry we're making another sad podcast.
Supposed to be happy, let's talk happy.
So what kind of things can people do to uh, improve their moods, fight depression, fight anxiety, that kind of stuff uh, other than read the Babylon Beef, read the bee, other than I anticipated it.
Or uh, or take essential oils what's the best?
What do you think of crystals and magnets?
You know the?
The placebo effect is very powerful.
So if you believe it's going to help you, it's more likely to help you.
I have heard it's like one of the most powerful things in medicine.
The placebo effect is a legit thing.
No, it is.
If if, if you're convinced that something's going to help you, it's more likely to to have a positive benefit.
So but uh yeah, read the bee laugh, enjoy any sort of comedy.
There's a lot of good health benefits to that.
That's what I love about being part of the BEE.
Um, the old phrase, laughter is the best medicine is.
Well, there's a lot of good physiological effects to laughing.
You know, some people say it's good, exercise it.
It isn't really.
I mean, you have to laugh for like 15 minutes to burn 50 calories.
If you're like really sedentary, like a my fit, my 500 pound life kind of person is a good.
You laugh for five minutes, is that good?
If that's all you can do, then yeah, but um no, it releases uh endorphins and um.
Also suppresses stress hormones.
It's kind of like the opposite.
Humor is like the opposite of fear.
You know, fear triggers the stress response, the fight or flight.
Your cortisol levels go up.
It's your stress hormone because you're going into self-protective mode.
That's by design.
I mean, God designed us that way because we're always on the lookout for something that might harm us.
You know, bears, whatever.
For instance.
You ever get like wedgies and stuff because you believe in God and most and doctors are supposed to be men of science?
You ever get picked on by the other doctors?
Surprisingly, no.
A lot of doctors are of faith.
And like within circles, people talk about it all the time.
I think maybe that's more of a public, like if you're a professor at a liberal university medical school, you maybe can't come out.
But even there, no, I mean, I talk about believing in a creator all the time.
And my patients are always happy to find that out.
Most of them.
Most of them.
Unless you get like Ricky Gervais or something.
I wouldn't like that.
Oh, spitting out the medicine.
All right.
Well, let's laugh at some B articles that the doc has written.
Oh, yeah.
It's a little memory lane.
Doc Savage, as we affectionately refer to him, his first article ever was archaeologist discover Prophet Daniel's Weight Loss Diary.
I was so thrilled to get that one published.
Yeah, was this what was the Daniel plan, right?
That was a real thing.
Rick Warren's thing, yeah.
Wow.
So he thanked on that.
I saw that book come out and I was so like angry.
I was like physically angry.
What's wrong with it?
He took he took something from Daniel, the vegetable diet that, you know, Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, many, and applied it to modern day, you know, that if you, if you follow this, you know, you're going to be healthier.
I mean, there are some decent principles, but just to, I don't know, just to slap a biblical name to it.
I don't know.
I just found it kind of mercenary.
I mean, there are decent, you know, yeah, we already knew that if you eat less red meat and drink more water and eat more vegetables, you're healthier.
You know, I mean, if it helps some people follow a plan, that's fine.
That's the thing about diet plans.
There's no magic diet plan.
The point is that you're paying attention.
So if you decide the grapefruit diet's going to help you and you stick to it, it probably is going to help you because what were you doing before?
You were just sitting on the couch eating chips, you know.
But there's nothing magic about the grapefruit.
Yeah, it's like you're taking a random descriptive text in the scriptures and saying this is prescriptive.
This is how we're supposed to live if you want to be healthy.
And we might as well take the passage where Ezekiel had to bake poop into his bread and eat it.
The Ezekiel diet.
That's in there?
Yeah.
Isn't there Ezekiel bread?
There is Ezekiel bread, but I don't think it has poop.
There's no poop in place.
That's the dark secret.
Those are the dark little seeds in there.
You've given me an idea here.
Was it human poop or like goat poop or something?
I'm going to go out and trademark the Ezekiel plan.
We'll see.
Yeah, it's sustainable.
That goes anywhere.
That's true.
Recycle.
Self-sustaining.
The authors do this all the time.
Dark loop.
There was that prayer of Jabez.
You know, they take a random prayer in the Bible and they're like, boom.
I know you wrote that satirical article.
It was on your bear side.
Oh, yeah, I kept trying to still use it.
It was like the prayer of Elisha, you know, how you have to claim God's bare vengeance for your life.
But the point of Daniel.
I mean, the point of what he was doing was obedience.
Right, right.
So the law, it wasn't to lose weight.
Yeah, I think six pack.
I think Latter-day Saints quote that a lot when they're talking about their, you know, why they don't drink coffee and why they don't.
Did he drink hot cocoa?
Daniel?
I guess.
I don't know.
I mean, the health benefits come and they're secondary, and obviously God's law is designed to benefit us, but that's not the point of the obedience.
So makes sense.
Report: Baptist impressive life expectancy linked to casserole consumption.
Back when the Bible and B was Christian.
Yeah.
Like we made Christian jokes.
What's your favorite casserole?
Are you a Baptist?
I'm not a Baptist.
I'm a Presbyterian.
That's why you're saying that's a good thing.
We don't do casseroles.
Sad.
Actually, anything with, what is it?
Johnny Marzetti, I think, is the casserole that I grew up with.
It was some kind of noodle tomato sauce thing.
This one's spicy.
Church service canceled after guitar cable identifies as female.
It makes a picture of a guitar chord.
It looks so phallic and wrong.
And it's so dirty thoughts.
Just this giant zoomed-in picture of it, too.
Yeah.
Just makes you uncomfortable.
Yeah.
It's actually not a guitar cable.
It's like a speaker cable.
It's wrong.
Every time I repost this, every time I repost this, everybody's like, that's not a guitar cable.
No.
Kyle, I think you enhanced that by making it so that the lead, having the lead guitarist unavailable is what would cancel the church service.
Oh, did I?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I think I did change it to being canceled or something.
We can't go without our lead guitar.
God forbid.
Yeah, I love the double New Solo.
It's like, yeah, service canceled.
Here's a real savage one.
Joel Osteen launched his line of pastoral wear, sheep's clothing.
That's a classic.
This one constantly gets mistaken for real news.
I think that was my first snoped article.
Yeah, I got snoped.
Yeah.
So you're a medical professional that's deceiving the people.
Sad.
Yeah.
Always a badge of honor to get snoped.
Have you ever met anybody who knows the bee?
Like in your profession?
Are they really separate in your life?
Is your life, there's the bee life, the doctor life?
I imagine they're pretty separate.
I keep them mostly, mostly separate.
Yes.
I do mention to some people I write for the bee.
I mean, you know, in the church, everybody loves the bee and they're kind of excited to know somebody that has an in.
I try not to talk about it too much because then, you know, like you guys, people come up, hey, I got this great idea.
It's like you already have, as a doctor, you have everybody's like, hey, I got this growth on my elbow.
And then you're like, oh, I got a headline idea for you.
I got a growth and a headline.
Yeah.
Never ending.
Yeah, because I've become very cold with those people.
If somebody pitches me a headline in a DM or an email, I just don't even answer now.
I ignore.
Yep.
So let's talk about your book briefly, and then we'll go into our subscriber portion where we have some weird medical questions from our subscribers.
Yes.
Your book is called How to Keep Mom and Yourself Out of a Nursing Home, Seven Keys to Keeping Your Independence.
So is it about how to keep yourself out of a nursing home and your mom?
Yeah, specifically.
I just noticed as I admit a lot of people into senior living, and I'm not against nursing homes.
I mean, they certainly play a role, but nobody says, Oh, yeah, it's on my bucket list to one day live in a nursing home.
So there are certain things that kind of happen slowly over time that I started noticing patterns of, you know, once you start having a hard time getting up from a chair and walking around, those kind of things, they just put you on a path.
You need a lot more help, and then that just starts kind of a cascade.
So these are just my thoughts on things you can do earlier on to try to prevent starting down that road, you know, and keeping your staying independent as long as possible.
I mean, that's what people love in America, right?
Keeping our independence.
Give us a teaser, give us like one or two of the keys, and then people have to buy the book for the other keys.
Well, you have to do everything possible to stay continent.
That's a big one.
I mean, it is big.
If you how do you wait?
Wait, really?
This is one of the keys?
Yeah.
So if you start losing the ability to, you know, control your bladder.
So how do you strengthen that?
You got to just do like points or bladder exercise.
Exercise.
Kegels.
Kegels.
Really Kegel exercises.
I learned what that term meant because I moved to an area called Kegel Canyon in California.
They're laughing at me.
There's a Kegel Canyon?
I didn't know.
It's actually Kagle, K-A-G.
Kegel.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I was dating on e-Harmony.
So girls would always be like, yeah, I live in Kaggle Canyon.
And someone thought I was joking.
Like, it was some dirty joke I was making.
It was weird.
The best description is if you're at a party and you have to pass gas, flex the muscles that you would flex to get into a more appropriate environment.
So work your fart blockers.
Yeah.
All right, hang on.
I'll leave it for five seconds.
I'm doing it right now.
As you talk about it, you immediately want to.
We're all doing them right now, right?
Yeah.
Beautiful radio.
Good listen.
So, that's a good idea.
That's a key.
Okay.
Keeping your quadricep muscles strong.
That's a key.
What's that?
Those are the quads.
Muscles, you know, in the front of your thigh that basically help you get up and down.
And if you start to lose that ability, and I see people like, you know, putting their hands on the armrests and like launching themselves up out of the chair.
And that just worries me.
Like, oh man, you're going to pretty soon need somebody helping you up.
And then it just lets her off at that point.
So you got to.
That's why you were staring at me at the retreat.
Takings the clipboard houses.
Ethan used the armrest to get up.
It's not looking good over there.
He keeps farting.
I'll try to be a lift chair.
Keeps letting farts out.
He's definitely going to the nursing home.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, check out the doc's book.
Now, if you want your parents to be in a nursing home, can you just follow the opposite of this book?
You just take it.
Is it the sequel?
Just do the opposite of it.
How to put your mom in a nursing home.
How to get her in the nursing home as soon as possible.
Yeah.
Goodness greeting.
The book did get a five-star review from my mom.
So.
Is she in a nursing home?
No.
There you go.
All right.
Pick that one up.
We'll put the link in the show notes.
Thanks.
So let's go into the subscriber portion.
We have a bunch of weird medical questions.
I have a question too.
Like that guy who comes up and asks about the weird growth.
We got a bunch of weird growth questions from people at the Babylon B.
So we're going to go through that in our subscriber portion.
Bye.
Yeah, goodbye.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
You know, the epididymis, which is the, you know, the tubing.
It's attached.
Yeah, he was.
He was a reformed theologian, I think.
The nerve signals cross into the brain, they cross sides.
And just to be able to coordinate the eye movements, it's remarkable.
Praise evolution.
Good job, evolution.
Good job, evolution.
Yeah, way to go.
Random randomness of billions of years.
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Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.