Higher Learning in Everyday Life

It’s been almost eight years since I graduated from my selected institute of higher learning with my degree in psychology.  I know what you’re thinking… that degree isn’t worth using to wipe my ass… and you may be right.  Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed my years in school as I studied hard and usually partied harder.  In retrospect I should have done the opposite but that, as they say, is water under the bridge.  I have always considered myself to be somewhat smart, otherwise I would not have been admitted into a post-secondary institution, and recently I have begun to broaden my knowledge once again.  No, I haven’t gone back to school… yet, although that is ultimately my goal.  As to what I will study still remains a mystery to me as my thoughts on that seem to change on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. 

The current book I am reading has touched on something inside me and has me wanting to go to med school.  I guess that’s always been in my mind since I was young – I did major in psychology with the intent to help people and doctors certainly DO help people.  Of course I might attribute my desire to go to med school to watching six seasons of Scrubs reruns…  However, this book is quite intriguing.  Titled The Oxygen Revolution – Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapyit has rekindled my thirst for knowledge and I find that I cannot put it down.  The book discusses the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen being administered to patients suffering various ailments, most notably stroke, cerebral palsy, asthma, birth injuries, brain injuries, Parkinson’s, Diabetes, and Autism.  This book, naturally, is touching on a very personal matter for me.  My son suffers from Autism, being diagnosed almost 3 years ago.  Naturally, my wife and I are quite interested in any treatments or therapies that may help facilitate his learning so that he may live a somewhat “normal” life when he grows up.  That being said, Hyberbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) offers some hope. 

I know what you’re thinking: hyperbaric…  isn’t that something they use for divers who ascend to the surface too quickly?  If that’s what you are thinking then you would be correct.  Hyberbaric chambers are used to reverse the effects that nitrogen bubbles can have on the brain and other organs, or at least that is what it was thought to do.  This book sheds some light on research, both recent and not so recent, that points to something different – research that shows that Hyperbaric Oxygen actually has a much broader range of applications in terms of treating different maladies.  The research discussed by the author, a prominent hyperbaric medicine physician from New Orleans, illustrates that HBOT actually allows oxygen to flow to oxygen deprived areas of the body (such as the brain after a stroke) that can repair the damage that has been caused.  I would like to highlight some examples where HBOT would be beneficial. 

The book discusses using HBOT to treat trauma to babies during the birthing process – sometimes the baby can be caught or stuck in the birth canal, resulting in an oxygen deprived low blood flow situation that can cause brain injury due to oxygen deprivation – similar to drowning (another example of HBOT application).  Instead of intubating the infants which can result in more trauma, babies have been placed into a crib sized hyperbaric chamber to be resuscitated – a procedure that cause no additional trauma to the child.  The results are identical to intubation, but with one stark difference – the child is usually only intubated by someone extremely skilled in order to prevent damage to the airway, a practice that is rare in hospitals since the specialist has to be on call 24/7.  Using HBOT and administering 1 dose to combat the acute trauma reverses the damage caused by restricted oxygen and blood flow in the birth canal without inserting a tube into a newborns airway.  As a parent, this is an appealing alternative with absolutely no risk of hurting my newborn child.

Another example involves brain injuries caused by trauma to the head, such as falling out of a speeding car.  This was another patient the author treated with success.  A young man had been comatose for several hours after falling from a speeding car and landing on the right side of his forehead.  His scans showed hemorrhaging in the brain, as well as blood between the skull and the membrane that surrounds the brain.  The doctors treating him had no idea what to do.  The author was approached and asked to treat the patient, even though he couldn’t guarantee anything from the treatment.  Within weeks, the boy had regained consciousness, regained his speech and regained his mobility, although his cognitive abilities hadn’t fully recovered.  At that point the boy’s parents moved him to a neurorehabilitation clinic and were advised by the staff there to discontinue HBOT treatments.  The parents coalesced and treatment stopped.  When the treatment stopped, the boy’s improvement stopped as well.  Several months passed before the parents decided to resume HBOT treatments.  With the therapy came a return of his improvement to the point where he returned to college.  His dream was to be a surgeon but his accident didn’t allow him to pursue that dream.  Instead he returned to school, completed college and went to work for a bank.  His story was one telling of the benefits of HBOT: without HBOT the chances of his recovery to his current level were virtually non-existent.  He could have stayed in his coma for weeks, months, or even years and by that time the damage could have left him in far worse condition than he was when he started HBOT.

This book has opened up another avenue of hope that is worth looking into.  The only foreseeable problem is one of money: HBOT treatments can run upwards or $200 per treatment, with a run of 40 treatments per diagnosis cycle.  There have been cases of over 100 treatments to a single patient in order to maintain the benefits permanently.  With HBOT treatment being funded by Medicare for diabetic patients with foot injuries, the door has been opened to let a flood of research come to light so that the funding can be expanded to treatments of much more debilitating ailments.  It’s time to take a look at the cost-benefit of dumping a bunch of money into a therapy that could in the long run save the government a lot of money in disability payments as well as return those affected citizens to the ranks of contributing member of society.  Breakthroughs in medicine only happen when pioneers are willing to think outside the box and pursue new avenues.  This line of thinking brings me hope.  With hope comes renewed optimism and the willingness and desire to never give up.