Natural Therapy

I'm a medical atheist—I don't believe in doctors, I don't believe in hospitals, and as for drugs and medicines I've got a dossier on pharmogenetic ailments so thick that, just by carrying it around, I could injure my back badly enough that I'd need to visit a chiropractor—if I believed in them!

Good health, like charity, begins at home and I'm happy to say that Lynne is all the doctor I need. She keeps it simple. She says that a healthy diet and natural therapy will cure anything.

So we never eat at MacDonald's. None of that American junk food finds its way into our bodies. No way! We eat healthy Australian hamburgers, like the ones we get from the Chinese guy at the bottom of Katoomba Street. He puts beetroot on them. You won't get that at Macca's. A couple of Aussie hamburgers and a bag of chips, washed down with ice-cold Coca Cola, are the key to a healthy, doctor-free lifestyle.

Of course, Lynne says that, as good as they are, hamburgers aren't enough to keep you healthy. She says we need exercise. That's where Zoe comes in. She's a dog.

Some people take their dogs for long walks but that's silly because it's usually either too hot, or too cold, or too wet, or too windy, or too early, or too late ... so we don't walk the dog any more. There are better ways to get exercise.

Lynne says the best one is to give Zoe a bath.

Zoe hates getting wet and will do anything to avoid it so, as soon as we start to run water into the tub, she hides. If she can't get out of the house she crawls under the bed and won't come out. So I've got to go under after her. At my age it takes a while to wriggle down that low and, of course, as soon as I get close enough to catch her she runs off again. She's quicker than me. When I eventually get out from under, the chase is on again and it can take ages to catch her. It's worse if she can get into the backyard because she thinks it's a game and we can spend all morning doing laps of the barbecue area.

I've lost five kilos since Lynne told me to bath her every day.

So diet is important, and exercise is important, but even though I follow all Lynne's advice, sometimes things still go wrong.

Nobody probably ever notices but my hair has gone grey. The funny thing is it hasn't gone grey all over—my head and beard are grey, and so is my chest down as far as the sternum, but the rest is still the same brown it always was. You only have to check out my arms to see that.

I thought it happened because I was getting old but Lynne says that you don't have to go grey just because you have a few years under your belt. She says that trees don't go grey and they're a lot older than me.

She's a gardener, you see, as well as being my doctor, and she understands these things and knows what the symptoms really mean.

She diagnosed my grey hair as dieback.

The big worry about dieback is that it can kill a tree in under two years so she's been working like mad to correct mine while there's still time.

She did some research and learned that dieback in humans can be caused by wearing shoes that are too tight. She said that your body becomes pot-bound and dieback sets in. I didn't know that, but she's really smart.

Since she started treating me I've had to wear gum boots. Nothing else will do, because she fills them with fertiliser and chook manure so that I can suck up the nutrients through my pores. I think it's working, but I don't know what to do about the tinea. Lynne says it's not really tinea at all, it's root rot, and we'll worry about that after we get the dieback fixed.

She's been rubbing the stuff into my scalp, too.

I wouldn't mind so much if she didn't make me stay out in the yard and sleep in the greenhouse but she says I'm too smelly to come to bed. “After all,” she says, “If you have a plant disease you have to treat it outside with the other plants.” She says it's all part of the healing cycle.

The good news is that the treatment is working and I hope to be able to move back into the house in another month or so. See, all my hair has started to fall out and she says that's a healthy sign because when the dead stuff has gone I'll start to grow new, healthy hair—just like new leaves growing on a tree.

I know it's a bit ungrateful for me to say this, but I sometimes wonder if she's using me as a guinea pig for the treatment. I think she wants to market it.