As promised in yesterday's book review of Target: Pain Doc, Dr. Cheek agreed to answer a few questions to help readers learn more about her and her work:
1. Can you tell us how you began as a writer?
I wrote my first book, a satire on the world if roles were reversed, in 1996 at the age of 47. It never made it past the first agent. Now, after studying writing, I know why. I am re-writing the book now. I also submitted a book proposal on insulin resistance and PCOS back in 1997, but at that time insulin resistance was an unknown phenomenon and no one wanted to print a book about it. Now there are several. As usual, I was ahead of the times. Being ahead of the times has always been my curse. That's why I'm a felon today. I did ten years ago, what will be mainstream in another ten years.
2. Who are your favorite authors?
For fiction, I've always been a lover of the classics--Dickens, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, du Maurier. Most of my reading since adulthood has been professionally based or Christian literature. My favorite character in any book is Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind.
3. Who or what was your inspiration for this book?
My goal in writing Target: Pain Doc is to bring attention to the opiaphobic government policy of attacking good physicians and putting them in jail. There are physicians right now doing twenty-year prison terms for nothing more than writing appropriate medicine for legitimate patients. I was lucky it didn't happen to me.
4. Yet, you wrote this story as a novel rather than a memoir ... why?
Yes, keep in mind, Target: Pain Doc is fiction. It is not "my story" per se. It is the story of any doctor today trying to do what is right for their patients against a government that doesn't want you to heal or be healthy.
5. What do you want readers to take from your book?
As I used to tell my patients, the government is not your friend. Stop depending on them to do what is right. They are only interested in doing what will make them money. If you die before the age of 65, they'll be happy. So you must be responsible for your own health.
6. Although a work of fiction, is there true information in the book?
A second goal in writing Target: Pain Doc is to actually give good medical information about healing alternatives: Prolotherapy, homeopathy, auricular therapy and cleansing. By reading the story and following the medical advice in it, people can start to heal from disease. That alone warrants the cost of the book. The medical information is woven throughout the story, but summarized in one chapter. The take home message of Target: Pain Doc is:
1. Don't believe everything you read in the newspapers about doctors being charged with a crime prescribing medicines.
2. Address the cause of pain, don't just cover it up.
3. Take responsibility for your health through diet, lifestyle, and use of alternative therapies. Stop depending on insurance companies or the government that want to keep you sick to make money off of you.
4. Sympathy for the 116 million chronic pain patients in the country, half of which can't find a doctor now willing to take care of them.
5. Understand that pills don't cause drug addiction. Anxiety, stress, living conditions, and the despair that goes with these situations do. We will never be able to change the enticement of mind-altering drugs until we focus on improving people's living situation and give them a future.
7. Are you planning another book?
I am working slowly on my memoir of what has happened to me since my felony conviction. The government attacked me a second time, even though I couldn't write controlled drugs. Basically, if they don't get you the first time, they'll keep trying until they do. But my future is in God's hands. Meanwhile, I am also working on two other books, re-writing And Goddess Said, and doing a commentary on a medical book written in 1833, reprinting it as well. This should show the natural medicine that our ancestors used as better than the pills we use today. Hopefully I can be a leader in the journey of people back to natural, healing medicine, even if it is from a jail cell.
Thank you, Dr. Cheek, for sharing your knowledge through a very informative novel. I look forward to reading that historical book you mentioned. Sometimes what Nana knew and told us was more right than we once thought!
For more information on Dr. Linda Cheek's health recommendations, visit her website at: www.lindacheekmd.com
And if you missed my review of her book, click here.
And if you missed my review of her book, click here.
Hey everyone - I just wanted to tell you about a new activity I'll be doing this April. The Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge hosted by WEGO Health. I will be writing a post a day for all 30 days. I hope you'll join me in writing every day about health. It's going to be a lot of fun and I'd love to see what you have to say about each of the topics, too. All you have to do to join is sign up here: http://info.wegohealth.com/HAWMC2012 and you'll be able to start posting once April rolls around. Looking forward to writing with you!
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