Body Abuse

Having been a nurse for 38 years, I have to say that I have seen all kinds of body abuse. With the passing of time, the various abuse has taken on a new diagnosis that requires a pill and before you know it, your medication list is longer than your grocery list.
Our bodies are equipped with finely tuned sensors that can detect early body trashing. They send us all kinds of warnings, but we don't listen. Soon our list of doctors is longer than the medication list.
For example: When we smoke our first cigarette, we begin to cough and our alarm says, "Whoa baby, I don't think so !" But we smoke some more and get addicted and before you know it, you are traveling around with a green o2 tank strapped to your shoulder to help you walk from your recliner to the bathroom. We now have COPD and have to see a pulmonologist.
When we over eat, our stomach bloat, we burp and become socially unacceptable, our pants get too tight, but later on, we over eat again. Then we are hit with that annoying gastric reflux, so we go to a gastroenterologist, who prescribes a pill which we pop before our meal, making us oblivious to the gas.
The eating gets a little out of hand and we pack on a few extra pounds to the already too many pounds and our blood pressure shoots up, threatening to blow a gasket, so we go see our internist, who prescribes another pill, tells us to exercise, which we don't have to do and wouldn't do even if we had time. He tells us to lay off the salt. So while we are in the pharmacy waiting for our new pill, we eat a bag of pretzels and a 16 ounce soda to kill some time.
Somehow our cholesterol gets out of control, threatening to clog our arteries. So we have to take another pill prescribed by a cardiologist to prevent a stoke or heart attack. But we are not too concerned, at least not enough to change out eating habits. So we take our new pill and then eat 3 large scoops of ice cream with chocolate cookies for a side dish.
The increasing weight thing gets a little troublesome to our knees and hips, that are buckling under the stress. So off we go to the orthopedic and become candidates for joint replacements. This pain brings on a pain pill and now we have opened another can of worms.
As our need for pain pills increases we are sent to pain management to see another doctor. After a time, we create an amazing tolerance to pain pills that has a bad sluggish affect on our bowels, so we head to the pharmacy to get a laxative, adding another pill to our medicine bin.
Eventually, the laxatives don't even work and our bowels go into a total rebellion and we develop a bowel obstruction which creates more pain. Sometimes only surgery can fix that problem and our pain score is a 10 the whole post op experience due to our high tolerance for narcotics.
As we are recuperating from surgery, our eating habits get even worse causing our pancreas to work over time to secrete enough insulin to bread down all that sugar we ingest. The job is too big and the excess sugar spills over into our blood and urine and bingo- we are diabetic. We are off to the endocrinoligist, who prescribes a pill if we are lucky or insulin. We are taught not to trim our own toenails because this may cause an injury to a "diabetic foot" that will refuse to heal, so we have to see a podiatrist on a regular basis.
We are taught that diet control will help prevent losing our limbs, but we don't like that strict regime. Before you know it we are seeing a vascular surgeon to schedule a few toe amputations, later a foot and then the lower leg. The fear of these loses sends us to more comfort food.
Our gallbladder gets agitated by the over flow of fat and the ducts get filled with sludge. We are diagnosed with cholecystitis, which causes serious painful attacks and we have to see a surgeon. Don't they have a pill for that yet?
All these physical ailments have a weird affect on our mental health and we find that can't sleep. Not sleeping makes us tired and irritable and we get stressed after being diagnosed with anxiety and depression. We can't battle these two, so off we go to a psychologist who sends us to a psychiatrist who prescribes a few more pills.
Our new mental health disorder causes us to eat more comfort food, because this is all we have to look forward to. Our added weight causes more depression and as a last resort we think a gastric bypass will put a smile back on our face, but we wait in the long line for the surgery.
While we wait, we look for a quick fix, like alcohol, which becomes a calming pacifier. Even though we wake up the next day feeling like our head is the size of a watermelon, we drink again.
Our liver can not figure out what we are doing and gets a major attitude by refusing to accomodate the alcohol and we develop cirrhosis of the liver. Our skin soon becomes yellow, called jaundice and our belly swells to the size of a 12 month pregnant lady. We start to look like a pumpkin. We are told we need a liver transplant, but alcohol abusers will be the last to receive one a long waiting list.
Needless to say, all these factors have affected our sex life and wouldn't you know it, there is another pill to take, so we add it to our other skittles in the medicine bin.
We are a country of body abusers, but our body will only take so much and one day, we will be knocked down, flat on our backs. Good health does not come in a pill, it is not a mystery, it's a job and we have to work at it.
When the alarms sound in our bodies, we need to pay attention. Sometimes there is no second warning.
And we wonder why health costs are so high ????