Beep...beep...beep....
I sleepily rubbed my eyes, being rudely awakened by my pager's shrill tones. It was about 2:15 a.m., and prospects of a good night's rest was effectively ruined for the night. I managed to stumble out of bed without waking my wife, groped for my pager, and checked the message. It was the emergency room. As I picked up my phone, I made a quick mental list of why the ER would call a pediatric gastroenterologist at such an hour - maybe it was a child who was vomiting blood, or a teenage girl with a bad stomachache who refused to leave the emergency room without seeing a specialist (oh please, not that!), or...
"Hi, are you peds GI on call? This is Dr. Lee from the emergency department. We have a 15 month old girl who was found by her parents at home choking on something about an hour ago, and they thought she might have swallowed a coin or something like that. The kid's doing fine now, but we did chest and abdominal X-rays on her, and it looks like there's a coin stuck in the esophagus. It's about 2.4 centimeters in diameter, and it's about a couple of centimeters above the diaphragm...."
Translation - toddler was crawling around...toddler saw loose change on the carpet...toddler picked up shiny quarter...toddler played with shiny quarter...toddler put shiny quarter in mouth...toddler choked on shiny quarter...toddler swallowed shiny quarter...quarter got stuck in no-man's land in the esophagus, too big to fall into the stomach, but too far down the esophagus to vomit it back up. It's a fairly common scenario that I get called about a few times a month. The swallowed foreign objects (that's medical-speak for stuff that normally don't belong inside our bodies) may be different, but the stories tend to be similar. Besides quarters, I've removed pennies, dimes, nickels, various foreign currency (mostly Canadian and Mexican), marbles, hair clips, bobby pins, broken pieces of dental retainers, magnets, and a few batteries (getting a slippery AAA alkaline battery out of a 2 year old boy's stomach was particularly memorable).
I instructed Dr. Lee at the emergency room to have the child hospitalized, and later during the day I made arrangements for the coin to be removed endoscopically under anesthesia. The quarter, no longer shiny, was eventually returned to the anxious parents in a small specimen jar. Hopefully it wouldn't end up in the kid's mouth again.
After years of picking shiny foreign bodies out of kids' innards, I have developed the habit of always warning parents and caretakers of young children about the little ones' propensity to find things on the floor and put them in their little mouths. Like most doctors, I assume that it is the adults' responsibility to make sure that their children don't sit around with a pocketful of loose change on the floor, and any suspicion of their failure to keep an eye on the kids would often result in prompt messages to the hospital social worker to investigate for possible child neglect. It is a toddler's nature to put little shiny things into his or her mouth, and disaster can easily result if such a nature is allowed to run its course unchecked.
Just as toddlers are prone to place themselves in potential harm, we humans in our natural state tend to take actions that lead to death and destruction. We were created to worship God and for His glory; however, the indictment on our sinful nature is:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, (Romans 1:21-22)
As a result, God allowed sinful mankind to succumb to its own nature:
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:24-25)
In the end, such actions result in inevitable destruction:
Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)
May we perish the thought of rejecting God to do our own thing, because if God allows us to do so, it would be the most unthinkable punishment.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Fleeing From Sweetness
"Linda, tell me what you usually like to drink. You know, like soda, tea, coffee, juice, milk, sports drinks...stuff like that."
Linda was an obese teenager who was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and a liver problem, and was seriously in need of losing weight. I asked the question to look for possible ways that she could improve her health.
"Well, I drink a lot of water..."
Linda spoke slowly and carefully, as if she was trying to give the "correct" answer. Her mother, who sat at her side, offered a more realistic assessment, and explained that Linda drank a lot of soda, as well as high-calorie, sugary blended coffee drinks (with extra whipped cream, of course), large cans of sweetened iced tea, and juice. I also discovered later that Linda ate a lot of snack chips while watching television, refused to eat vegetables, and consumed at least 2-3 times the normal portions of rice or tortillas during meals. She also detested exercise or anything that would cause her to break a sweat.
"Thank you, Linda for all this information. You know, I asked you all these questions to see what we can work on to help you lose some weight, and I think that cutting out sweet beverages from your diet will be a very good idea. You see, anytime you drink a can of soda, a glass of juice, a can or glass of iced tea with sugar, etc., you are taking in between 100 to 150 calories, and each time you do this, you literally have to walk about one mile just to burn off the extra sugar that you drank. So, if you just drink water instead, it's like you're walking extra miles every day. If you cut back by only one of those drinks a day, it will make a weight difference of about one pound a month, as long as you don't try to make up the difference by eating more the rest of the day."
That was my standard advice about soft drinks, calories and exercise. I call it "energy currency conversion". One can of soda a day equals one extra pound of body fat a month, and one needs to run one mile to burn off the sugar in one can of soda. It sounds simple enough for most of my patients and families to understand.
"What about diet sodas?" Linda asked nervously.
"Well, diet sodas are not as bad as regular sodas, in that they have almost no calorie. However, the problem with diet or low-calorie soft drinks is that they are as sweet as the sugar-containing stuff, so when you drink them, even though you are not taking in more sugar, you still crave sugar, so when the opportunity arises you will still go for the sugar whenever you can. Because of this, it's much better to just drink water and other unsweetened beverage whenever possible. I personally drink a lot of coffee and tea all day, but I usually don't put any sugar or other sweetener in them, and I don't feel the craving to do so."
Makes sense. A person who imbibes soft drinks with sugar substitutes to lose weight is sort of like a sex addict trying to overcome his perversion by watching pornography. It may not be the real thing, but rather than helping one to get the problem out of his system, it entices him closer to the real deal.
Linda would be much more likely to keep eating and drinking sweet stuff if she craves sweet stuff. Similarly, one is more likely to commit acts of sin or disobedience if the enticement of desire is planted in the mind.
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)
It is better to separate oneself from the cravings. Don't compromise with them. Don't fight them. Run from them.
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. (2 Timothy 2:22-23)
Linda was an obese teenager who was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and a liver problem, and was seriously in need of losing weight. I asked the question to look for possible ways that she could improve her health.
"Well, I drink a lot of water..."
Linda spoke slowly and carefully, as if she was trying to give the "correct" answer. Her mother, who sat at her side, offered a more realistic assessment, and explained that Linda drank a lot of soda, as well as high-calorie, sugary blended coffee drinks (with extra whipped cream, of course), large cans of sweetened iced tea, and juice. I also discovered later that Linda ate a lot of snack chips while watching television, refused to eat vegetables, and consumed at least 2-3 times the normal portions of rice or tortillas during meals. She also detested exercise or anything that would cause her to break a sweat.
"Thank you, Linda for all this information. You know, I asked you all these questions to see what we can work on to help you lose some weight, and I think that cutting out sweet beverages from your diet will be a very good idea. You see, anytime you drink a can of soda, a glass of juice, a can or glass of iced tea with sugar, etc., you are taking in between 100 to 150 calories, and each time you do this, you literally have to walk about one mile just to burn off the extra sugar that you drank. So, if you just drink water instead, it's like you're walking extra miles every day. If you cut back by only one of those drinks a day, it will make a weight difference of about one pound a month, as long as you don't try to make up the difference by eating more the rest of the day."
That was my standard advice about soft drinks, calories and exercise. I call it "energy currency conversion". One can of soda a day equals one extra pound of body fat a month, and one needs to run one mile to burn off the sugar in one can of soda. It sounds simple enough for most of my patients and families to understand.
"What about diet sodas?" Linda asked nervously.
"Well, diet sodas are not as bad as regular sodas, in that they have almost no calorie. However, the problem with diet or low-calorie soft drinks is that they are as sweet as the sugar-containing stuff, so when you drink them, even though you are not taking in more sugar, you still crave sugar, so when the opportunity arises you will still go for the sugar whenever you can. Because of this, it's much better to just drink water and other unsweetened beverage whenever possible. I personally drink a lot of coffee and tea all day, but I usually don't put any sugar or other sweetener in them, and I don't feel the craving to do so."
Makes sense. A person who imbibes soft drinks with sugar substitutes to lose weight is sort of like a sex addict trying to overcome his perversion by watching pornography. It may not be the real thing, but rather than helping one to get the problem out of his system, it entices him closer to the real deal.
Linda would be much more likely to keep eating and drinking sweet stuff if she craves sweet stuff. Similarly, one is more likely to commit acts of sin or disobedience if the enticement of desire is planted in the mind.
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)
It is better to separate oneself from the cravings. Don't compromise with them. Don't fight them. Run from them.
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. (2 Timothy 2:22-23)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)