Battle Cry

I am two weeks post op and post op complication and happy to report I am on the mend and back to work!

I have been thinking about everything that contributes to one’s recovery after an ordeal like a major surgery, from mindset to medicine to the mutual support of both family and friends. It takes a village, and I am taking nothing for granted. My kids and husband waited on me hand and foot. Diligent nurses called checking up on me. Caring friends and family cheered me with dozens of texts . I was put on several prayer lists which reached all the way to Michigan. My sister and sister-in-law vacuumed my carpets and scrubbed my floors. Even now, lovely ladies in my church body are delivering nourishing meals to my front door.  I appreciate everything and everyone and do not take anything for granted.

I particularly do not want to take my underlying health for granted.

Thankfully, I was a well person with a complication not a sick person with complicated comorbidities.

The ICU nurses who had the fortitude to march through the war zone of Covid and come out the other side were still ready and willing to do what they do best, save people in acute distress.  Nevertheless, they were glad for the reprieve.

Relatively speaking, my case was easy. It may have been a challenge to keep my blood pressure up, but my underlying cells were doing their normal healthy thing exchanging oxygen and glucose and minerals and electrolytes and not causing any trouble.

Still, I took full advantage of the state-of-the-art hospital bed with all its buttons that conveniently and passively lifted my bruised body without the pain of using my abdominal muscles overstretched during the life saving laparoscopy.

As I lay there, I contemplated those who had gone before me in that very ICU room. I was gravely aware that there had been patients so sick, their bodies so overwhelmed, that they had taken their last breaths in the bed I was lying in, having succumbed to Covid’s cruelty.

And what was unconscionable was that many times they were alone, one of several consequences of callous Covid.

I listened intently and with tears as the veteran ICU nurses recounted their stories: their meticulous donning on and off restricted PPE supplies, their ingenuity in reducing waste, their anticipation of a protective vaccine which would allow them once again to hug sons and daughters they had not hugged for months on end, the double binds they grappled with regarding rules and regulations and protocols and their patients’ dignity and humanity and their own compassion and integrity.

And here they stood, at my bedside, tending to my needs. Humbling.

In their combined 61 years of ICU experience, they had never seen anything like Covid.

It gave me a new perspective. Sobering.

Although never cavalier regarding the reality of Covid and having followed all the guidelines for clinical practice, I have questions. I wonder about the science behind masks and distancing and lock downs. I ponder about the necessity of vaccinating healthy children and young people who have already had Covid. I contemplate why organized medicine and government health agencies to this day have not waged an all-out campaign to encourage citizenry to improve overall health with real and whole foods and exercise and vitamin D and good sleep, all the lifestyle changes we focus on at Oregon Weight and Wellness.

Stay Safe was the main messaging.  What about Be Well.

I understand better now the push for everyone to be vaccinated against the infectious disease Covid. I encourage my patients who are at the highest risk, my mother who at 81yo is in a vulnerable age group, my sister who works in the ER, to get the vaccine. Yet I remain unvaccinated. Not in rebellion. Not without rational thought or looking at the data. Not with an indifference to my fellow man.  I need the data only time can give.

In the meantime, I will continue to wage war on chronic noninfectious diseases which have skyrocketed in the last fifty years with the onslaught of ultra-processed foods. Chronic diseases like diabetes, coronary artery disease and cancer are on the rise and show no signs of letting up.  And this is the reason America was in such a state of emergency. The statistics held true.  Sick people with overweight and comorbidities died from Covid, not well people.

Lest I seem self-righteous, I was once metabolically unwell, mostly because of a diet devoid of  high quality meats, vegetables (unless you consider Pace Picante sauce a veggie) and healthy fats and loaded with bagels and cereal and  Nutty Buddies  and milk shakes and a 72 oz/day diet coke habit. I have learned so much in the last seven years since transitioning from primary care to obesity medicine and I have endeavored to practice what I preach.

From my perspective the top chronic diseases represent one disease: poor metabolic health. By getting to this root cause, and helping people get healthier at the cellular level, we will more be more able to fight the next infectious disease which apparently is inevitable.

The message is simple but is sometimes hard to put into practice. Eat real food. Move your body. Go to bed before midnight. Take vitamin D.

These lifestyle changes afford the body the essential elements, the essential amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals for healthy cellular function, which means healthy immune function and healthy weight regulation.

In bold humility and with all the respect and deserved praise for the myriad of front-line workers, especially Pat and Lisa, even in the wake of delta variants, without blaming or shaming, I say with confidence and urgency, we do not have to put our communities, or our health care workers, or our government through the likes of Covid again.

We must do our part. We must be well.

Whatever barrier popped into your head. I don’t like… I don’t have time… I can’t cook…I can’t afford…My family won’t eat… etc., there is no judgement. We know change can be difficult. Give us a call at Oregon Weight and Wellness and we will help  shrink the change and get you on the road to better cellular health.