ABUSE

On a Friday morning in August 2004, this 22 year old female, attractive but in tears, dressed in a sexy top and jeans came into the emergency room. She had abdominal pain. I asked her  what kind of fluids she had been drinking the last 24 hours …2 cups of water maybe… I quickly asked for a urine sample and  I did a check. Urine tract infection…badly…. she looked dehydrated and I told her that an intraveneus infusion of water would help her. The student paramedic would give it to her. This involves a stick and soon the student came to me and said he failed the first time… the vein “blew”. I went in and saw her crying. “ I hate I.V. I do not want them…” I told her that we together would make this work and within a minute it was in. Although I had to guide her through it with “breath slowly, relax, what is your birthday…”, ways to distract her because she was jumping up as soon as the needle approached her. My next question was : have you been abused? She looked at me and nodded and tears flooded down. I fixed the I.V. and gave her fluids. I felt sorry for her and it came from the bottom of my heart. She said “I do not want to talk about it”. The doctor came and prescribed antibiotics. I run it in. Gave her cranberry juice and a warm blanket. Her next-door neighbor was a 40 year old women obese and very good-natured… having a lot of stress lately with head and chest pain. She had already started her work up. She looked at me and said to me you are a good nurse…. she had overheard the conversation. Her pain became worse and I went to ask for more pain medication and came back to give it to her. She started speaking again and I asked her… “Do you have a history of abuse? Tears run down. It was so busy that morning and I told her that I was so sorry to hear this, it happens so much and we have to do all these procedures which triggers that pain again. She was a smart woman and told me that she used to keep a diary. I gave her an envelop with paper and pen. She started to write. She wrote two pages and later I saw an article from the university of Idaho regarding writing and working through your emotions. I gave her a copy. Basically it said that people who wrote about their feelings and extracted what they learned from it digested the experience better then people who only wrote about their feelings. She gave me a big smile. I gave her a meal. In the meantime my dehydrated 22 years old was done with the antibiotics and ready to go. I removed the I.V and when I did she said with tears in her eyes, “all these old memories”. She was suffering…. I looked in her eyes and told her she was a strong women and she would get through it. She left the emergency room with her friend.

My 40 years old had to be admitted and we got her in a room…. she also was a strong women… both abused… how many more women…

WATER

He was 54 years old and just came into the emergency room from the orchard he owned for 25 years. In his jeans and boots and with his Sikh head coverage up. Chest pain and badly. Within 45 minutes he was in the cathlab. He had a myocardial infarct ( heart attack). He had these big brown eyes and so polite. He had always worked hard, for his family and now he also had diabetes. We worked fast and I wondered how a healthy hard working man could have a heart attack. Vegetarian….so I asked him what he thought could be a factor. He did not know…the only thing he said was that he always clenched his thirst with sodas, big bottles as he was working in the orchard. …..  No water I asked him. No water, he replied. He went upstairs and the results were good. He works again in his orchard.

A family member told me he is now drinking water instead.

DIET SODAS

Last year I heard two Emergency room physician having a lot of fun and were joking. The story was this: in the Bay area  there was a certain method for people that needed to gain weight. They gave these “weight gainers”  diet sodas to increase their weight. The conversation went along with hilarity and laughs.

Now Sept 2004 another physician in the Emergency room went to a conference regarding treatment and care for cancer patient. He told us that one advice was to give cancer patients diet sodas because the nutra sweets in diet sodas increase the appetite… Does that make you think?

Moral of the story if you want to loose weight, avoid diet sodas, regular sodas and nutra sweet. If you want to stay healthy drink water, herbal teas ( without sweeteners or sugar) vegetable juices and or hormone free milk. But the most important drink is water to stay hydrated and give your body enough fluids to have a healthy circulation and enables it to remove waist from your body.

If the above is not enough: … Did you know that sodas takes vitamins, minerals and calcium out of your body? So you have to take more vitamins or quite drinking sodas.

People drinking sodas also have more problems with their digestive system. It etches the lining of your GI tract. (Throw a Lincoln penny in a soda and see how shinny it comes out of your soda. This will happen on the long run to your intestinal lining and makes it more susceptible for infections, diseases and ulcers.

Warmly Pieternel