Being hollowed out

The truth/lie about stomached ulcers.

Being a retired person, one has time to enjoy life’s experiences, whether they be work or family related.

This morning, while pondering over my possible last fatty breakfast of coffee, bacon, eggs and buttered toast, my mind examined every tasty mouth full of food. I chewed every morsel of bacon, egg and toast until it became fluid, in order to extract each and every flavoring particle for the absorption by my taste buds.

I am not sure if I will be able to enjoy the nice crispy bacon fat mixed with the yoke of the nicely fried egg again.
It tasted like the best breakfast I ever had.

My mouth welcomed it, my esophagus carried it happily to my stomach and my gallbladder said: 'let’s get to work breaking this fat load down while we can'.

Every part of my anatomy was happy and the last remnants of the tasty breakfast still linger in my mouth.

So why all this fuss over a little breakfast? Why this post?

As from now I am on a diet of clear fluids prior to gastroscopy and colonoscopy procedures tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow a little camera will be passed into my stomach and bowel to exclude any nasties, like cancer or polyps, prior to removing my gallbladder, which is believed to be the cause of the chest pains that feel like heart attacks, which I have been having...

Personally I think they have the ‘kat by die stert beet’ but then that may be one of those labels the doctors put on patients who do not want to accept their medical conditions. That label called 'denial'.

Just last week I had another imaginary label stuck to my forehead, by my GP, when I described my gastric and chest discomfort. That one was called ‘Hypochondria’.

A nice name for a baby: Imagine saying ‘Hypochondria go and do your school work’

My name is no longer ‘Hypochondria’ because I now suffer from a

‘delayed bile flow condition’ due to a gall-stone. So they say.

So I have a little gall-stone. So what? It is mine, it does not necessary need to be removed, so I redekavel. Surely if my gall-bladder was so troublesome, why can I enjoy this large breakfast of bacon and eggs so much?

The surgeons of today are far too eager to chop people’s body parts out because they feel it is not essential to health.
They think God created people full of needless spare parts, it seems.

I think it is man who is unable to understand the full glory of God’s creation. One day, perhaps we will understand just how vitally important each and every organ in the body is and aim to preserve, or replace it, rather than ‘chop it out’.

I was fifty when they chopped my uterus and ovaries out, pushing me into menopause overnight.
I was told that it was better to remove it because it would cause problems later in life.
(The removal of the ovaries was due to a surgical accident but that is another story).
The argument, at the time was that I did not need it anyway.

They possibly took my appendix out too because they believed that I did not need it either.

If they could they would remove my tonsils because ‘I do not need it’

Now the surgeons are about to remove my gallbladder because it is not necessary for health.

Soon I shall be like an empty vessel that can only make a lot of noise. (So I shall still have my tonsils – I hope)

Anyway, what this post is about is what I was thinking while I ate my last fatty breakfast. I was pondering on the mechanics of eating.

The food enters your mouth then it gets mechanically mashed by your teeth.
The more you chew your food, the less work your stomach has to do in order to break it down.
One can assume that people that chew their food well have to secrete less stomach acid.
Failing to chew food well will place a strain on the stomach which has to break those hunks of un-chewed food down chemically. (Using a strong acid)

Un-chewed food remains in the stomach longer, because an acidic chemical process is needed to make the food useable to the body.

The food beaks up in the holding-tank (stomach) and gets released in small amounts, as it digests, also causing a hold-up in the gallbladder (that has to break down the fat) and the pancreas (that breaks down the sugar and other nutrients)

Can you see how by neglecting the simple process of chewing food properly, we can have such a host of other gastric stress and congestions.

We all know that stress causes ulcers. We know the bigger the hurry, the faster we eat.
Acids can burn through the bowel linings and cause ulcers.
The shorter the time that food remains in the stomach the less chance there is of developing ulcers and indigestion.

Perhaps if stressed people can only take time to eat regular small meals and chew each mouth-full to a masticated pulp before swallowing, many stress-gastric symptoms can be avoided.

Chewing food well, from childhood, can possibly prevent obesity, stomach cancer and a host of other gastric problems in later life.

Eating and chewing with consciousness can possibly be a key to a longer life. Think about it.
It could prevent being surgically hollowed out in old age.

Perhaps parents should train their little children to chew their food, rather than delight in seeing an empty plate.

So mum, next time you hurry your little one through his plate of food, consider the surgical problems you may be training him to have later in life.



Of wat praat ek alles.

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