Well duh....

This week we learned about alcohol abuse. It just seems obvious, of course alcohol is bad for your body…it’s alcohol, but apparently not everyone in the class understood that principle or maybe they just didn’t realize HOW awful it is for you.

So here it is…what can alcohol due for you...? Keep in mind, these are the permanent affects of chronic alcohol use.

Acute pancreatitis, irritates the stomach, slowly kill the liver, cause protein malnutrition and vitamin malabsorption.

It is toxic to nerves, so it causes ataxia (drunk walking) that can be permanent as well as causes numbness of hands and feet.

It also kills heart cells which leads to arrhythmias and Congestive heart failure plus it adds to high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.

Along with all that, it kills your bone marrow, so you have low platelets (meaning you can’t clot), low White blood cells (immune system) and you have anemia.

Doesn’t that sound great??? Well besides all the obvious cell death that occurs with alcohol there were a couple facts that I thought were interesting.

-On an empty stomach it takes about 30 minutes to get the ‘high’ from alcohol. IF there is food in the stomach, it delays the high, but doesn’t decrease it at all…it will eventually get to your blood and then brain…you just have to wait a little longer.

-Women really can’t drink as much as guys and it has nothing to do with the size of the woman. Just the fact that she is female means she has more fat and less total body water than men, so that means the alcohol is going to be more concentrated.

-If someone is ‘hung over’ it means they are going through withdrawal. My naïve moment- you don’t get this reaction every time you drink, only when you have more than a couple drinks (depending on the person)

Well...all i can say is I'm so glad that I don't drink alcohol!

As a quick review of the past couple weeks- Life has been pretty low key. On Friday I did my first clinical experience. I shadowed a trauma PA in the hospital, which turned out to be less exciting than it sounds. The only neat thing that happened is we checked up on a gun shot wound patient. I didn't get to see the wound or anything...bummer. Maybe next time!

Today was the most gorgeous weather. It was in the 60's all day today! It was perfect...all i needed was a light jacket (hopefully you all got that movie reference). I'm definitely feeling very grateful to be living in Virginia today.

One more thing...I just love Kenny G. The other night as I was trying to fall asleep I decided to listen to some music and I turned on the song 'by the time this night is over' and I could just see the family at dinner time- eating California Citrus Salad in our backyard with the waterfall going and mom swaying and doing her snap dance thing she does. Anyway, It reminded me of what a wonderful family I have. I truly have one of the best families ever (which definitely includes all the in-laws)!