Natalie: So you may know that I am in graduate school right now and I am doing an internship to become a registered dietician and with that comes the requirement to do an internship. I am on the last leg of it. I am doing my clinical rotation right now, so I am at a hospital near where I live. It's just -- it's so interesting, it's very eye opening to be working in that type of environment. I just wanted to share some of the things with you that I've seen. They are not necessarily patients that I've been treating but when you hang out for a while in a hospital and if you are young, you may not have had that opportunity. And yes, I call it an opportunity because it can be a very big motivator for you to change your own life. But if you haven't been in a hospital, sometimes that infallible sense that you have that you know, you could never die and that, your life will never end, that can come to a halt when you see some things that go on in the hospitals.
One of the main things that I've seen is that there are too many young people in the hospital, younger than that they should be. The most of the patients that I've become familiar with have preventable conditions. It's just very shocking, I mean I know that and I do videos about preventative life styles and changing and improving your diet and being healthy, but when you see someone in their 40s or when you see someone in their 30s or when you see someone in their 20s, you know, in the hospital, coming back to the hospital over and over because they are not changing their diet or they are no improving their life style or they are chronic alcoholic. So regardless of what it is, it's just, it's so eye opening. It is such a motivation because you know, I don't want to be in a hospital at 35 or at 45 or feel like my life is about to end and I am on my death bed because I've made some bad choices.
Some of the people that are in there of course how diseases that aren't because of a choice that they've made or aren't because of lifestyle choices that they've made but I get to see all kinds of different things. Of course the hospital then has an oncology floor so I see cancer patients and I see diabetic patients and I see kidney transplant patients and I mean and it's just really fascinating. But the thing that has so struck me is that there are so many people that are in there and they don't have to be.
My goal is just to kind of share this with you as I don't want you to wait until some dramatic event happens, I don't want you to wait until your organ start to fail, I don't want you to wait until a family member dies before you become passionate about health. Sometimes there is not a whole lot I can do because if they are at the end of their cancer treatments and it's not working or if they've gotten some transplants and their body is rejecting the transplants, there is different scenarios where I still see the patients and I still do what I am supposed to do but sometimes it's not effective and there is not a whole lot you can do, kind of once you get passed a certain point.
Just to give you some examples, there was a 44 year old person in the hospital and they are very overweight, possibly even morbidly obese and they have diabetes. One of the complications with diabetes is kidney damage, which is called Nephropathy. So this individual has kidney damage and they are on a waiting list for a kidney transplant. Right now, they are an acute renal failure, which means that their kidneys are not able to clear out the blood stream of certain byproducts of protein. So basically if that person does not get the kidney transplant in time and if are not able to regulate those different lab tests that we are monitoring, this person can die. So that's an individual that may or may not improve, so it's very depend. Another person that just received a pancreas transplant and their body rejected the pancreas transplant.
Sometimes you can get another organ, sometimes you are on the waiting list, then you don't get it. So sometimes it's just hit and miss. So these are just some things that I've been working with in some people I've been seeing but what's very interesting is that, there are so many people that are in the hospital and it's really before their time. They are young, they should be living life, they should be going full seem ahead, enjoying their lives and yet they are in the hospital and may be even approaching death prematurely because of the choices that they've made.
I want to impart to you that it's your choice, a lot of -- with most of the people that I've been seeing, they can make such a difference in their own prognosis, in their own health just based on the choices they make, diet, life style, exercise, reducing their stress. What's really sad is, one of the floors that is the most heart wrenching that I go on is the oncology floor. Some of the patients will come back from the cancer, some of them will do really well and will start incorporating more vegetables and start incorporating more life style choices and diet that actually will help to heal them after a cancer. Some of the cancers are preventable and yet people were in the hospital because of the choices that they've made. Some of the cancers, we don't know why they got them or how they got them or really how to treat it, but a lot of the patients that are in there, they have chosen really their own fate based on the choices that they've made, it's particularly with their diet.
I just don't want you to wait that long. I am at the hospital right now doing my rotation but what I am real passionate about is helping you before you get to the hospital, helping you be preventative and be proactive and make those right choices and be healthy so that you don't have to be in the hospital and you have to keep going back to the hospital because it's so gut wrenching. It's very disheartening when someone's in the hospital and they may not make it. So I just want to leave with you that don't wait until something tragic happens before you decide that health is important.
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