Surprising Health Insights Heard In Kansas

First, a quick laugh. I was standing in line at Braums, the best ice cream parlor in the USA, and the cheapest. I can buy a double scoop here for the same price as a single scoop in Albuquerque.

The wait was too long, so I addressed the help. Help came quickly and I rattled off two different orders, a hot fudge sundae and a candy mix with oreo cookies.

The young woman waiting in line behind me smiled and said, “You knew what you wanted. I have trouble deciding what I want.” I laughed and said, “I know what I want, but by the time the help arrives, I sometimes forget.” Just a pleasant, affirming exchange with a stranger in a small country town in Kansas.
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Next day I was in Walmarts, vitamin aisle, looking for glucosamine that I take with turmeric to help arthritis in my hips. An elderly lady in her sixties asked me about glucosamine. I was halfway through telling my story when a lady in her seventies pushed her shopping cart between us to reach the lidocaine patches. The first lady asked the second if lidocaine patches worked, and the second went into a long spiel that she had arthritis all over her body. Only in small town Kansas……

I adjusted, and told the second lady I had a story about arthritis, and would she like to hear it? Oh yes please, she said, so I started over.

About 5 years ago, I had arthritis in both my hips. An orthopedic doctor said X-rays looked the same in each hip – the arthritis looked to be in the same state of disrepair. But the right hip went south before the left one. I couldn’t walk or drive or sleep without difficulty. An orthopedic clinic in Parsons, a small town in Kansas, got me in quicker for a right hip replacement than Albuquerque could. The op was successful, and after a couple weeks I started playing pickleball, dancing and hiking again.

Still concerned about my left hip, I read a book about glucosamine that can stop arthritis getting worse, called The Arthritis Cure by Jason Theodosakis (first published 1996). Glucosamine builds cartilage. I knew that turmeric was a pain-reliever, so I started taking two supplements daily: glucosamine with chondritin and turmeric in the dosages recommended on the bottle from Costco.

It’s been five years since I started this treatment, and the arthritis pain in my second leg went away fairly quickly. I still play pickleball, dance and hike regularly, and I tell anyone who is willing to listen. The two ladies in Walmart nodded and I wrote down the names of the supplements for one of them. The other said she would remember the names.

I can’t guarantee the treatment will work for you, dear reader, but I would encourage you to read the book, and try the supplements. They are not cheap, but who cares if they take away the pain. As with all supplements, you need to wait a month or two to see the results.

The latest with me? I find it difficult to remember which hip is artificial and which is the original. The hip replacement and the glucosamine treatment have allowed me to rush around the pickleball court with folks who are twenty years younger than me.
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Now let’s jump to the other end of the health spectrum. A lady with a failing liver had her name in for a liver replacement but it was unlikely she would survive until a donor could be found. Then a huge surprise: an acquaintance who knew the family offered to donate half of her living liver! I had not heard of this, but if half of a liver is cut from a living donor and used to replace the whole failing liver of a recipient, the donor half liver and the recipient’s half liver will each grow to become whole healthy livers.

The op took about 12 hours, and after a lengthy recovery, the recipient has been released from hospital. Who did the operation? Mayo Clinic.

This story is factual, because I know some of the people in the operation. The technologies available for health restoration in the US are truly amazing.

Here is how google describes the operation:

In living donor liver transplantation, a portion of a healthy liver from a living donor is surgically removed and transplanted into a patient with a diseased or malfunctioning liver. Both the donor’s and recipient’s livers have the remarkable ability to regenerate and grow back to their normal size and function after the transplant.

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Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Harken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [spiritual joy].
[Isaiah, chapter 55]