Lessons from losing your gall bladder

Just over a year ago, I did battle with my gall bladder, and it lost mightily. The doctor on my side took it out along with the one 2" (5cm in Roman Catholic) stone that was in it, and since then, I've been pain and discomfort free. At least from the problems it was causing me.

But oh my, the problems that food can now cause is epic. The tl;dr of all of this is that fatty food is what the gall bladder was there for. When you consume something fatty, it goes through your stomach fairly well undigested, and then into the small intestine. There, a hormone is triggered asking the gall bladder for more bile to break down the fats, and that's where the gall stones come into it. The "release" of the bile is literally a contraction of the gall bladder, forcing bile out. Or in my case, trying to force a golf ball through a garden hose, which much more dire side effects.

So, what does this mean? To put it bluntly: fatty foods means that anywhere from 3-5 hours later, I will be throwing a handful of wet sand into water. I had read about this prior to the surgery, and what I can discern is that people who returned to their previous eating habits after surgery generally complained of diarrhea that is almost entirely diet related.

Why mention this now? It's starting to get close to the New Year, and it's time that I was better about eating anyway. So, low-fat (not no-fat, just low) here I come!

So let me get this straight

The very same Administration that told us, unequivocally, that Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Iraq is the same one that assured us that the United States "does not torture".

So, is the Administration of George W Bush and Richard "Dick" Cheney incompetent (the former reason), or liars (the latter), or both?

It applies to so much of life

"It's an ingenious solution to a problem that should never have existed." Mr James May

My recommendation for watching something

I am somewhat of a recalcitrant when it comes to remakes. I don't generally like them, and if I do, it's often times only in relation to the original. So when I heard that "House of Cards" was being made as an original series by Netflix, apart from applauding a content delivery company for actually creating some content, I was immediately drawn back to the intense and brilliant Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) of "House of Cards" "To Play the King" and "The Final Cut".

Boy was I wrong.

"House of Cards" (US) is brilliant in very different ways than the original. First, Kevin Spacey is a tour de force in this role. His supporting cast is superb, and the pace is very reminiscent of the "hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror" axiom of war. I cannot say enough about this series, and it may well have stopped my usual sobriquets of hating remakes and it's-never-as-good-as-the-original. Thoroughly recommended.