The Members of Our Bodies

I've heard from Chad and he's feeling much better. After going through 2 courses of Cipro, he's on to Flagyl to keep his GI tract inline (he may have dysentary). A climbing partner, friend, and family physician states:

Sucks, doesn't it, to be betrayed by your own innards? I never liked the digestive tract anyway. Such a prima donna, it always has some demand to get in your way, "you can't walk, I'm hungry, if you drink that next beer, I'm just going to puke it right back up, I don't care if you're about to climb, I have to take a shit.". It's even worse if you have kids; then someone else's digestive tract is always telling you what to do.

Well, I have to agree really. We are constantly concerning ourselves with its condition. In addition to the unpredictability of the timing of normal function (despite your noble efforts to regulate with fiber, coffee, and the occasional glycerin suppository), the damn thing is innervated by the nervous system. Seems to make sense, right, because it supposedly shunts blood away from the area when there's a catecholamine release and the fight or flight impulse kicks in. However if it's anxiety that arises, a different set of signals travel the nervous system highway and express themselves in their own explosive and highly particular manner.

But if the GI tract is the prima donna, then I say the lymphatic system is the quiet, unassuming warrior. Perhaps a samuri? It's constantly fighting off the evils of our environment. It's always adapting and unless we've exposed it to something particularly horrible, in which case it needs to call for major reinforcements, we often haven't a clue that the battle is going on and that once again we've been saved.