Who doesn’t love (T)he (L)earning (C)hannel? Today my team has put together a bunch of TLC videos about weird addictions that we’re going to react to!
Don’t have time to read this post? Watch the video here instead!
[Video begins with a woman pouring gas into a cup.]
Shannon:
My name is Shannon. I am 20 years old, and I am addicted to drinking gasoline.
Doctor Rich:
How are you alive?
Shannon:
I can’t go a day without it, like I crave it. I need it. I’ll wake up, go to the washroom, and drink the gas. If I go out, I put it in a small water bottle.
[Video abruptly changes to a man in a “relationship” with a car.]
TLC Narrator:
Nathaniel is in a committed relationship.
Doctor Rich [in disbelief]:
This can’t be a thing…
TLC Narrator:
That he’s named “Chase.”
Doctor Rich [shocked]:
This is a joke. This is a joke…
TLC Narrator:
He met Chase in a resale lot about five years ago.
[Video shows Nathaniel kissing the car and whispering lovingly.]
Doctor Rich:
What the @#$% is going on right now?
Are these two different things?
Evelyn:
My name is Evelyn. I’m 27 years old. I live in Cape Gerard in Missouri, and I’m addicted to drinking air freshener.
Doctor Rich:
Oh no, you’re not gonna…
[Woman sprays air freshener into her mouth and smiles.]
Evelyn:
I love air freshener.
Doctor Rich:
No! You know, they make, like, a mint thing you spray!
Evelyn:
The main thing I love about drinking air freshener is the taste.
Doctor Rich [stammering]:
I… I… But I honestly don’t understand! How, how are you alive?
[Doctor Rich looks up information on his phone.]
Okay. So Medical News Today says that you can have two ounces of gasoline a day without severe intoxication. Twelve ounces will kill you if you’re a seventy-kilogram (or about a 155-pound) person. The symptoms include nausea, heartburn, drowsiness, vertigo, slurred speech, rashes, staggering, weakness, blurry vision, confusion, convulsions, loss of consciousness, uh, lung and internal organ hemorrhage, and heart failure.
There is no redeeming value of ingesting gasoline. Um… Why do we know this at all? There aren’t a bunch of people chugging gasoline, but workers who come in contact with either gasoline vapors from a gas station or lawn equipment (like a lawnmower) may have exposure. And that’s where these symptoms are documented, apparently. But please, please don’t drink gasoline — and knock it off with the air freshener thing too!
I will literally come to your @#$%ing house and give you a tin of Altoids. You don’t need to be smoking the air freshener. It can cause airway irritation, make allergies worse, and (in high enough doses) can be lethal.
Finally, don’t make love to a car, you know, get on Match.com. There’s options! I’m just saying… there’s options.
[Another TLC short begins playing. The caption reads “6’7” woman could have trouble delivering her baby.” A very tall, pregnant woman is at an OB/GYN appointment with Dr. Brody.]
Dr. Brody:
The baby’s head-down, bigger than average… But if we follow the placenta down, it looks like it may be covering the cervix a little bit. This is called placenta previa, and that has some potentially serious implications — especially when it comes to delivery.
[Video changes to an interview with the doctor about the condition. In the video caption, the doctor’s height is listed as 5’6”.]
Doctor Rich:
Why did they put the doctor’s height? Five six? That’s not very nice!
So this story is about a very tall woman who happens to have a placenta previa. I don’t think there’s any correlation with the woman’s height and the placenta previa; it’s not a risk factor. Placenta previa is not common, but it’s also not rare (about one in 200).
So what is this? The placenta is the organ inside the uterus that is able to deliver nutrients and allow the baby to grow for the ten-month gestation period. It’s super vascular — meaning it has a ton of blood supply — and anything that disrupts this can cause life-threatening bleeding. Now, the reason that it’s a challenge here: Dr. Brody is saying it’s near the cervix. There’s actually different grades, depending if it completely covers the cervix or just abuts on the edge of it.
But the cervix is the outlet. That’s how the baby is delivered. If you have this giant blood vessel having a nutrient system in the way, it’ll tear, and you can bleed to death in minutes. So this is actually a very serious consideration.
Placenta previa needs to be identified early, and then it needs to be watched. You need to avoid activities (sexual activities or vigorous exercise) that could cause the placenta to tear. In some circumstances, the doctor will put the patient on bedrest, and you have to have serial ultrasounds.
Occasionally, it actually does move up out of the way, but if it doesn’t (and it’s covering the cervix at or around the time of delivery), you’ve got to have a C-section to deliver a little bit early before the onset of labor. This is because — again — it can be minutes between the time that the bleeding starts and you bleed to death. So this is something that has to be followed very carefully by your doctor, and you have to have a plan for delivery in place to prevent a catastrophic hemorrhage.
[Next video plays. A man is being prepped for surgery. Doctor begins the procedure, talking to the patient. “Alright, here we go… That’s a weird feeling, right?”]
Doctor Rich:
What’s the surgery they’re doing? Oh, lipo!
Nurse:
So what was the most part you were nervous about?
Patient [while the doctor jabs a wand into the fat tissue on his abdomen]:
Oh, this part is, but you can’t feel anything.
Nurse:
No, you’re doing so good, sweetie.
[Patient is on a FaceTime call with his mom during surgery.]
Nurse [to the patient]:
Hi, girl. You know who that is?
Patient’s Mom:
Hey, how’re you doing?
Patient:
Doing great. How’re you doing, Ma?
Doctor Rich [slightly relieved]:
Okay. I was nervous! I don’t take calls during surgery. The patient shouldn’t either.
TLC Doctor [giving directions to the patient, who turns to expose his full body. Video is pixelated for privacy.]:
Arm over your head for me…
Doctor Rich:
Oh, he’s exposed! I don’t think your mom needs to see that!
Patient’s Mom:
Now you can take your shirt off when you go hit the beach!
TLC Doctor [to the camera, in an interview]:
This happens all the time. Patients call their friends, their family members, and that’s one of the great things about being awake during surgery and something I just love — to see that my patients can ease both their anxiety as well as their family members’.
Doctor Rich:
Although I make fun of anesthesia all the time, I’m not an anesthesiologist. From what I understand, there’s several types of anesthesia. There’s local (which is just putting the numbing medicine right into the skin), which appears to be what this is. There’s regional, like a spinal, where they block from the waist down. You can’t move; everything becomes numb. It couldn’t be that because he’s moving around. And there’s general, where they actually go to sleep (either by breathing down with a mask or intubation) and are monitored. Just so you know, IV medicines like that make you super-duper sleepy, but he seems to be with it.
So I think this is just local anesthesia. As far as getting phone calls during surgery, if that could in any way affect the outcome of the surgery — I think that’s a terrible idea. They seem to be happy about it here. And don’t FaceTime! If you’ve got your junk hanging out, that is generally a bad idea (particularly if your mom’s on the phone).
Now you know what not to be addicted to. I’ll tell you what you should be addicted to: hitting that subscribe button. We’ll see you next time.
