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The Blood, The Passover, The Covenant, and COVID-19.

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    Exodus 12:23 "For Jehovah will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side-posts, Jehovah will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you."      Imagine yourself facing the possibility that every first born in every home could die by dawn.  Over 3000 years ago, God's chosen people were faced with that reality when the Destroyer was to enter Egypt to accomplish his purpose.  Under God's instructions, Moses instructed the Israelites to take a unblemished lamb into their homes for 4 days and feed it, water it, and care for it.  At the end of the 4 days, they were to sacrifice that lamb, apply its blood around the door to their homes, and eat the remainder leaving nothing until morning.  It must have taken a lot of faith in God and Moses to do what was asked, but each family did in the hope that God would set them free from 400 y...
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There is Hope in the Blood.

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     This weekend reminded me of a complicated delivery I attended 29 years ago.  Her mother, several weeks prior to delivery, began to show protein in her urine and high blood pressure.  Later she began to swell and her blood pressure continued to rise.  By 35 weeks of gestation her mother began to show signs of a potentially serious condition called pre-eclampsia.  Largely unclear in its pathology, pre-eclampsia has something to do to the interaction between the mother's uterus and the infant's placenta.  It is a progressive condition during pregnancy that, ultimately, is only cured by delivery of the infant.        High blood pressure, protein in the urine, swelling or edema in the tissues, and neurologic signs are all signs and complications of this condition.  Occasionally, if not controlled, could proceed to severe seizures and stroke. Unfortunately, by the 35th week, this baby slowed her growth and was showing s...
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Purchased by Blood.

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     All life is in the blood.  It is the single organ system that sustains and unifies all of the organ systems in the body.  All of the functions of the blood are many and crucial to life within the body.  With any significant injury or trauma blood loss can be critical and will lead to shock and potential death.  On the battlefield, hemorrhage (or blood loss) is the leading cause of death.  America has been in many wars throughout history and has marched on historic battlefields in the cause of freedom.  From  the Revolutionary war, to WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, American soldiers have given their lives and have shed their blood that we might continue to live in safety and share in those basic inalienable rights which established our country making it the greatest on the planet.  You may not agree with the causes behind these conflicts, regardless, each of us owes them our respect, applause, and th...
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Life is in the Blood

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     As we approach the Easter Weekend with all the colored eggs, chocolate bunnies, and endless baskets of candies, I wanted to take a moment to focus your thoughts on the true meaning of the holiday.  Misperceptions of Easter have been propagated even since the recognition of the Christian Church. For centuries, people looked at Christ's day of crucifixion as a tragic event as if it served no purpose as it was called "Black Friday".  Many misguided groups, throughout history, have even tried to label others as "Christ killers" thereby propagating a gospel of hate rather than love.     As a physician, when I have treated the most simple to the most critical of illness, I give medications that ultimately need access to the blood.  For simple illness, I might give oral medications or sub-lingual medications that will be absorbed into the blood stream through the blood vessels in the mouth or the stomach.  For more severe illness I might pres...
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There is power in the blood.

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     Have you ever woken up in the morning later than you should have and forgotten to eat breakfast trying to get out of the door? Later, you feel sluggish, faintish, with low energy, and even sleepy.  Later you eat and seem to feel much better and can accomplish the tasks for the remainder of the day.  Have you ever had to fast a few meals or even a few days?  Doing so, can cause a cascade of metabolic reactions within your body to compensate for a lack of food (energy source).  Some of those reactions can make you feel down, fatiqued, foggy, sleepy, and with symptoms of stomach aches and headaches.      Energy can be stored as sugars within the liver, as fats through out the body, and proteins in muscles and tissues.  It is the blood that is the sole source of transport of all those sources of energy.  It is also the transporter of all the regulatory hormones that govern those sources of energy.  It is the blood that e...
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Healing in the Blood

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     I was a sickly child.  Having frequent infections, on constant antibiotics, and I was eventually sent to Houston for evaluation.  Their diagnosis entertained agammaglobulinemia or Bruton's disease.  Very simply put the disorder was characterized by very low or absent antibody levels.  Antibodies are complex proteins in the blood that help protect the body from illness.  Their hope was that I had the transient form of the disorder and would eventually "grow" out of it at or around adolescence.    After years of monthly gamma globulin (antibody) shots, my own antibodies eventually returned to normal levels and now I have a robust immune system.  Nevertheless, in spite of my transient disease, I survived those early years of illness which later guided my path to into medicine.     Within our blood there are many ways the body protects and heals itself from billions of potential invading organisms and insults.  It i...
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There is Unity in the Blood.

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      Have you ever wondered why when you have a pain in one part of your body everything else seems to hurt?  Have you ever wondered why an infection in the tonsils, a finger, or toe can seem to cause high fevers, chills, body aches, and so much discomfort it lands you in bed?  Quite simply the body is connected in so many ways.  Nerve pathways, skin, muscles, tendons, and connective tissues.  Nothing however connects the body and makes it unified like the blood.  The blood connects the beating heart, the liver, the lungs, the bone marrow, the kidneys, and so much more.  Likewise the blood of Jesus connects the church (the body of Christ) together.  When one part of the body hurts the whole is affected.  Similarly, w ithout the blood of Christ, we have no connection with God, our Heavenly Father.  It is that ever flowing substance that carries the life giving nutrients to the life of mankind.  "... that at that time you w...
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