Kathy Ketchum, a registered nurse and creator of "Inside Out - The Original Organ Show," demonstrates how the stomach lining can stretch and become damaged with overconsumption at the Wellness Roundup on Saturday at the Providence Centralia Hospital campus.
Kathy Ketchum, a registered nurse and creator of "Inside Out - The Original Organ Show," demonstrates how a bullet punctured this heart at the Wellness Roundup on Saturday at the Providence Centralia Hospital campus.
Kathy Ketchum aims to help people live longer by using dead body parts.
The registered nurse and creator of “Inside Out – The Original Organ Show” provided attendees with rare opportunity to view real human organs Saturday at the Wellness Roundup, hosted by community health care partners on the Providence Centralia Hospital campus.
The smell of formaldehyde filled the air as Ketchum showcased healthy and damaged human organs to demonstrate how lifestyle choices affect the inside of the body.
The demonstration included donated body parts, such as an aorta with fatty plaque buildup, smokers’ lungs laden with tar, a heart punctured by a bullet, a brain damaged by drug abuse and a liver hardened by alcoholism.
“It’s nasty,” said 8-year-old Hannah Studebaker, noting she never wants to smoke, drink or use drugs.
While most people are aware of the toll smoking, drinking and using drugs can have on a body, Ketchum offered a few less known dangers to the list of potentially harmful substances.
Ketchum said caffeinated energy drinks, such as Monster, Rock Star or Red Bull, can cause a great deal of harm to the body, particularly when mixed with alcohol.
“You start drinking multiples of these, you’re going down,” Ketchum said, holding up a bottle of 5-hour Energy. “Every weekend we have young people coming in because they’re mixing caffeine and alcohol.”
Sara Hess, whose husband practices medicine as a podiatrist in Centralia, said she found the presentation interesting.
“The power drink thing was amazing,” Hess said. “I don’t think we all realize how harmful some of these things are.”
Ketchum also brought up the rising trend of electronic cigarette smoking.
“E cigarettes are excellent to stop smoking,” she said. “But is there any good thing to put in the lungs besides air?”
Ketchum said electronic smoking is vaporizing liquid into the lungs. If the liquid-filled e-cigarette cartridges sit stagnant, she said, fungus and bacteria can grow, creating health hazards.
Ketchum also had on display gallstones and kidney stones, which look like rocks or macadamia nuts, from the insides of various patients for participants to take a closer look at.
“The closest thing a man can have to a baby is a kidney stone,” Ketchum told the male attendees. “And we have to knock you out because you can’t handle it.”
The Providence General Foundation and the Tulalip Tribes provided funding for the demonstration.
The fourth annual Wellness Roundup also featured educational information on affordable health care options and free screenings for blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure. Staff from Providence Centralia Hospital provided the screenings. Providers usually perform between 200 and 300 free checkups at the event, according to Chris Thomas, the hospital’s spokesman.
Many other healthcare providers, including chiropractors, massage therapists, and reflexologists, were on hand to answer questions about different disciplines in the medical field.
The roundup ran in conjunction with the eighth annual Women’s Wellness Fair, which provided free clinical breast exams.
Federal and Providence Foundation funds covered the costs associated with free mammograms available at the event.
Thomas reported this Saturday’s event a success with more attendees than the previous year.
Last year, he said, 1,200 to 1,500 people attended. This year, Thomas estimates, the event had between 1,500 and 1,700 visitors.
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