Hot sauce saved his life

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Spicy food is good for lots of things, from helping with weight loss to simply tasting delicious. But for one man living in Orland Park, Ill., just outside of Chicago, it can be credited with saving his life.

Thirty-year-old Randy Schmitz doesn’t believe he would have discovered a cancerous brain tumor in its early stages if it wasn’t for sampling the Flashbang hot sauce from Pepper Palace in Myrtle Beach, S.C. while on vacation last August. After sampling the hot sauce, which is packaged like a grenade and contains Carolina Reaper, Scorpion, Ghost, and Habanero peppers, Schmitz fell the ground and experienced a seizure. He was immediately rushed to the hospital, where an MRI scan detected the tumor.

“If I hadn’t tried that, I think something eventually would have triggered the seizure and I would have found out, but the cancer tumor would’ve grown in my head,” Schmitz told the Chicago Tribune. The seizure and his subsequent diagnosis cut his vacation short; he flew home to undergo surgery to remove the 2.5-inch-by-1.5-inch tumor, which rested on his brain’s left frontal lobe. By discovering the tumor, Schmitz was able to undergo radiation and chemotherapy early enough to survive.

It’s unclear whether the hot sauce caused the seizure. Schmitz only tasted it off the tip of a toothpick, but with its spiciness and the fact he had to wait five minutes before drinking any water, it could be possible. Dr. Jeffrey Raizer, medical director of neuro-oncology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where Schmitz was operated on, said the stressed and dehydrated condition he was in after the tasting matched possible triggers for seizures. “If you eat a habanero, it’s a big jolt to your system,” he told the Tribune.

Orland Park man credits hot sauce with triggering seizure that may have saved his life http://t.co/vNwwN1eiOO pic.twitter.com/qxuPV84dXm

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) March 13, 2015

With only a month left of chemotherapy left, Schmitz took it upon himself to send Pepper Palace an email thanking them for saving his life. The company, ecstatic about the news, sent him a box of products, including hot sauce, t-shirts, and golf balls.

While it might be better that Schmitz stays away from the Flashbang hot sauce, he might find the others inside the box useful for prevention. Research into capsaicin, the active chemical in chili peppers, has turned up evidence that it could force cancer cells to kill themselves, a process called apoptosis. Nevertheless, let’s hope Schmitz doesn’t develop cancer again.

Oy, what a day.

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

I won’t go into details, but today was like one extended “Lucy” episode and I never did get to New York to see my grandchild. And since my car isn’t fixed yet, I probably won’t get there for a couple of weeks, at least. (Can’t get a rental car. Long story.)

Nothing worse than grandmotherly feelings with no place to put them.

Bibi’s campaign ad

~ susie

Just as everyone said, he’s using his congressional speech in a campaign ad. It looks like Bibi may lose, but the Likud power will still retain power in a coalition government since no one will work with the Palestinian parties. In other words, more of the same:

WASHINGTON — When House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced he had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress just a few weeks ahead of an Israeli election, he was criticized for giving Netanyahu a platform to boost his campaign.

The United States has a policy of not meeting with foreign leaders in advance of elections, so as not to appear to be tilting the electoral balance. But Netanyahu insisted that his motivations had nothing to do with the election, and that the timing of the speech was demanded by the urgency of the Iran nuclear negotiations. There was simply no time to waste.

Already, however, Netanyahu is using his speech as a prop in a campaign commercial back in Israel, where the prime minister is shown basking in the applause of members of Congress who did not boycott his speech.

With five days left until the Israeli elections, Netanyahu launched the 80-second campaign ad above, featuring his controversial address along with footage of rockets being launched.