Jane Brody was constipated

She said it first, not me:

"I remember all too well the agony of postsurgical starvation: nearly five days elapsed after my Caesarean section when the hospital refused to give me anything but ice chips. All the while I was trying to nurse two big babies with nothing but an intravenous glucose solution to sustain me. But the nurses held firm. I had not yet passed gas or had a bowel movement," writes Brody, clearly incapable of discussing her proported subject--the dubious need for fasting before and after surgery--without giving a detailed, very detailed, account of her own, um, experiences.

(As usual with Brody, there's the oh-so-enlightening quote from a doctor: "'Medicine has changed substantially in the last 15 years,' Dr. Michael L. Pearl, a gynecological oncologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said.")

I understand that the Times wishes to cover "Personal Health," but this is a bit too personal. There has to be some way to cover health topics that falls between the New England Journal of Medicine and South Park.