a life governs by hormones

Hormones, the chemical substance God created in our body to regulate functions and stability, has always been blamed for a multitude of sins such as mood swings, excessive/reduced libido, raging tempers, eunuchs, slowcoaches and other misfortunes that befall us. They are a multiple group of hormones produced day in and out. Each hormone has different functions, although some may overlap with others. These little unseen substances flowing in our blood, governs our life, they are responsible in making us breath, work, talk, propagate and thousands of ordinary day to day things.

Generally they can be divided into large groups such as metabolic hormones e.g. insulin, thyroid hormones, sex hormones e.g. testosterone, estrogen etc, catecholamine which acts on our cardiovascular system e.g. adrenaline and many more. The study of them in general , is called endocrinology, but of course each hormones and its related diseases have been studied in depth, prolonging lives as well as bettering its quality e.g. diabetes, myxoedema etc.

Sex hormones, the most notorious of the lot, are well known to the masses. Its abnormalities’ (meaning its highs and lows) causes different clinical syndromes starting from childhood going onto puberty, adolescence, adulthood and even post menopausal. Its normal cyclical effect on women produces menstrualtion with its accompaniment of mood swings. Too much of it, you get precociousness, acne-laden teenagers, irregular menstrual flow, infertility and growths and cancer-prone-wombs. Too little of it, you get under-developed sexuality, and therefore infertility (again). I am sure you can imagine what these symptoms translate to in terms of psycho-social problems. Rampantly sexual teenagers who grow up to be sex maniac, low self esteem, cold, frigid and barren wives. That’s saying it loosely but it happens in our day to day society. And to think, all this can be treated by balancing the highs and lows of it with supplements and the reverse of it.

We had a case last week, where one patient had this much of fibroids in her uterus. You can see the varying sizes. The growths had caused her excessive menstrual flow and infertility, and because she wants to have children, we had to preserve the womb. The process of taking out her fibroid one by one took hours and she bled almost 2 liters of blood and required transfusion. Post-operatively she recovered well and went home happy with some hormonal treatment to correct the imbalances. We could only pray that the fibroids won’t recur and she will get pregnant soon!

a vibrating hospital

We have been experiencing minor minute earthquakes this past month. Even in the economic turn down that is affecting all over the world, a new mall/office building is being built next to the hospital, and the contractors are currently constructing the underground drainage system. The work has spilled over to our compound and they have taken over our parking lot, making the hospital looked more run down than it usually is and causing a lot of parking woes to the staffs and doctors. Our designated parking lots have been converted into a deep large hole. I never knew how much I depended on it until it was taken away from me. No more coming late to work now, we have to be early to get the best parking spots. Try coming for an emergency case, I sweat buckets hastening to get the car parked at some cramped spot and then worried if it would get hit by another car or debris from the construction. This has also driven some patients away, a bad omen in this current economic situation.

The process involves a lot of drilling and knocking, causing a steady stream of vibrations, at times big enough to alarm me as the whole building would shake and my patient monitor’s would go ‘bleep bleep’. Luckily for me, that would be the worst effects affecting me professionally, not so the surgeons, especially those who are doing fine or micro surgery. When you are doing microscopic surgery, everything is magnified, even a drop of blood would look like an ocean and the slightest movement could impair your aim. Once, my ENT colleague was inserting a grommet (a very small tube, about 1/5 the size of a single grain of rice) to drain fluid from the middle ear, had to stop and wait until the vibration settled down for about 20 minutes, wasting precious general anesthetics time.

Personally, the vibrations from the drilling is giving me constant headache, at times I worry that the earth was tilting this way and that. A staff of mine complained that her backache is acting up since the drilling started, and she only has a few days left allocated for sick leave. Hmmm… I rolled my eyes upward skeptically at this. Urbanization has a lot to answer for. I hate to think what the disturbance would do to the ward patients who are supposed to be resting and recuperating. I’m sure some of them would leave and look for a more peaceful and healing-conducive place.

To give them credit though, we have been warned of these possibilities before hand, it is really something unavoidable and they had inspected the whole hospital to document the state of it before starting their work outside. Every crack and split had been photographed for their reference as of what to repair and not after they are done. Day 1, our awning in front of the Emergency department had fallen off, scaring off passer-bys. Luckily no one was injured. Since then, we have reached an agreement, for them to stop the drilling process every time we have surgery. I am not so sure that is a smart movement on either side as the construction work will never get done as we have surgery every day which could last until evening, as well as we have in-staying patients. On our side the plan is a sure backfire because the longer they take to complete the work, the longer we are burdened with reduced patient flow and un-enticing environment. But the other alternative, which is closing down the hospital temporarily, is not a thinkable option. So, we are now at an impasse….

Post-Earth Hour

The famous picture above, showing the Earth rising above the Moon's limb as seen from lunar orbit, was a marvelous gift to the world. (Click link for source.)


I delayed my participation in the WWF’s well-received campaign by an hour, after the two active toddlers were in bed. This cause the teenage boys hanging around outside our fence to hoot “ tutup lampu oiii (turn off the lights)” at the designated hour, while puffing their cigarettes and revving their motorbikes engine, sending up waves of carbon monoxide to the earth’s atmosphere and not to mention, irritating the neighborhood with noise pollution. Earlier, a neighbor had told me gleefully, her family was having a barbeque that night and would dine by candlelight. I smiled and debated whether to inform her, charcoal and candles are two lesser effective form of producing energy as compared to electricity. I can’t really blame her; I guess she was just misinformed. She was not alone though, the day after the papers were filled with stories of how well-meaning citizens participated in the campaign.

The idea behind Earth Hour is a good one, an honorable one at large, to give the earth an hour of reprieve from global warming, from the constant churning of usage and turnovers, not to mention the pollution and corruption. The earth is old and its atmosphere is wearing thin, we have used and abused it long enough, of course some civilization longer and more aggressive than the rest, but the effort to restore it should be a collective one, hence the Earth Hour project. It was a simple thing to ask, just turn off your lights and any electrical appliances for one hour at a designated time wherever you are in the world.

But when they say turn off the lights, the campaigner didn’t proceed to say, just sit in the dark and do nothing, gaze at the stars, you might even enjoy it. Instead we turned off the lights and burned candles and charcoal, and switched on our battery-powered torchlight instead, thus increasing carbon emission by folds. In the city, street parties were organized, drinks were given discount, candles were supplied, and more people loitering in the streets, all contributed to a ten -fold energy usage post-Earth Hour. Where is the logic in that?

As an awareness-evoking campaign, Earth Hour was a huge success, I think. Hopefully more people understand that the earth is sickly nowadays and the need to remedy it is a global undertaking. So, while the mega companies are being fined thousands of dollars by the dozen every day for industrial carbon emission etc, and the environmentalists meet up in Copenhagen every year to discuss and find measures to stop the damage or at least reduce it, we the ordinary inhabitants should be aware enough to switch off unused lights and reduce other forms of energy usage. Drive a hybrid car if you can afford it, recycle, change your light bulbs to power-saving ones, install a solar energy system for your house (for those who can afford it), plant more trees… the list is endless.

I remember a slogan from either discovery channel or national geography, of which one I am a little hazy about, but the message was very clear and I echo it here: Please use only what we need, it’s not like we can go shopping somewhere else!

what do i write?

Why don’t I write anymore? A friend who is a silent reader asked me. Maybe I should ask her in return “what do I write about?’ Life has never been this good or busy, every day filled with new experiences, minor but significant, nevertheless, I worry. I worry of boring people with the same old stories, because every time I sit down and write it would be how wonderful it is to be a novice mummy while the rest of the world had been doing it for decades.

A few times I drafted an entry, when things got interesting at work or after a sinful, chocolaty and fun lunch with old friends, when a topic of conversation seemed to stay with you long after we parted company but after a while my mind would start to wander. It would always come back to the wonders of a child’s smile, gurgle and laughter. Of course, at times there would a need to complain/whine/curse about the weary bones and muscle from trying to be a super mum and wife, not to mention the stink of urine, vomitus and poop of two very active toddlers. who would want to read that, I reasoned.

This friend of mine, have two teenage daughters looked at me with skeptical eyes. If I were honest with myself I would have to admit that it isn’t my smittenness with my children that has leave me slacking over blogging but the main culprit is my plain laziness and love for procrastination. She missed her children, she told me. “I wish I had a blog when they were little’ she said. “If only” she stressed at me with eyes twinkling “they could read what I feel for them when they were growing up, when they were at their best and also at their worse, they would not be such difficult teenagers now’ she said tongue-in-cheek. The unspoken dig at me was: had there been a blog it would have been a testimony to her love for them, from day to day forever in written form either in cyber space or the journal she would have kept.

Ok, point conceded, I thought. The challenge here was not one that is too hard to accept, for I love writing, and besides, not too many people read my blog, therefore I am not in any danger of causing a wave of boredom of global proportion.

So, here it is then, I am back. Inda, this one is for you, another entry today and hopefully many more to come!

p/s thanks, I love you too:-P

Have I told you lately??

Warning: A not-so-mushy posting!

I must admit that this year May has caught me by surprise. If you read my earlier postings May has always been a month I waited for and anticipate with glee. This year though, I was so caught up with the two babies,

work,

and a few family events and I only realized that it is nearing the end of May when Himself asked me what I would like for my birthday and our anniversary present. The two events are just a week apart, celebrating another year of being older and wiser as well as a life shared with a loved one. May is such a wonderful month!


Alas, none of those significant days have been celebrated yet .. what with a brother’s and a cousin’s wedding, plus trips up and down the southern region, we have not been able to squeeze in a dinner or two for the joyous occasions. It is now the middle of June, but I hope it is not too late to say it out LOUD.:

Happy anniversary sayang... thank you for the wonderful years we have shared.

Have I told you lately that I love you?