slip & fall

the expected life span of an indonesian woman is 72.7 years, compared to 76.7 years for her malaysian counterpart. (source).

so when this lady came all the way from indonesia to have surgery done on a broken hip (or more correctly called fracture of the neck of femur)....

....sustained from a recent fall, she could be considered fortunate on at least 2 counts.

1st, at age 94, she has exceeded her expected lifespan by an incredible 21 years & still enjoying an active & independent life (which resulted in the fall in the 1st place) & 2nd, her family could afford her good private medical care not readily available back home.

she was operated upon last week & a hip screw was successfully inserted to bridge the fracture.

after resting a few days, she would be able to move around with a walking aid/frame for a few weeks & will resume her normal life within 2 mths. (read here)

the elderly are more likely to sustain this injury, said to be related osteoporosis ("bone loss") due to the reduction in female hormones in the post-menopausal age, & in male hormones in elderly men, although men seemed to be less affected than women. (read here and here.)

isn't it ironic that this lady has to seek appropriate treatment her own country could not accord her, while her ailing 86yr-old fall-from-grace ex-president, in all likelihood, is currently receiving the best available medical care, not to mention wide media attention.

even more ironic is the reality that she would most likely outlive him.

the accountant

it was LC's birthday yesterday. so at the end of our usual friday nite care-group (aka cell-group), instead of the customary cake, we decided commemorate the occasion with something ...er.....small & different. the candle was still there to be blown but he had a gold coin (well, actually a chocolate coin) instead.

as gold was one of the gifts the Wise Men brought for baby Jesus, we hope he will continue to dedicate his life to the Lord. it would be an added bonus if he made lots of money, too.

after all, what would you give an accountant who has (almost) everything?

trainers

my trainers finally gave way. holes have formed for some months already & still i trudged on but when 1 sole & then the other started peeling off....

.....i knew the end was nigh. after all, it has served me reliably for over 4 years - up & down penang hill & round the jogging track umpteen times. i remembered it was bought in s'pore for SGD49.90 (i've convinced myself that NO trainers are worth more than SGD50 or MYR120) & i have to say i really maxed out this pair!!

already bought a replacement pair when i was in s'pore last month. my daughter said they look gaudy & she wouldn't be caught wearing them.

never mind if it's black & orange - after all, the colours remind me of my favourite star wars villian -


but can you get another at this price??


kids, what do they know about going the full distance on a shoestring??

ending the year in a flurry

it felt like a 100m dash to the year-end.

saturday evening:
invited the church administrator out for dinner. she's resigned after 10 years on the job, & she did put in a sterling effort at it, to join the corporate world, though i suspect not by her own free will. no matter, i thought a small gesture of appreciation like a meal together with the family was in order.

sunday morning:
the message was given by a founding member of the church, back in town to help out through a difficult period. it's not often that the english & chinese language pastors & church administrator resign in the same year.

i felt that it was a hard-hitting message : to harvest in a time of famine. yes, we need to re-examine ourselves if we have strayed from the true purpose of the Lord.

"Now the LORD has given us room and we will flourish in the land." gen 26:22

sunday evening:
final outing before school reopened was at A'Famosa near alor gajah. it was carnival nite & there were easily 300 people, mostly visitors who had come by tour buses.

it was a commendable effort to put up a carnival parade ala disneyland....






new year's eve:
i had an unfinished task - finally sorted out that young girl who had the anaphylactic reaction last week. surgery was uneventful & completed successfully by 8pm. the family had joined others for a celebration dinner at a hotel. did the boy enjoy the occasion?


oh yes, my favourite team are top of the table....yayy!


2007 certainly ended with a bang!

BLESSED 2008 TO ALL!!

PS. of all the new year smses received, i like this one most.

anaphylaxis

this is an adverse response to a substance, usually a foreign protein or a drug, that the body is hypersensitive to. most of us call this an allergy, like the breaking of "hives" with a bee sting or when some people take prawns. drugs commonly implicated in this reaction include antibiotics (eg. penicillin) & pain-killers (eg. aspirin).

most reactions are mild, like a rash or an itch, but some are severe enough to be life-threatening, eg. an asthma-like attack or a marked drop in blood pressure. sometimes, death results if medical treatment is delayed.

this 20-yr-old girl was involved in an accident & needed surgery. but on the operating table, before the procedure could commence, she developed a sudden & drastic drop in blood pressure. as this is common during an anaesthetic, she was given intravenous fluids & ephedrine, a drug that raises blood pressure. it was when she failed to respond after repeated doses & the appearance of a rash over her arms & chest, that we realised this was an anaphylactic reaction.

the treatment of choice in this instance would be adrenaline (ephinephrine in the US)...

...the same stuff the body pumps out when in fright, fight or flight. the same stuff one would give for cardiac arrest or severe asthma, except that in anaphylaxis, a smaller dose would have increased the blood pressure sufficiently. a wonder drug indeed - often reliable & effective when in dire straits.

this girl responded well after a few repeated doses of adrenaline & given the circumstances, the safest course of action would be to postpone the non-urgent surgery till she has fully recovered from the effects of this life-threatening event.

now, who said doctors in private practice are always out for a quick buck??

a little different penang

it was the usual year-end ritual - x'mas weekend in penang. things were much the same, yet a little different.

1st, traffic was unbelieveably smooth-flowing all the way up north - no bottleneck throughout, even on penang bridge.

2nd, instead of the usual rendezvous with the malls, we decided to pick up some history with a visit to...

...built shortly after Francis Light secured Penang for the British.

armed with cannons against potential enemies. a nearby lighthouse served also as a look-out.


3rd, instead of dining at a posh thai restaurant, we opted for some place more down-to-earth at sungai dua...

you can tell it's not 4-star by the cutlery...

but it did serve something unique...

would you believe deep-fried kangkong?

4th, they were re-surfacing penang road...

..& i can only imagine the chaos during the festive traffic volume.

5th, we did the hike up penang hill. after the steep climb...

it was a treat to be rewarded with hot green bean soup...


6th, there's a new hang-out place in town with a difference....

..young girls belt out canto-pop songs to drum up support.

appropriately 7th, like the prodigal son, i went back to the church that started it all for me...

..except that, instead of being greeted with a prepared feast.....

..the choir was singing christmas songs.

8th, we had morning dim sum at bali hai along gurney drive....

where it's always crowded....

& the fare was good.

9th, we also tried out corner club, also along gurney drive, for dinner.

no crowd on a friday nite, which seemed strange.....

...because the dishes were well-cooked & the price reasonable.

finally, the girl was ecstatic when we were at queensbay mall, not because there was a contest for...

..high school musical pretenders, but rather by chance, she met her idol in person...

that made her day!

the traffic going south was a little heavier with slight hold-ups at the juru & jelapang tolls, but the kids haven't the slightest worry in the world!

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's fables are famed throughout the world for their clarity & the moral behind each tale. i have a faint recollection of being told The Tortoise & The Hare, The Fox & the Grapes, The Lion & The Mouse, amongst others. so when Jim West's Puppets came to town, i thought it would be a good excuse for a family day-out.

Jim's props are all are self-made, mainly from painted card-boards & cut-out boxes. he's even thrown in a hand-shadow show for good measure. the fables are told in simple language, to the music of Scarlatti & Beethoven. after the 1-hr show, Jim obliged to a photo-shoot...


...and an autographed souvenir poster.


bangsar shopping centre also has a Times bookstore with a huge children section :

a boy's paradise....& i need to redeem a voucher as well.


next, it's off to 1-utama where the girl wanted to get her pair of skechers. i had feared i had to go round & round for a parking space, this being lunchtime on a weekend, when this nice lady indicated to me she was leaving. things are indeed looking up! except that the girl can't find a pair that she likes or has her size. so in the end she opted for a nike instead...

under normal circumstances, i wouldn't have consented to the purchase, but since she claimed to have done "quite well" in the year-end exams, i relented.

i had to admit that the xmas decorations were quite good.

CPR

it's been said that we can live 40 days without food (matt 4:2), 4 days without water & just 4 mins without oxygen, & some say, not even 4 secs without God. so, except if you collapse in a medical facility, you are unlikely to get medical assistance in 4 mins, unless this is witnessed by a bystander who knows basic life support (BLS) & who is prepared to administer it.

it's been a year since i taught BLS at church. with a new batch of students, i was once again given the honour to instruct in the art & science of cardiopulmonary resusctitation (CPR).

anyone can learn CPR - you just need strong lungs (for mouth-to-mouth) & arms (for cardiac massage) & some common sense (to remain calm & organised). a demonstrator mannikin called Resusci-Anne (or Little Anne, as our half-body version is called) would be useful to have.

CPR is really as simple as ABC:


A is for maintaining an open Airway


B is for Breathing, which means mouth-to-mouth breaths


C is for Circulation : both palms, one over the other, on the breastbone...


...external cardiac massage to assist blood flow.

if there are 2 rescuers,

1 will do mouth-to-mouth while the other, the cardiac massage.

CPR is performed till the unconscious person recovers & wakes up, or till the (para)medical team arrives & takes over.

lives are saved when ordinary folks are capable of providing BLS, & this "buys time" till definitive treatment is made available. further infomation on BLS/CPR can be found at these websites:

http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/bls.pdf
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/112/24_suppl/IV-12

Lazarus was raised from the dead without CPR but it was Elisha who may have performed the 1st on record:
Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy's body grew warm. 2 Kings 4:34

windfall

ladies & gentlemen, i am a millionaire!!

well, sort of, as this email promised :

so, i'm about to receive a windfall equivalent to about MYR3.5m, thanks to the generosity of Mr Lewis's Lotto Awards. suddenly, i am smacking my lips, anticipating that LCD tv, dSLR & driving vacation in new zealand. & i can almost feel the dopod with GPS in my hands.
but, before i dream further, i remembered one thing - i have never participated in that sweepstakes, or any other for that matter. so, is this akin to the black money or magic stone scams we've read so much before in the papers? stories that keep emerging because it's fair game when there's a willing buyer & a willing seller? & of course, as dire straits sang years ago, who doesn't want money for nothing?? during this festive season of giving & receiving, let's not forget the Teacher'sadmonition : Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." luke 12:15 have a truly blessed christmas!!