Corazon Aquino & Colon Cancer

I was actually shocked to discover that the former Philippine president, Cory Aquino, was announced by her daughter, Kris Aquino, a famous celebrity, that Mrs. Aquino was diagnosed with colon cancer. We know Mrs. Aquino as a living symbol of democracy as she was swept into power by a peaceful EDSA I revolution to overthrow the then President, Ferdinand Marcos. She also was the one that helped bring the current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to power and is also ironically the one joining protests to bring President GMA down. But this time she faces a far more bigger battle, a battle for her life as she fights against colon cancer.

So what is colon cancer? To know that we must first define what cancer is.In a normal body function, rapid division and multiplication of cells are needed to regenerate and heal the body. But there are times when the growth is uncontrollable and spreads (metastasizes) into other parts of the organs where it continue to divides and replaces normally functioning cells with abnormal cells. Cancer cells multiply so fast that they may occlude blood vessels and steal blood flow by forming their own vasculature stealing normal organs their blood supply thus the organ dies. And for the people who are confused, tumors are abnormal proliferation of cells and there are two kinds of tumors, benign and malignant. Benign is non-cancerous and does not spread so it can be safely removed by surgery. The dangerous kind of tumor is a malignant tumor as it is cancerous. Even if the malignant tumor is removed, remaining cells could still multiply at a more rapid rate that is why chemotherapy (the use of medication to kill cancer cells) is also required to kill cancerous cells, but unfortunately it also kills normal cells but that would be a different topic.

I'm not sure if Mrs. Aquino's cancer is malignant or benign, but I'm guessing that it is malignant because she wouldn't have let the whole Philippines know that she had cancer. So let me share the some relevant information as to what causes colon cancer, signs and symptoms of colon cancer, what the treatment is, and what the preventions are. These are very important to know as this could save your life one day.

So what causes colon cancer? It's still unknown but it is believed that a high fat diet increases one's risk for colon cancer. Why? Breakdown of fat leads to the formation of carcinogens (cancer causing substances). Although cancer is not contagious, it is hereditary so if you have any relatives with any kind of cancer then you are at high risk for cancer.

Symptoms of colon cancer are numerous and nonspecific. They include fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, change in bowel habits, narrow stools, diarrhea or constipation, red or dark blood in stool, weight loss, abdominal pain, cramps, or bloating. Other conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (spastic colon), ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, diverticulosis, and peptic ulcer disease can have symptoms that mimic colorectal cancer (from medicinenet.com).

The treatment for colon cancer, like any other cancer is surgical removal to prevent the metastsis or spread of cancer cells to other organs. But treatment does not mean that you will be treated immediately. Factors as to how much the cancer had progressed plays an important role. This is why prevention is better than treatment because one only notices that one has cancer when it is already too late when the cancer has already grown and spread causing the signs and symptoms.

Preventing cancer entails a healthy lifestyle like eating healthy avoiding fatty foods, carcinogens like charred meat, drinking too much alcohol, etc. But the best prevention is early detection. It is recommended that all individuals over the age of 40 have yearly digital examinations of the rectum and their stool tested for hidden or "occult" blood (from medicinenet.com).In a digital rectal exam a doctor inserts his finger through your anus and feels for polyps (abnormal growth). For males, a digital rectal exam is like hitting two birds with one stone as the prostate gland can also be checked for prostate cancer at the same time.

Other early detection procedures are flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy. Here a video camera is inserted to see how your colon looks checking for abnormal growths and other anomalies.

For more information please visit this site: medicinenet.com

Deciphering the Doctor's Handwriting

We all heard about the Da Vinci Code right? But there is something more difficult to comprehend and very difficult to decipher: the doctor's handwriting... it's a great mystery why Doctor's handwriting is illegible. There is also this study conducted by the British Medical Journal to check if doctor's handwriting were legible. Guess what the result is? Doctors Fail Handwriting Test!

For years now I have always been told that my handwriting is like a doctor's. This is meant to be a joke of course, but can also be misunderstood for an insult. It is true that I had my own share of horror and eye strain from trying to read and make sense of the scribbles and marks written by doctor's on their Doctor's Order.
In fact I always have to team up with my other duty mates to help me break the secret of the doctor's handwriting. But we always end up making mistakes. It amazes us though that my clinical instructors are able to understand this foreign handwriting. We always ask our CI's in wonder how in the world do they understand those scribbles and doodles? Their answer? Lot's of experience with doctor's orders. But even the experienced staff nurse also makes mistakes because there are doctor's handwriting are so encrypted to the point that deciphering it is no use. Just a thought: Doctor's should get into the date security business.

But what is so important about doctor's having legible handwriting? Simple, a misunderstood order could lead to death of a patient. Don't believe me then take some time to read this article from BBC News: Health Doctor's Scrawl Blamed For Patient's Death. As the article shows a poorly written order or prescription could lead to a patient's death.

But let us not flame our doctors because it is not their fault too that they have such illegible handwriting. We also have to think that they have a lot of patients to take care of that is why they have to do their charting very quick. But how come nurses are able to have more legible handwriting when nurses are the ones who are with the patient 24/7 and are always documenting every procedure they do for every patient?

But there is nothing we can accomplish with complaining that we can't understand the doctor's handwriting. What we can do is look for a solution. The best solution with this problem is electronic orders or prescriptions. The orders and prescriptions are just flashed into the monitor with beautiful and neat computer generated text. This may be already true to First World Countries like USA, Canada, and the UK. But in the case of the Philippines? We can't do anything but pray that the doctor writes in print or we nag them to death to interpret their handwriting or our license is on the line. Wait, I don't have a license yet.

Skipping a Meal Leads to Brain Death

Hypoglycemia is the medical term for a level of blood glucose (blood sugar) that is too low to meet immediate energy needs of the body. Glucose is a sugar that our bodies use for energy. A normal level of glucose in the blood is between 60-110 mg/dl . If you are hypoglycemic you will encounter the following symptoms: sweating, feeling warm, dizziness, difficulty speaking, inability to concentrate, hunger, drowsiness, anxiety, confusion, nausea, trembling and headaches.

There are two types of hypoglycemia. And these are:

• Fasting hypoglycemia can occur when a person goes without food for eight or more hours. It can be caused by certain underlying diseases (tumors of the pancreas, severe liver disease, adrenal failure) that upsets the body's ability to balance glucose.

• Reactive hypoglycemia is when blood glucose levels fall too low within a few hours after eating. This type rarely has a serious underlying cause. and is not easy to diagnose.
  

But I guess that the type of hypoglycemia that students are more associated with is Fasting Hypoglycemia. Nursing students are guilty of skipping breakfast especially if the duty is very early in the morning and don't expect them to eat lunch either. My duty mates said that they don't want to eat because they want to finish whatever they are doing first. But I wonder what makes them so busy that they don't eat lunch? But I can never go on if I don't eat lunch. I can skip breakfast (I'm used to it) but I can never skip lunch because if I do I'll just end up very grouchy because as shown in the symptoms above, I get a headache and my body weakens because there isn't enough energy being created because of a rapid decrease in blood sugar.

But skipping a meal is not the only cause of hypoglycemia. Other causes are: alcohol on an empty stomach, taking too much insulin, exercising hard without eating a snack first, eating excessive amounts of carbohydrate foods.

But if you think that hypoglycemia can only lead to headaches and body weakness, think again! Hypoglycemia an lead to the decrease supply of glucose as fuel to the brain, resulting in impairment of function (neuroglycopenia). Derangements of function can range from vaguely "feeling bad" to coma (rarely) permanent brain damage or death.

So never skip a meal guys! If you do skip meals because of uncontrollable circumstances then always bring food with you that are high in sugar like candy or chocolates so that you can have something to munch on even when you are on duty.

***
SOURCES:
University of Iowa
Wikipedia

My Bubbly Teacher

I posted here about my day being bad and all but you know what? It's still 2:00 pm and even though I have no money to buy food maybe this day could still turn around and end up with a happy conclusion.

But I don't have to wait for happy things to happen because something wonderful did happen already. I saw three of my old high school teachers and I'm glad that I did. I saw Ma'am Gomez, my beloved first year home room adviser and Science teacher who was very busy so I didn't interrupt her. I also saw Ma'am, I mean, Dr. Vedua, who was very professional looking as always. She's my former Trigonometry teacher by the way and she is a very smart woman! She won't get her PhD if she wasn't, duh! She was with one of my clinical instructors in front of the AVR 1 and they were talking to each other and asking if they had WiFi connections with their laptops. I was wondering how they knew each other but let's just leave that as one of the great mysteries of the world hehehe.
But one teacher really struck me the most: Ma'am Almeñana. I saw her at the high school, actually she saw me first. I was waiting for my transcript of records and I was fiddling with my laptop when a roll of paper swung in front of my screen I looked to see who it was and there was my former Economics teacher smiling and was very bubbly. She was wearing casual clothes and her image was refreshing. I smiled back and great memories flowed in. It was very flattering that after 3 years my former high school teacher still remembered who I was despite having a lot of new students every year.

Awe I'm reminiscing the good days again. As the guest speaker in my brother's graduation said yesterday, we can never be able to pay back our teachers for all of the things that they have taught us. That is why I highly respect my teachers.

What a great day this is indeed. I'll sure miss them when I'll move away.

Fifty-Six Cents... Oh boy... Seriously?

You might be wondering what I'm blabbering about this Fift-Six cents thing. Well let;s just say that this day is so tiring and depressing. Here's the story. I went down to the city (literally since I live in the beautiful mountain province of Bukidnon) to get my transcript of records from Xavier University High School, which is also located on another mountain... why am I obsess with mountains? Anyway my mom gave me Php 150 for my fare and food and I was like what? You're only giving me this amount? How am I going to get home (the fare going to our house is Php 45 by the way)? She told me that we'll just go home together since she already gave the rest of her money to my little brother who went to the beach with friends. At first I was mumbling why is his allowance for the day bigger than mine but I decided not to make a big fuss about it to prevent any problems.

So I went down to the city and decided to take a taxi up the second mountain because it was already 10:30 and business hours today are only up to 12 noon and I still had to go to the main campus to take care of my other transcript of records in college. I was thinking that the fare for the taxi would only cost around Php 60. But to my great dismay and surprise I had to pay Php 75. I would try to make a run for it but not only is that plain evil I couldn't run fast enough because I was carrying with me a laptop and the taxi driver has... well his car.
But if you think that my misery and impoverished state was worst enough I had to pay another Php 30 for the transcript of records processing fee. So to sum up all my fare to go down the city and up another mountain and subtract that from the money I had, I will get the great total of Php 16. Oh my God, I'm so pathetic.

But my misery does not end there. Well I took the jeepney this time since I had no choice, I was broke, and I paid Php 6 for the fare. I then proceeded to our College of Nursing to get my recommendation letter which happened to be not there. Well, I'm not really complaining since there is still a lot of time and I understand that they should prioritize the job application recommendations of past graduates (our 98% PRC Nursing Board Exam Passers). Oh well, I still do have to apply for the release of my transcript of records so no big deal, I'll just return this Monday.

And so this part explains why my post title is Fifty-Six Cents. I went to the finance office to have my clearance card checked and signed when the lady at the registrar printed out an account statement. I new that meant that we still had unfinished financial obligations which seems unrealistic to me because we have already settled all of this before my final exam. How on earth would I take the final exam if I haven't paid my tuition completely right? As I read the statement I was taken back... Running balance: Php 0.56. As in for real? Seriously? Fifty-six cents! They want me to pay Fifty-six cents! Of course I really did not worry about paying Php 0.56 but my point is my school sure does think of money as very important as they still had bothered to hold my records because of an unpaid Php 0.56.

Well I paid up what I lacked and smiled when I was given Php 0.30 cents for my Php 1.00 that I gave. An evil thought came into my mind: what if I demand that I be given the "EXACT" change as it seems that cents these days are very important to them. But of course I didn't do that because the lady was very nice and helpful to me. So in return to her kindness and respect, I shown her kindness and respect.

But my encounter with the bookcenter is the main even why my day is so shitty today. Imagine, there were 6-8 people inside that pathetic useless office and no one even bothered to approach me at the window. I understand that it's still office hours and costumers are always important. But these stupid so-called "Student Assistants" are of no assistance at all. I was very calm and kind when I said, "Excuse me" but they just went on with their lives talking. Finally there was this girl who went to the window to get some paper or something and I asked her where I could have this clearance slip signed. She said Window 5 (without even looking at me the whole time). I peeked at window 5 and it was closed. So I went back to her and informed her that there was no one at Window 5. And my very angry self suddenly blurted what I wanted to suppress: "Mga Bastos!" Translation: You people are so Rude! And it was true. They seem to have all the time doing nothing and they don't even entertain students very well. Well then, you should just close down if you don't want to do any service for the students. Seriously, I never buy things from them because aside from their snail-like movement there goods and books are crappy.

And so that ends my miserable story. I'm hanging out at the bridge of the Aggies Building because it's the only part of the school that I could get a WiFi connection since the library is closed. I'm hungry and I am so bored! Good thing I decided to bring my laptop, I would have died from boredom and hunger pangs if I didn't.

Bottom line, despite some shitty office and services that Xavier University has, I still love Xavier and am proud if it. It just have to remove some unworthy people from their jobs.