archive of the ‘health’ topic
Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
Live with enthusiasm and empathy.
Make time to pray at least 10 minutes each day.
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. »→
Some 88 % of diarrheal deaths worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, including lack of hand-washing with soap.
An estimated 2.5 billion people don’t use adequate sanitation facilities, and about 1 in 4 people in developing countries openly defecate.
Access to clean water and good hygiene practices, including hand-washing, are extremely effective in preventing diarrhea, which kills millions of children through dehydration.
Hand washing with soap has been shown to reduce the incidence of diarrheal disease by over 40%, making it one of the most cost-effective interventions for reducing child deaths caused by this neglected killer. »→
Monday, July 12:
In Hospital Pulau Pinang, I asked a nurse at the nurses’ desk if someone would raise my bed like a few others that I pointed to. I wished that I had known last night that the beds could articulate. My back hurt all night and morning, seemingly from the weight of my body on my spine. If I had my bed jacked-up to a 45° angle, it might’ve alleviated some suffering. I ambled back toward bed two, and while I waited for a nurse or orderly or anyone I looked out the south windows of C-block to the playground and the street beyond. Though several windows were tilted open and the ceiling fan above beds 1 and 2 was whirring at top speed, I began to feel very hot, as if I’d just hiked up Bukit Bendera. »→
Monday, July 12:
About 12:15 my bed was pushed to the radiology department again, and someone thrust another bottle of banana-flavored contrast medium for me to drink. Afterward I struggled to shift my body from the bed to the curved tray that slides into the CT scanner. I was glad that I had received an analgesic recently. I got several scans, from my groin to my cranium before inching off the tray onto my bed. I was returned to the multi-care ward at 1:00. I was too late for lunch, but I wasn’t very hungry. I just lay on the bed, wondering what’s next. I’d heard that the CT scan results would be available in the evening. I wanted to know if any damage showed in the new pictures of my shoulder and back. »→
Sunday night — Monday morning:
I was laid-up in bed 2 in ward C10, on the third floor of Hospital Pulau Pinang, not sleeping as I gazed at the white ceiling and a furiously-spinning ceiling fan — which dried my eyes.
I was there overnight because I felt too battered, pained and weak to go home. My upper back and lower neck hurt, where my neck joins my skull hurt, some ribs ached, I felt like my heart was being stabbed by a pencil, my shoulders were swollen and painful, the right knee hurt, my right hip and thigh were bruised and swollen, and I was rather immobile. I wasn’t breathing deeply, either. At home I wouldn’t have a health aide, so I thought that a hospital loaded with health care professionals which has strong pain medicines was the place to lay low for now. »→
……I have a headache, and I don’t feel like writing, but I’ll hunt and peck anyway. Sunday evening, as I rode my motorcycle toward home, another small motorbike collided with mine, almost head-on. I seem to have been thrown sideways, or I vaulted over my handlebars, breaking off the left mirror with my shoulder. I haven’t talked to a witness, I don’t have a video record of the incident, and I was knocked unconscious. »→
“Drink wa-ter!” ~ That’s bellowed to soldiers so that they’ll drink enough from canteens and Camelbaks and avoid dehydration in hot weather. I think that I’ve drunk a hundred gallons in four days to try to flush-out toxins and to maintain hydration. Last night I began to have nasal allergy symptoms due to pollen in the air here or the power plant nearby or cooties from this internet cafe. My nose began dripping. »→
I wrote optimistically a day ago that I was recovering from insecticide poisoning, largely because the dry, painful coughing had subsided. And I suppose that my headache had abated because I had taken an aspirin tablet. I was still groggy/dizzy. I went walking -unsteadily- on the esplanade here. I felt like a staggering drunk. I likely wasn’t as visibly unsteady as I felt, but it was not a pleasurable stroll. I was just to eager to escape the apartment. We’ve had such beautiful weather, and I had been inert indoors, coughing and feeling miserable for days rather than enjoying recreation or photography in tropical sunshine. »→
I’ve been out of commission for more than two days since being poisoned Tuesday evening by anti-mosquito aerosol which was sprayed in George Town, Penang by MPPP employees blowing great clouds of it from wands. I have had a headache which won’t quit, grogginess/dizziness, dry, painful cough, muscular aches, joint aches, bone aches it seemed, near-continuous nausea (no vomiting), two miserable nights of fitful sleep … I’m mostly recovered, I hope … I still have headache, dizziness, drowsiness, and sometimes the feeling that I’m about to puke. The painful coughing has mostly stopped. I have drunk gallons of water, trying to help flush-away toxins, if that’s possible. I hope that without the violent coughing I will sleep well tonight. †
A recent World Health Organization study resulted in a report that 1.5 million Filipinos under age five suffer from diarrhea at any time due to lack of access to clean water, basic sanitation facilities and poor hygiene practices. »→
I’m not homesick; I’m home, and I’m feeling lousy, as I did yesterday in a taxi, bus, airplane, another bus and another bus. I had only slept four hours yesterday, and I think that I ate something in Kuala Lumpur that disagreed with me, or I used unsanitary utensils or a drinking glass … Yesterday and today I’ve had sporadic heart palpitations and have felt sick-to-my-stomach. So I’m recovering from my vacation. Done that before. My back has hurt yesterday and today. Muscle ache from bus and plane seats or kidney problems? I don’t know.
Yesterday Mack and I went to a new member briefing at Benguet Electrical Cooperative as a prelude for getting a new BENECO membership and an electrical connection to the shack that his family resides in. Afterward, I had a horrible headache, as if I’d been shot in the head. So we went to a pharmacy, and I bought ibuprofen. One has to take ibuprofen with food or milk, so we took tea and a snack in Vizco’s restaurant beside Session Road. »→
Charlotte and Rose have been ‘sick for days while I was in Sagada. Six-year-old Rose had chicken pox weeks ago, and missed a week of Kindergarten. Then her eight-year old sister contracted chicken pox. I would have thought that it’d run its course and that they’d be well, but Charlotte’s immune system was weakened, I suppose, and she got influenza then passed that to Rose. Both have been miserable, and I haven’t known.
This morning I got up early and waited three hours for Mack to bring his sisters to Monterrazas Village so that we could journey together to Baguio City and I could pay for a pediatrician to diagnose and treat the girls, however belatedly. »→
Tropical Storm Higos (“Pablo”) has been marching across the Philippines for two days, and we are getting beaucoup rain in Luzon! Ramadan ended today, so all Republic of the Philippines government employees were excused from work, and classes were suspended in public schools. I’d bet that schools will be ‘closed’ tomorrow due to flooding and risks of mudslides, rockslides and drownings. »→
Today I read in a national newspaper the findings of a study conducted by the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the Republic of the Philippines Department of Health. About ten thousand Philippine children die annually from diarrhea. Can you believe that? That’s preventable childhood mortality! »→
Nick came to the flat, with his sister Rose in tow, and knocked on the door. I asked why he wasn’t in school, and he replied that his stomach hurt. I asked if he wanted to go to a pharmacy or herbal remedy store or a physician’s office. He wouldn’t express a preference. The quickest and cheapest thing to do is to go to a pharmacy and buy Pepto-Bismol or Maalox or Tums. These can’t be had in grocery stores and convenience stores in the Philippines. »→
I waited here in the flat for Nick to come uphill from Baguio Gold after school. The intention was to take a jeepney into Baguio City to buy a bicycle tire inner-tube (again)and brake pads and exchange the pedals that I’d bought days ago for ones with thicker studs. These are things that we couldn’t get yesterday after the bicycle shop in Shoppers’ Lane had closed at 6:00.
We had also wanted to get groceries and sundries that we couldn’t get in Baguio City Public Market (fire trap and crime haven). And Mack, who ‘lost’ hundreds of pesos that I gave to him on Sunday to get replacement eyeglass lenses, wanted to meet me after his school session to go with him to an optical shop for new lenses. »→
This morning Andy knocked on my door much earlier than I expected, earlier than the time I’d set on my alarm clock. Yesterday we’d agreed to go with Nanay into the city to see a physician in a free clinic. I should have gone to bed earlier! Bleary-eyed, I pulled on a white t-shirt, tan trousers, shoes, slipped my wallet in a pocket, poured some coins in a front pocket, picked up my keys and sunglasses, and headed out without breakfast or caffeine. »→