The
firm had a two-day health fair early last month with participation from various
health care centres and hospitals, SOCSO and health care administrator. I went
to check it out and had my blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol levels
checked. I also went to check my biological age (I did the same last year and my
biological age then was 7 years younger than my actual age) and guess what? Despite
gaining another year, my biological age is 10 years younger than my actual age.
Move over, Benjamin Button! I observed a lot of people younger than me whose
biological ages are more than their actual age. Why, a mate who’s 37 is biologically
a pensioner. This is all sobering and I vow that I will continue to take care
of myself and my health.
~~~~~~~~
At
the same health fair, one of my direct reports found out that she has diabetes.
She then went to a private hospital to find out more and was given some
medicine supposedly to regulate her sugar level. Unfortunately, there’s some
complication because her eyesight slowly deteriorated until she could hardly
drive herself to the Komuter station to get the train to work. She suspects it’s
the medicine but the doctor was adamant that it wasn’t. Instead, the doctor
said the medicine worked as her sugar level reading had dropped from 16 to 8. So
she went to the ophthalmologist but after a lengthy check, the ophthalmologist declared
there’s nothing wrong with her eyesight. She’s currently on a four-day medical
leave (on top of the nine days she’d already taken thus far this year). When she
called me this morning, I advised her to get a second opinion. It could be the
medicine is too strong for her or not compatible with her and has adverse
effects on her. I also told her that this is a wake-up call and that she must
take care of herself and her health henceforth. I get that no one wants to be
sickly, no one likes to be sick but most of the time, I don’t see this being
matched with their actions. This direct report recently told me she couldn’t
stop herself from consuming something to which I asked, ‘Do you control your
food or does your food control you?’ I’m sorry if that sounded blunt and direct
but c’mon. Why do we continually neglect our health? Why do we continually
punish ourselves? Why do we stop taking care of ourselves? What’s wrong with
embracing a healthy lifestyle? We gain from it, not lose. Isn’t it better to be
healthy than being ill and bed-ridden? So what’s stopping us from a healthy
lifestyle? And more importantly, why don’t we want to choose a healthy
lifestyle? Surely we are strong enough to rid our bodies of toxic, dangerous
substances, evil sugared drinks and processed food.
~~~~~~~~
One
of my schoolmates recently found that she had Stage 2-3 breast cancer. She had
since then had mastectomy and underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Last Saturday,
she went to the doctor for a CT scan and on Sunday morning, was informed that
the cancer has spread. Some of my friends went to visit her yesterday (I have long
since shied away from FB and hence only found out yesterday via email) and her
prospects aren’t good. A doctor friend informed us that my cancer patient
friend is in a very bad condition. Her
cancer is now Stage IV, i.e., no longer curable. She has widespread metastases
(cancer spread)
1. Lungs - fairly extensive cancer spread
involving the lung tissue itself and the lymphatics
2. She has some fluid around her heart
(pericardial effusion). This can cause her breathing and exercise tolerance to
deteriorate fairly badly.
3. Liver - she has multifocal liver
metastases (i.e., spots)....so it’s not good. Her liver function is already
impaired. She will be very weak due to this and may get jaundice. And if you
have liver impairment, you can also affect your renal function (so far her
renal function is OK)
4. She has extensive bony metastases
(spread too) and one of the vertebrae (bone in the spine) has fractured and
collapsed...hence why she’s having back pain. She is at risk of further
vertebral collapse/fracture or other fractures elsewhere and this can cause her
a lot of pain
5. She has mets to her lymph nodes at her lungs
and in the abdomen.
It
saddens me to read that and I was quite upset. How dare this evil C disease do
this? I have lost 3 of my older half-siblings to the same evil C. My sister was
only 29 when she passed.
I
know evil C can strike whenever and whomever. But we can minimise the risk
somewhat by adopting a healthy lifestyle. We all have a choice, let’s choose the
right one. After all, we only live once in this world. Let’s make it a good
one.
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