Let's get physical

Let's get physical, physical,
I wanna get physical!


Today,  I went for my quarterly physical checkup at the government polyclinic.
Actually it was more for the doctor consultation as I went for the blood and urine tests last week with the results only being released today.  And what's the prognosis?

Here it is, for the world to see...

Click for a more detailed image.

I underwent an ECG test at the same time and the above chart show everything's normal with the my ticker. Except for some signs of left ventricular hypertrophy, which is still OK.

More important to me were the results for the Big Three! (Diabetes- Hypertension-Cholesterol).

At my last visit to the doctor in August, I had my cholesterol medication changed from Lipitor to Simvastatin, the more generic form of medicines (statins) to control cholesterol, and was anxious to see if it had worked. The earlier Lipitor medication had brought my cholesterol levels down from a high of 200+ to 145 (even down to 139 mmol/L at one stage). If it had not worked for me, I would have requested a switch back to Lipitor despite the higher cost.

Here is the official lab report.

Lab Results
CLINICAL CHEMISTRY
Dipstick, U			Reference
	Glocuse, U	Negative
	Bilirubin, U	Negative
	Ketone, U	Negative
	Specific Gravity	1.025
	Blood, U	Trace intact
	pH, U	5.5	5.0-8.0
	Protein, U	Negative
	Urobilinogen, U	0.2	0.2-1.0 mg/dL
	Nitrite, U	Negative
	Leucocytes, U	Negative
Hypertensive Panel
	Sodium	140	135-150 mmol/L
	Potassium	4.3	3.5-5.0 mmol/L
	Creatinine	86	65-125
	Cholesterol	3.8 (145)	Desirable <5.2 mmol/L
			Borderline High 5.2-6.1 mmol/L
			High >= 6.2 mmol/L
	Triglycerides	1.79	Desirable<1.7 mmol/L
			Borderline High 1.7-2.2 mmol/L
			High 2.3-4.4 mmol/L
			Very High >=4.5 mmol/L
	HDL-C	0.97 (38)	Low <1.0 mmol/L
			Desirable 1.0-1.5 mmol/L
			High >=1.6 mmol/L
	LDL-C	2.02 (77)	Optimal <2.6 mmol/L
			Desirable 2.6-3.3 mmol/L
			Borderline High 3.4-4.0 mmol/L
			High 4.1-4.8 mmol/L
			Very High >=4.9 mmol/L
	Chol: HDL Ratio	3.92	>4.5 High Risk for CHD
	Glucose Fasting	5.7	3.0-6.0 mmol/L
	ALT	23	10-70 U/L
	AST	21	10-50 U/L

In short, my cholesterol has remained stable at 145 mg/dL (3.8 mmol/L).
Glucose level is in the optimal range.
Just to watch my salt intake and exercise a bit more!

The cost of the tests and consultation? S$66.14 but I only paid $38.40 for everything, inclusive of 3 months medication, as the rest was covered by Medisave.

My next quarterly check is due at the end of January 2011.
Stay healthy, eat healthy and live long!

Eternal rest

I was at the Saturday Novena at St Alphonsus Church at Thomson Road yesterday. Fr Simon Pereira preached at the service. He had just returned from Malaysia where he celebrated the Feast of St Anne.

His homily was about grandparents and how they always seemed to be the oasis of calm, support and peace for the grandchildren, as opposed to parents who, in comparison, are usually made out to be the boogeyman. His homily in part was due to the fact that St Anne was the mother of Mary, vis-a-vis, the grandmother of Jesus.

His words brought forth memories of my own grandparents, especially now being less than a week ago that I attended to the re-interring of my grandparents remains.

My maternal grandmother, Mary Lee, was exhumed from CCK cemetery, while my grandfather, Louis Goh, together with an uncle Sylvester  who passed even before I was born, were exhumed from St Joseph Church cemetery. They were re-interred at the Franciscan Columbarium at my parish Church of St Mary of the Angels on 4the August 2010.

The Franciscan Columbarium is one of the best designed I've seen anywhere. The atmosphere here is one of calm and serenity throughout. I have already reserved a niche for myself and my wife. This was part of the fundraising effort towards the re-construction of St Mary. Sounds a bit morbid, but here in a typically Singaporean manner, it's planning for the future as well and doing your part for society.

When my time comes, I'll be at St Anthony #6022. My grandparents are just a room away at St Bonaventure #4132.

Should I tell the Pope I was an abused child?

Poor Pope Benedict XVI.

He's having a crisis of major proportion arising all over his domain. From USA to Italy, Ireland to Malta, paedophile priests are popping up faster than you can say Holy St Joseph!

But if you know the history of the Catholic Church, he will survive it through, no doubt about this. The Catholic Church has been in existence for 2000 years. It is the only organisation existing today that has survived every other government, regime, dynasty or political entity in history. And it is essentially the same organisation from the beginning till now. Think of what it takes to do that and the power it wields to keep the organisation going for all this time! In other words, don't mess around with the Catholic Church!

Scandals have rocked the church before, some to its very core, like the Reformation, but ultimately, the Church continues to survive.  Having some deviant priests and religious are nothing new, why even the infamous and scandalous Borgias became Popes! The only difference today is the speed at which scandals are broadcasted throughout the world. And with ambulance chasing lawyers out for fame and a quick buck, the scandals are easily blown way out of proportion.

But that is not to say I condone any sexual misdemeanour by the priests, and I do sympathise with  those victimised young minors and the trauma they went through.

His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI has been invited to visit Singapore next year. President SR Nathan extended his invitation through Foreign Minister George Yeo just last week.

Hmm, maybe this would be a good opportunity for me to tell the Pope of a shame that I carried for the last twenty odd years?

I want to tell him I was a victim of child abuse. I want the chance to tell him face to face and see him weep like he did in front of the victims in Malta.



Yes, I was an abused child and I have the evidence to prove it.

For all my adult life, I carried what I assumed were birthmarks on my body.  Hell, I even remembered being told by my mother that they were birthmarks. When I got married, my wife inquired about them and out of the blues it struck me that the marks were suspiciously not congenital!

No CSI  experts are required to tell me that my 'birthmarks' are an exact match of some despicable person's finger positions! Here are the photographic evidence to prove it.

Birthmarks?

These 'birthmarks' are the remnants of the abuse that I suffered as a child! No doubt about this too. Only that I have no memory of who did this despicable act. Someone pinched me so hard that the bruises became permanent.

Yes, I want to tell Pope Benedict XVI that I was an abused child. I want His Holiness cry for me!

Good Friday 2010, April 2nd.

          I was in church this morning for Good Friday service. The church was packed, with an additional 1000 seats outside on the piazza, and this was only 1 of 4 services scheduled for the day.

          As usual, the theme for almost every Good Friday always revolve around The Passion of the Christ. Friar John Paul preached on the symbolism of the cross. Over the years, I have heard many variations on this theme,  but of all the sermons that I can remember, only one has been vividly etched deep into my brain.

Back in 1987, there was a visiting missioner, Franciscan Friar Desmond Lean ofm, who was invited to preach at the Good Friday service. To paraphrase his sermon this was what he preached...

"When I look at the cross, 3 things come to my mind," then he told a story of his little niece Sarah. "Sarah, do you love your uncle Des? how much do you love uncle Des? Do you love me this much?" making a gap with his index finger and thumb.  Sarah shook her head.
"Do you love me this much?" making a space between his two palms about the size of a breadbox. Sarah shook her head again.  "then how much do you love your uncle Des?"
Sarah said, "I love you this muchhh!" and spread her arms outstretched.

I love you this muchhh!

"The second thing I see when I look at the cross is that it is a crossroad where the directions converge onto one  point. And like all things in life, Christ should be where all our directions lead to.

The third thing I see when I look at the crucifix is that it is on the back. The cross is something we bear, a burden that can be heavy at times but it is always on our backs. It is something we carry all our life."

Friar Des Lean's words struck a chord right within me at that time and has remained with me all these years. I remember Fr Des Lean.  (extract courtesy of Bro George Boggs ofm)

(

Big Brother is watching- Paranoia or security at the station?

Recently I noticed that security cameras were being installed at the Bukit Batok MRT station.
Nothing unusual in that, except that as the days progressed, the number of cameras being installed were sprouting all over the station!

Today out of curiosity, I actually took a walk to the station just to count the number of cctv cameras being installed.
I counted 53 cameras all over the station. And this number was just the concourse and surroundings and excluded those inside the station and on the train platforms!
Mind you even with this unusually large array of cameras, half the station is being refurbished and as yet has not had cameras installed.

Really makes you wonder why the need for so many cameras. Practically every inch of the station is under surveillance.

I am not aware if the same security features are being implemented at other MRT stations but it seem so ridiculous to see so many security cameras in just one location.

Who knows, eventually we'll end up like in London, with 1 million cameras they can track your every movement in the city on their surveillance monitors!

Big Brother is watching......

Going blind and getting your brain frozen

I went for a medical test at the hospital last week that really freaked me out.
It's called a fluorescein angioplasty

Basically, it was taking photos of my eyeballs! Yes, eyeballs.
The inside and the back where the retina is.
That's what it looks like above.


The whole experience was truly surreal.

It was exactly like those sci-fi movies of aliens doing medical operations on abductees. The whole scene is blurry, lots of wires, tubes, weird sounds and flashes of coloured lights.


It starts with the nurse giving you eye drops which dilates the pupil in your eye. This makes everything you see not only blurry but very very bright. Its like looking at the world through frosted glass. When your eyes are fully dilated, you are led into a darkened room. omg! It's full of machinery, wires, tables of syringes, medical equipment and what not.

The doctor then comes in and injects a yellow dye (sodium fluorescein) into your blood vessel. He keeps peering into your eyeballs with his scope and then after an eternity says "OK." This is when the technician leads you to humongus machine and straps you in! (just kidding ha ha). You are seated at a machine called a Fundus Camera. Your eye is pressed against a viewing scope and the technician shoots a laser light into your eye to take measurements.

Once he's ready he says "ok look at the red light and don't blink".
What happens next can only be described as having a 7-11 Slurpee brain freeze x 100! Flash! flash! flash! flash! flash!
Bursts of bright flashes rips through your eye, and while there is no physical pain, the torture is like having your brain frozen in an instance! The pain is pure and mental!
Then, the whole process is repeated with the other eye, at the end of which you are totally blinded, literally. Your eyes, as well as your mind, are completely blacked out.
The guy who invented the fundus camera must have worked for the Inqusition or gestapo previously.

A funny side effect is that the dye in the blood takes a while to be discharged from the body.
Your urine is bright fluorescent yellow for the next few days!

Uncle will scold you !

This is the most irritating, most irresponsible statement I always hear, especially on the shop floor where I work. Mind you it happens also at places like supermarkets, foodcourts and where children run amuck.

Uncle will scold you ! What a bloody cop out by stupid parents and child minders. What I hate about this is the irresponsible parent or grandparent who make me out to be the boogeyman. Uncle will scold you!

Instead of trying to make their child understand what is right or wrong, they instill fear into the child and push the blame to others who happened to be nearby! No wonder so many children grow up so misguided nowadays. I am not the boogey man, I do not scold children, nor have I scolded them for being children.

Children are naturally curious. They touch things, they feel stuff, they make a mess of displays but they are learning, they are growing in their curiosity and intellect. Instead of teaching proper values like "you shouldn't take what is not yours.." they say "Uncle will scold you!"

This is so typical of singaporean parents today. I have heard this once too many times, and yes, there was once when I really told off the mother. "I do not scold children but I think you should teach them the proper things instead of telling them that I will scold them!" I said.

So parents please. Uncle does not scold children but Uncle will scold the parents instead.

Farmville fan

I am a fan of Farmville.
Yes, like 74 million others out there, I too, have been swept up by the current rage on the social networking site Facebook.
Of my current 149 listed friends I have on Facebook, 76 of them have indulged in, or still playing the same silly game. Farmville is a phenomenon given it's simplicity.

I play Farmville as a means of de-stressing after a day's work. It's a totally mindless activity. All you want is to move up to the next level. And to do this you simply plow your fields, plant your crops and later harvest it.
That's it, it's a no brainer.
Along the way, you can add farm animals and trees. And neighbours help too, by giving you gifts.

Yet it's addictive, even entertaining, and you do get some sense of achievement when you see your farm increasing and you are rewarded with more experience points, known as XPs in the game.

While I was starting this blog, I realised that the mechanics of Farmville had long been available.
Remember Tamagotchi?
That was the rage back in the mid 90s and almost every child and young person had at least one.

Basically, Farmville's game is based on the same simple principle. Grow your crop and continually maintain it or else it'll die.

As of now, I am at Level 61 with 352,301 XP. I swear I will stop when I reach Level 70.

A clean bill of health for 2010

What a year 2009 had been for me, medically speaking.

I am now fully recovered from my spinal surgery done in 2007.
I'll be going for a follow up with my orthopedic surgeon, Prof Hee Hwan Tuck at NUH in the coming month. My L4 & L5 vetebrates should be now fused together as a single bone.

Wonder if I need to remove the pins?
That'll mean going through another round of surgery! argghh

I can't feel the implants at all and it doesn't discomfort me in the slightest.
The implants were supposed to be made from platinum I was told. Hmmm, maybe I should get it out and get it re-forged into some jewelry? Do my part and recycle stuff to save the earth? Or perhaps recover some cost? Maybe sell it and go for another holiday?? Hmm, I wonder.

Early in 2009 when the H1N1 outbreak hit Singapore, I did come down with flu. But by that time, the H1N1 had reached the mitigation stage and hospitalization was not required. Just isolation and rest at home. But even then, it wasn't proven that I had H1N1. I probably just had a case of the common flu. There was no test done as my case was not classified as severe. Anyway, that came to pass...

The whopper came in early October when I had my routine blood test and the glycaemic (blood sugar) result show 19 on the scale. Anything over 7 is considered having diabetes!
My GP and I went into panic mode. More tests, scans and medication followed. (see my earlier blogs below)


Tests results came back showing everything seemingly normal but blood sugar was still elevated. Thus, I was diagnosed as probable Type 2 Diabetic and went on a course of medication, basically, Glipzide 5mg daily before meals.

And bi-weekly monitoring of blood sugar levels.



Diet was completely revamped voluntarily (actually no choice, it's do or die!)
No more sugars, no more alcohol, no starchy food, reduce, reduce, reduce!
Well meaning and caring friends advised "eat more bitter gourd, drink celery juice," etc, etc, etc.
I was really touched by all my friends' concern, thank you guys!
And I really did follow up on the bitter gourd advice.

For the past 3 months, I've had bitter gourd soup, bitter gourd omelettes, bitter gourd stew, fried bitter gourd, grilled bitter gourd, stuffed bitter gourd, baked bitter gourd and bitter gourd whatever.
Thanks to my dear wife who so lovingly prepared all these and sacrificing her own preferences. She hates bitter gourd and never eats them, but luckily, I LOVE bitter gourd!
But was it really effective for diabetes or just old wives tales?

Last week I went for my 3rd blood test since the initial diagnosis and the result came back just yesterday. Here it is for you to see...

Test Name	Results	Reference
HL2-Liver Function
Total Cholesterol	139	140-200
HDL-Cholesterol	42	40-70
LDL-Cholesterol	79	0-130
Total/HDL Ratio	3.3	0.0-4.0
Triglycides	88	20-200
Bilirubin (Total)	0.7	0-1.5
Alkaline Phosphatase	70	25-105
GGT	36	0-50
Total Protein	7.8	6.0-8.2
Albumin	4.6	3.5-5.0
Globulin	3.2	2.5-3.6
DP1: Glycemic
Fasting Blood Sugar	75	65-110

It a clean bill of health! Yeaaaaa!!!!!!

Blood sugar is 75 mg/dl or 4 mmol/L. Remember the shocking 19? I went from 19 to 4 in 3 months! Level 4 is regarded as non-diabetic. Yeaaa.
However, I am still on medication to ensure that there's no relapse.
Even my cholesterol had dropped from 179 to 139 which is even below the 'healthy' benchmark.
Maybe the bitter gourd does work after all !

This is the best way to end the old year 2009.
So to everyone, here's to you all.

Have a Happy New Year 2010 and stay healthy.

Having some good clean fun

My co-workers, Kevin and Gibson, and I went to Phuket earlier this month. Here's a clip of them at the rifle range and go kart circuit having some fun.

A Merry and Holy Christmas to all

Shitty service from a shitty bank

I hold a credit card which doubles as my stored value card for riding the MRT trains. The card was issued by a major bank, which I shall not name but will refer to as Shitty Bank.

As of 1st Oct 2009, the MRT train operator replaced their electronic ticketing system to a new system called CEPAS. All the existing entry cards had to be changed to the new CEPAS compliant card for use after 1st Oct. My credit card was not CEPAS compliant and had to be changed too.

A week before Oct, I tried calling Shittybank on their 'Platinum Service Hotline'. Boy, was it hot! Couldn't get through after umpteen attempts and finally succumbed to their last resort... "leave your number and we will get back to you". I did get a call from them after 2 days and know what the guy from the call center said when I inquired about replacing my card to a CEPAS card?

"I am sorry I am with phone banking. You have to call our hotline to get your CEPAS card replacement" ????!!!???@*#@***
"Hello? Isn't it stupid when your hotline tells me to leave my number and then you tell me to call the hotline again!!, I can't get through your hotline" (expletives removed by me)
"Sorry sir, I'll leave a note for the right party to call you. Have a nice day." @*&**!!!

The next day, I did get a call from someone from Shittybank. Unfortunately, I was in the midst of a meeting and asked for him to call back later. I never did receive another call again.

Last week, I got a call from Shittybank again.
Good, I thought, finally someone remembered me.
But it was from someone who was trying to sell me some investment plan!

"Miss, I said, if you look at your computer records you'll probably see that I called a month ago requesting for a card replacement. Your customer service is so bad and you want me to buy more stuff from you? You better get your act together first before I'll even consider using any of your services!" Poor girl, not her fault but I just had to take it out on her. Apologies.

Today I received a letter from Shittybank!
Did my CEPAS replacement finally arrived? There's something hard inside the envelope!
But no, the accompanying note said.. "Thank you for your feedback on your CEPAS compliant card replacement. As a gesture of goodwill, we would like you to have these two $10 Tangs vouchers....."
Hey, I don't need your vouchers! I want my CEPAS card! Sigh.

Anyway, feeling a bit guilty over bawling out that investment girl, I thought I'd try again to call the bank to thank them for the vouchers, say sorry to that girl and to finally get a replacement order for my CEPAS card.

Diallling xxxx 7777..

Thank you for calling Shitty Bank
We recently changed our Menu to make your banking experience quicker and easier..
Pls press 1 for....
1
Welcome to Shittybank, The bank that NEVER SLEEPS.
Pls enter your NRIC or 16 digit atm number or Credit card no...
xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

Unfortunately our automated banking is unavailable at the moment. Pls try again soon. One moment while we transfer you...

We are curently experiencing a high volume of calls and may not be abe to connect you..
Press 1 to leave your number for our officer to call you before 6pm the next working day...

1.

Unfortunately our automated banking is unavailable at the moment. Pls try again soon. One moment while we transfer you...

Line cuts off.

Sometimes, things like these makes me really feel like we're really part of a Dilbert cartoon.
It's been 6 weeks since that first incident with Shittybank and I still don't have a CEPAS card.

I am back to using my EZ-Link CEPAS card from the transit operator.