Took a lot of fluids that night, but the fever would not come down. Could not sleep well all night and getting up to go bathroom was a struggle because of the chronic multiple joints pain. It didn’t get better but worse the next morning, the temperature went up to 40 Celsius and the joints were so pain, could hardly move or walk. Was also feeling cold, though with a winter jacket on in this summary weather.

Couldn’t even drive to see a doctor, had to call dad at work, he was busy and could only leave in the afternoon. My mom cooked some porridge for lunch, though didn’t have any appetite, forced half a bowl down the throat. Dad came home for lunch and then we went to see a doctor.

The doctor said I have the symptoms of Chikungunya. Due to my paracetamol allergy, she was cautious when giving out medications. She gave me the Buprol (Ibuprofen) for bring down the temperature and inflammations, Ponstan and another type of pain killer to relieve the joints pain, some antibiotics and oral rehydration salts. She advised me to take a lot of fluids, fruits and drink some 100 plus to prevent dehydration.

An hour after taking the medication, was perspired profusely, the temperature went down, the joints pain disappeared and the appetite returned! In the evening, before I took the next dose of medication, could feel the joints pain coming back.

While the medications are keeping the fever down and the inflammation in control, but the new symptoms - rashes are coming out. The itchiness is bearable. Following the doctor’s advice to take a lot fruits and fluids to prevent dehydration, it will take a few weeks to completely recover from this disease. Currently no medicine is available for treatment of Chikungunya yet. The doctors could only give medications to relieve the symptoms.

For the apple enzyme, we have:
-20 green apples
-6 lemons
-500 g organic sugar

The steps:

(1) Wash the fruits and let them air dry.

(2) Wash the jars, knife, peeler, chopping board and air dry them.

**It’s important to have everything dry without water, to prevent contamination, growing mold or bad bacteria.

(3) When everything is dry, you can start peeling the apples and lemons and cut them into slices.

(4) Lay one layer of the apple slices in the jar, one layer of sugar, one layer of lemon slices, one layer of sugar, and continue this process until the jar is full.

(5) Close the jar and put it at a corner without direct sunlight.

(6) You should see bubbles forming on the second days.

(7) On the third day, open the jar to let the bubbles out.

(8) Close back the jar and let the fermentation goes on for another 2-3 weeks.

(9) Sieve the liquid out and you can use the remnants to make jam or drink.

For the dragon fruit enzyme, we have:
-2 dragon fruits
-100 g organic sugar

(1) De-skin the dragon fruits and cut into slices.

(2) Layer the dragon fruits and sugar alternatively until the jar is full.

(3) Follow steps (5)-(9) as in apple enzymes.

Happy making fruit enzymes at home !

Many of us probably have heard and read about this fruit enzyme as a few organic stores have been promoting it quite a bit lately. I remember reading about a Thai alternative medicine practitioner named Dr. Rosukon Poompanwong who teaches people to make enzyme from kitchen waste.

Apparently, they are a few Malaysians who went to visit the health farm runs by Dr. Rosukon in Thailand. They came back promoting the making of fruits enzyme and garbage enzyme widely in Klang Valley. PL went to one of those classes to learn how to make fruit enzymes. Knowing PL is always eager to share what she learns with me. I asked her to do a demo on how to make fruit enzyme at home.

And this is the product we have, two jars of apples enzyme and one jar of dragon fruits enzyme from twenty green apples, two dragon fruits, six lemons and about 500 g of organic sugar.

(It started as a full jar but I forgot to take a picture. This is how it looked like after two days. The osmosis was drawing the juices out and fermentation has begun. Can see bubbles forming and smell like citrus wine.)

The skins and seeds of the fruits do not go to waste, they go in a jar to make garbage enzyme that can be used as fertilizer, disinfectant and many more. (You can also make this from kitchen waste.)

You must be thinking, yuck, the fermentation of this garbage must be really smelly! Believe it or not, this bottle of garbage actually smell pretty good, a bit similar to the citrus based deodorant you have in the car!

This Chinese herbalist doesn’t use the traditional herbs that need to cook for long hours, the doctor actually gave her some herbal medications in pill forms! He recommended her to see the acupuncturist at the same building to expedite the recovery.

Mom thinks the acupuncture helps and she feels less pain after the half an hour session. So, we are going back tomorrow for another session.

The MRI showed the disc between two of the bones on the spine (L5 and S1) has extruded and pressed against the nerves. The nerves happened to be the ones that control the leg movement. That’s why mom has been having leg pain. The extrusion is actually quite bad and the only way to repair such condition is going for a surgery according to the orthopedic.

The orthopedic said there is no medication to cure this kind of problem, he can only give pain killer for pain relief. Since mom is not keen to go for surgery and it may be a while for the pharmaceutical companies to come out with the right drugs for this kind of health problem, we will bring her to try some alternative medicine in the next few weeks i.e. acupuncture, Chinese herbals and chiropractic .

Could even feel it right there, the wounds are hurting. Not to mention the after effect - I have been suffering from pelvic pain and back ache ever since I drove around town to run errands the other day! Well, the wounds outside may seem to be completely healed, but the inside is still healing, any heroic acts can still cause pain that keeps me awake at night. My mother would say: “See, I told you so!”. :-)

The second pathologist’s report came back today, it didn’t mention anything worth further investigation! That means the first pathologist might have read too much and/or over analyzed the elements he saw on the slides!

Thank god it’s just a cancer scare!

It’s unlikely a common practice, but thank god for Dr Eugene who cares about the best interest of his patient, for voluntarily suggested getting me the slides to go get a second opinion. I believe it’s through divine intervention and the power of many prayers that changed and turned the outcome of this, thus keep me from going for another surgery to remove the left ovary as diagnostic and preventive measure, which is unnecessary in due of the second pathologist’s report.

I am very thankful that it’s not the real thing, just a scare that burnt a hole in my pocket and kept me busy running around for three weeks!

I have to start the preparation yesterday. The gastro specialist gave me some phosphate soda, it caused me going toilet 6-7 times after an hour of taking the solutions. I had to take it once last night and another time this morning.

My dad drove me to the doctor’s office since I would be put on sedative and not suitable to drive after the procedure. The colonoscopy and gastroscopy procedures only took about 10-15 minutes, but had to wait for one and half hours for the doctor, even with an appointment!

We can see the inner lining of the digestive tract  on a CCTV when a fiber optic camera passed through it. Nothing unusual was  found, except for a small ulcer in the stomach, this probably in a great extend rule out the possibility of colon cancer!!

Right after the scope, before the doctor typed out a report, I rushed down to the cafe at the hospital, had a bowl of beehoon soup. Really exhausted and hungry after all the purging!!

The second gynecologist and our oncologist friend thinks removing the left ovary (like the first gynecologist Dr Eugene suggested) is a bit too drastic when there is no evidence of malignancy. He thinks further screening to rule out other possibilities and close monitoring of the hard cells on the left ovary plus tumor marker tests every other month would be more appropriate.

This is going like a roller coaster ride, one minute I am convinced that going for another surgery to remove the left ovary is the best thing to do, the next minute, it seems there is really nothing to worry about. Of course, I pray that all these are just false alarms, a cancer scare, instead of the real stuff!!

He asked me to go to see him at his office at 10 a.m Saturday morning, so he can look at the pathological reports, the CT scan and advise me accordingly. I am really grateful for this kind gesture. The other four doctors in the bible study group also prayed for me.  I have informed Jo, the group leader’s wife earlier, so in fact they have been praying for me all along.

Since both the O & Gs advised me to check out the colon (the biopsy expressed CEA, a color cancer tumor marker), so I went to see a gastro specialist and made an appointment for a colonoscopy and possibly gatroscopy on Tuesday.

Both the O & Gs also agreed that the PCOS may be the root of my hormonal and acne problems. No need any acne treatment, just need to keep the PCOS problem under control!

SL called me on the phone, her mother was recently diagnosed with cancer, so she is quite familiar with various scans available. She mentioned about the PET scan, so I asked Dr Eugene the gynecologist, he thinks it’s not necessary as it probably won’t be able to pick up anything smaller than a ten cents coin too.

After seeing the lab report and the biopsy that expressed the CEA and CK7 tumor tests. The doctor recommended to go for a CT Scan to determine whether any other organs have cancer cells.

Since I am allergic to paracetamol, the doctor gave me a type of steroid. I wonder whether it’s the kind of legal steroids those who are into body building take, but I didn’t ask the doctor. :-) I have to take three doses of the blue pills 12 hours before the scan to avoid allergic reaction.

 So the CT Scan was done on the 16th. The good news is: no other organ has traces of cancer cells. Well, this is only true to a certain extend, because CT scan can only pick up spots that are fairly big. The results of the scans just showed that there are no big spots detectable in other organs, which is good news!

So we planned to go home right after after seeing the doctor on the 12th. We got up really early, hoped to be the first patient when the doctor’s office opened at 8.30 a.m. Sure enough, I was the first patient!

The doctor checked the wound, took out the knot of the stitches and told me that the wound healed really well. Then he asked whether I would like my sisters to come in to listen to what he had to say next. He looked rather serious, so I thought he might have some bad news to disclose. I walked out the room to look my sisters, they have walked away to the other corner, I couldn’t see them. So, I went back in, told the doctor I couldn’t find them and he could talk to me alone.

He showed me the lab report and highlighted the part that mentioned the biopsy expressed to CEA and CK7 - two out of three of the tumor marker tests, so it may be malignant (cancerous tumor)! The doctor went on to say that he didn’t expect this kind of pathological report as the “hard cells” looked benign to the naked eyes. Guess it’s going to be the beginning of our headache, we need two cups of coffee, where is the capresso machine?!

The wounds were painful, but I was able to get down to a walk around the ward the next morning. With the help of painkillers, I was actually sleeping quite well at night. Minus the pains while getting up and lying down, I was having a fun time, chatting with my roommate, a 53 years old woman who had breast cancer, reading the newspaper and the novels that my sisters brought for me.

The doctor visited me twice a day and he was satisfied with my recovery. A few friends came to visit me and they were surprised I looked pretty healthy and could still laugh!

Early morning on the 5th, the doctor told me I could check out after he see me in the afternoon. After settling the bills in the morning, we waited patiently for the doctor to come back. He was a bit late because they were too many patients during his consultation hours. My two sisters got impatient and started joking with my roommate and the doctor came in when we were all laughing about something.

I was told to go back for a check up on the 12th of April and I could call to find out about the lab report starting on the 10th or wait until the 12th to find out the details during the consultation.

During the one week stay in PJ, simple home cook food plus the bad quality of sleep due to pain that kept me await at night, I was able to lose 5 kg without the help of any diet pills. I suspect it’s mainly by getting rid of water retention, still have a long way to go in order to lose all the weight that have piled on in the last five years!

When the doctor came to see me at about 10.45 p.m, even though I was not 100% alert yet, the first question that blurted out from my mouth was “What happened?”, before asking him for painkillers. :-)

What happened? He started with the laparoscopy or keyhole surgery but had to perform an open surgery, cut up a 3″ incision on my tummy to clean up all the mess. The cysts were not the more common “chocolate cysts”, they were teratoma or dermoid cysts and a bunch of small cysts which the doctor believed they are parts of the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). PCOS is the culprit for hay-wired hormone and the skin problems that I have in recent years. Unlike some of my friends who have very bad acnes and tried all sort of natural acne treatments they have accessed to, I didn’t have acne or pimples in my teens or twenties, only at thirties!!

Ok, what it really was: the doctor took out about 10 bottle of “stuffs”!!! He showed my sisters the bottles before I woke up and gave them three bottles of samples. The rest were sent to the lab for further investigations.

At about 6.15 p.m, I was wheeled into the operating theater. The last few things I remembered were: it was damned cold inside there, the nurse asked me whether a man who was wondering around was my husband, and  the anaesthesist gave me some “fresh oxygen”!

I have told my sisters to bring me some porridge at about 9.30-10.30 p.m, thought I would be very hungry when I woke up after the surgery. My sisters rushed to the hospital at around 9.00 p.m, they waited and waited in the ward. At about 10 p.m, a nurse came up to look for my family members and brought them down to the operating theater and told them about what happened and why the surgery took so long.

The surgery was scheduled to be on 3rd April, so I left on the 2nd of April, took a bus to PJ, stayed overnight at my sister’s place. The next day, on the 3rd, I took a cab to the hospital, checked into the hospital at 9.00 a.m. The doctor and nurses were preparing me for the operation, I went on the fast after 10.30 a.m. They also gave me some tablets and solutions to drink to help to clear the bowel.

The surgery was scheduled to be at 6.00 p.m. It was supposed to be a therapeutic laparoscopy or keyhole surgery to remove the ovarian cysts. The doctor did mention occasionally it has to revert to open surgery if complications arise or the cysts ruptured or it gets too messy, but I was assured that that’s rather rare. I was also told the lapascopy procedure would take about half an hour and I just have to stay in the hospital for one night.

We were making arrangement and planning for my sister to drive home on the 5th of April, so that my mom could take care of me during the recuperation process. Little we knew about what happened in the next two weeks!!

Professor Eugene who is going to operate on me is an experienced O & G in UH. He is a very kind doctor, quite humorous too.

When I asked him whether the surgery will leave scars on my tummy, he explained in details about the keyhole surgery he is going to perform and said I can still wear bikini after this.

Yeah, like I own a Apogee Condo South Beach, and my job is sipping lemonade on a beach chair whole day. :-)

Would be going to PJ and staying at my sisters’ house tonight and then going for a laparoscopy surgery to remove a cyst tomorrow. It’s going to be done at UM Specialist Center near my sisters’ house. Will have to stay at the hospital for a night for observation after the surgery.

The UM Specialist Center is the private wing of UH, so no need to be put on a waiting list, can have surgery at a date you request. Of course you cannot compare with staying at the Las Vegas Hotels. But the nurses are more accommodating and the wards are better equipped. That’s health care in a capitalist world, you pay more for faster and better service! Sad.

Have told some of my friends about the surgery and they will probably visit me at while I am at my sister’s place or at the hospital. That will probably the last time to meet up with them before leaving for IL.

One thing we need to look into is how to get me insured. The big boy needs to find out whether his health insurance plan at work would cover me. If not, we would have to pay for a health insurance plan for me.

Are you cover under any health insurance plans? If you are not covered through your work, you might want to look into getting a health insurance plan. If you are retired and not working, you may want to find out more about medicare insurance? It’s really important to do that as health care is very costly in the US, medical bills are the number one reason for many people who filed for bankruptcy!

Having put on at least 20 lbs (10 kg) in the past five years, boy, it’s hard to get rid of the extra baggages as we age. Have been trying to control the diet and exercise, as I am too chicken to try weight loss pills. But, laziness and indiscipline often get the better of me. The weight loss plan hasn’t been working.

As the big boy is so much taller and bigger than me, I still look “petite” beside him, one less incentive for me to lose weight. :-) My only motivations left will be to fit in those trendy and beautiful clothings again, on top of getting healthier.

My friend K said I should learn to relax more, “use the sky as blanket when it falls” like the big boy. Which I replies : That’s my main cause of stress. :-)

Some of this factors are manageable, some may require an individual to make different lifestyle choices. It’s essential that you measure your risk of heart disease and make a plan for how to prevent it in the near future. If you are interested to do a risk assessment or to learn more about Sudden Cardiac Arrest or Heart Attack risk, you can click on the link above.

However, for things like medications, you really don’t want to get them from any fly-by-night businesses that have questionable reputations! You would want to make sure the online pharmacy is one of those highly commendable U.S. Licensed Pharmacies and they have U.S. Licensed Physicians to review your order and issue your prescription.

Well, I think my ears just learned to tune out all this noises after a while. Maybe because of this constant exposure to noise pollution for four years, there were signs of hearing problem in the last two years. Mind you, the big boy was not the only person who complained I don’t hear/listen well. Though I occasionally tuned him out on purpose..:-)

In fact, in our modern society, so many sources have brought up the noise levels and created a a hearing crisis that affecting more and more people. We live or work in an environment that exposed to noise daily. Moving and changing job may not be a choice, but we can work on Noise Reduction, as they said prevention is better than cure.

Since noise induced hearing loss is a common occupational hazard to many workers around the world. Anyone who works in a noisy environment and is exposed to noise daily would need Hearing Protection. Noise induced hearing loss may not be reversible but it’s preventable!

Sonomax has created a variety of hearing protection earpieces and Noise Reduction Headphones for filtering the toxic noise that can be a serious threat to our hearing. The earpiece can be custom-fit and custom calibrated for different individuals. It acts as a highly efficient filter between sounds and eardrums.

The earpieces can filter out the harmful sounds but welcome sounds like music and human voices with perfect fidelity. These products are used mainly in the industrial sector; however it can be equally effective for concert goers and sport spectators. Do you know you can even use it to block out all your spouse snoring?

In August 2007, the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association updated their physical activity guidelines, encouraging Americans to strength-train at least twice a week and focus on building all of the major muscle groups on top of regular cardio activity. Hey, it’s time to wake up and smell the iron.

No matter what your age, regular strength training builds up more than just muscles; it builds a healthier body. It doesn’t have to be getting out, lifting a ton of weight and being really sore. You can just training to live better.

Working our muscles is also particularly important as we age. Do you know that we can lose five to seven pounds of muscle tissue each decade of our adult lives? In addition, we tend to gain fat as we grow older, due to the slowing of our metabolisms and usual decline in activity. Especially for women who are more prone to backache, strength training can add to bone density and potentially preventing osteoporosis. If you want a better body composition and immune-system function and a faster metabolism, start strength training and building muscle.

Doctors usually suggest surgery to alleviate the incontinence problem only after other treatments have been tried. Many surgical options have high rates of success. Many people may think of vaginal surgery for vain reasons and sexually related. But, when the incontinence problem is a result of the bladder dropping down toward the vagina, the surgery involves pulling the bladder up to a more normal position and helps to improve the life quality of patients. If you have been diagnosed by a specialist to have the problem mentioned above, it may be worthwhile to check out the laparoscopic and minimally invasive way of raising the bladder instead of cutting up yourself unnecessary!

Why?

Well, if you don’t have health insurance and something happens, you could easily accumulate several hundred thousand dollars in medical debt…and medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy! On top of that, if your illness or injury is serious enough, you’ll be out of work, which means you will have a huge debt to pay and no money coming in. Insurance is an absolutely vital part of any sound financial plan. We want you to be prepared.

I am sure you are aware that they are so many different health insurance plans and options floating around out there? PPO, HMO, and HSA, just to name a few. Do you know what they do, how much you need, or better yet, what all the abbreviations stand for? Well, you would need to find out and understand what types of insurance are best for you. For example, if you live in Florida, you can choose a Florida healthcare plan among all the plans available. Some of them can vary significantly depends on your need, that’s why it’ so important to get educated about various options so that you can make the right decision for you and your family.

The second blood test did come back showing the level of Thyroxide is within tolerable limit. So, that means the tyroroid maybe doing ok, doctor said no need to go on medication, but he advised me to take food with more Iodine.

We don’t know whether he knew about Provillus, a natural herbal product for treating hair loss problem, but we direct him to the hair loss forum with the hope that he learn more about the product and do something about his residing hair line.

The nurse wouldn’t listen to me when I told her she should draw blood from the hand instead of arm, because the veins are not visible and blood doesn’t come out there.

So she poked at my arm, no blood came out.

And, poked at my hand.

I don’t like to take painkiller or antibiotic, just rest and drink a lot of water. This morning, I got up feeling better. No more fever, but the sore joints and painful lower back are still there.

I am feeling depressed with all this ailments that suddenly appeared from no way. I hope we can find out what’s wrong when I see the doctor to discuss about the outcome of the health screening tomorrow.

At 10.30 a.m, they had me go to the ground floor to take the blood and urine samples. That was pretty quick! Then I was asked to go to the X-ray room, the X-ray was quick, but the report took a while to come out. I quickly took a bite while waiting for the x-ray report. I was a little dizzy after fasting for more than 15 hours by then.

After the X-ray, I met up with the physician, he did the routine examination and took some history. But funny doctor keep telling me I should do a PhD in Mathematics and go work at a Swiss Bank to make tons of money. He suspected I have thyroid and the tiredness could be due to the thyroid being hypo right now. He said we would discuss further when the blood test comes out. The blood test would be out in 3 days, but he is leaving for oversea to attend a conference tomorrow and would be back until next Tuesday. So, I can only see him again next Wednesday.

The health screening package also included ECG, stress and audio test. After talking to the physician, it was about 12 p.m, he asked me to go to seventh floor for the ECG and Stress test. His nurse called up the seventh floor to make an appointment, they asked me to go after lunch.

Since I have one hour to kill, I popped by the gynaecologist’s office. He has only one patient waiting in line, so I quickly registered myself to see the gynecologist for an ultrasound scanning. It’s the bad news that I dragged, the ovarian cyst has been growing bigger! It’s 7 cm x 4.5 cm now, and another smaller one is growing on the left side of the ovary. The doctor was in a hurry to go out for lunch, I asked whether we should do a marker test, so he ordered a marker test before he went off. Left me in the lurch, he never talked to me about treatment or surgery!

The embarrassing thing: the gynecologist’s office doesn’t take check or credit card, I didn’t carry enough cash with me. So, the nurse said I can pay up after lunch. I quickly went out for lunch and stopped by the ATM machine to withdraw some cash.

At 2.00 p.m, I went to the gynecologist’s office to pay up before I went to seventh floor for the ECG and stress test. Then, the same nurse brought me to third floor audio lab to do an audio test. The stress test damned tiring, I ran on a treadmill for 12 minutes! One of the longest exercises that I had in the past one year.:-)

So, that was almost 3.30 p.m when all these got done. I went back to the physician’s office to make an appointment with his nurse and paid up for the health screening package. I popped by the gynecologist’s office again, this time got to talk to him in details about treatments and surgeries.

The gynecologist recommended open surgery and then go on hormone pills. That was exactly what I was trying to avoid! Of course I didn’t tell him that.:-) He also mentioned about laparoscopic surgery, but from his words, you know he preferred open surgery. My guess is: he is an older doctor, he probably had done more open surgeries than the relatively new laparoscopic surgery. I would say I am currently leaning more towards laparoscopis for its less invasiveness.

When I finally came out from the gynecologist’s office, it was 4.30 p.m. So, that’s 6 hours in the hospital or 5 hours if you minus the lunch time which I technically were not in the hospital. There is no conlusion about the health condition yet except for the ovarian cyst, have to wait for the laboratory tests to come back and I see the physician again next Wednesday.

I have been resting more and went to bed earlier in the past two weeks because I still feel the tiredness. Though I know this month’s blogging income is going to suffer, I need to have a life to blog. What is there to gain when one loses his health or life for that matter.:-)

Usually we cannot eat or drink anything (except water) for 8 hours before going to the hospital to have blood taken. However, the check up package includes lipid tests, I must fast for at least 12 hours. That means no food and drink for me from 9 p.m. on Monday till I go to the hospital at 9.00 a.m on Tuesday. I can drink water, but no juice, tea or coffee.

Being self employed and my insurance only covered critical illnesses, so I got to fork out close to 600 bucks to do this. Well, it’s necessary for the peace of mind and if anything was wrong, the screening will help to detect the problem earlier. Of course, I hope all the tests and screening will show negative results and everything is ok, the tiredness is just me getting old.:-)

Prayers would be appreciated. In fact, I am a bit scared, many what ifs went through my mind right now.

Two days ago, I was feeling tired even though I took a long nap of 3 hours. No, it’s not the lazy feeling on a weekend, my body just didn’t have the energy to stay on. I let go of quite a lot of paid posts last few days, because I just don’t have the energy to stay in front of the computer. It is not normal for me to feel that tired all the time. I asked the doctors in my bible study group, they suggested I go for a medical check-up, I might just do that next week.

It’s hard to cope with doing a lot things at the same time with minimal sleep now. Nowadays, one day lack of sleep will have spilled over effects on the whole week. In fact, I was feeling so exhausted last few days, have to rely on coffee to keep me awake. I finally caught up with a long nap today to replenish the energy. I am feeling much better now.

On the other hand, his wife was thankful that some warning signs of dementia were detected at the early stage and diagnosis was made right after that. That has enabled him to go through appropriate intervention and medical treatments that help to slow down the deterioration of brain capacity and memory loss, and to maintain certain quality of life.

I guess anyone who is concerned about memory loss and detected some warning signs of dementia should go for memory screenings. Though a memory screening does not replace consultation with a qualified physician, it’s good to rule out the possibility for the peace of mind. It’s also appropriate for people who do not have a concern right now, but wants to establish a base line score for comparison in the future.

In fact, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA) has initiated a National Memory Screening Day to bring awareness and recognition of Alzheimer’s disease. November is the Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month and AFA has partnered with organizations and healthcare professionals across America,to offer free confidential memory screenings, as well as follow-up resources and educational materials to those concerned about memory loss. If you are concerned about your or your loved one’s memory loss, you can always locate a screening location in your area by visiting the links mentioned above. Early detection does make a difference!

My lower back is hurting right now, caused by the combination of long hours in front of the computer and all the packing and moving that I have been doing lately. I am going to see a “tie da” (or Chinese orthopaedic:-)). Or may be a chiropractic if the “tie da” doesn’t help? I have never seen a chiropractic, usually a visit to the “tie da” solved the problem. The “tie ta” downtown is quite good, the last time I hurt my lower back and was having sore and pain, the “doctor” gave me a massage and some herbs that really help to relieve the pain.

Though spectroscopy is considered the non evasive type of surgery, I want to avoid it as much as I can. The doctor actually said the best way is to get the cyst out through pregnancy and child birth. We do want to start a family, but with us living apart like this, how?

Got a phone call from her last night, she told me she just checked her emails and know I tried to contact her. She said the reason she hasn’t replied my email is because she was in the hospital. She was having some allergy reactions to some drugs she was taking for her flu. The reactions was so big that she was having breathing difficulty and had to be wheeled into the emergency room in an ambulance and hospitalized for 3 days!

I was quite shocked to hear the news. As SP is always very healthy and active. May be age is really catching up with us, both of us are dealing with some health problems now.

I did a juice fasting for three days recently. I have been feeling extremely fatigue and experienced digestive problem. The juice fast is intent for detoxification and hopefully can lost a bit of weight in the process. This is not the first time I am doing it, I got rid of high uric acid and lost about 6 lbs when I fasted for 4 days a year ago.

This time, I didn’t lose any weight, but got rid of the soreness and pain in the joints that I often experienced when I got up in the morning. I found this abstinence from solid food generally makes me feel more energized after the fast. It’s quite a bit of work to make the juices from all the vegetables and fruits. The recipe that I got from a nutritionist friend blends the different tastes of the vegetables and fruits really well, and it’s actually quite tasty, not yucky like I thought it would be.

The theory of the fasting being that less energy is expended on digestion of foods; therefore more energy exists for the rest of the body to expel toxins. As toxins are believed to lie within many of the human body’s eliminative glands and organs. For instance, a large portion people who fast believe that abstaining from solid food allows the body to recover and heal itself from damage and fatigue caused by the relentless stress of digestion. Additional reasons for undergoing juice fasts include religious reasons, losing weight and attempting to wean oneself from unhealthy habits, i.e., smoking, drinking soda, overeating, caffeine addiction, etc.

I knew my body was telling me to slow down, I took one whole week off blogging and rested on the couch with a lot of fluid intake. It’s much better now, though the throat still feel a little scratchy.

Just folded up the preschool and is slowly letting go of the tutoring business, so things will be slowing down a little more in the coming weeks until I pick up another project. There are new plans/projects lining in the pipe, but nothing is confirmed yet, will talk about it later, so that I don’t enrol myself in the NATO (No Action Talk Only) organization. After taking a long break from blogging, it’s actually taking a lot to gain back the momentum, have been also slack with writing paid posts over the another blog, so got to catch up this week. :-)

What to do? I practically slept more than 18 hours on Sunday and was well on Monday without taking any medication. Monday came I have none of children except one showed up in the preschool, and the only one that showed up was having a bad cough and a slight fever too. She did a little writing and then fell asleep on the couch ! I did call her mother to pick her up earlier, but her busy mother was late as usual. While waiting for her mother to arrive and after asking for her mother’s permission, I gave her a paracetamol for children to relieve her fever. Poor little girl obviously is also under the weather, wonder who spread the germs to who.:-)