Mom Injured Her Joints

Today on my way to work my mom called me wanted me to go help her out.

Apparently she has injured her leg while alighting from the bus. She was totally incapable of walking. Having set by the bus stop for some time she got help from 3 ladies passing by from their morning exercises.

Being really helpful people, they helped my mom to the nearest Chinese clinic, where she got medical help.

The Chinese doctor diagnosed that my mom has dislocated her meniscus. The nurse at the counter was kind enough to tell me the English medical name.

So here's a link I found after a quick search. On the term. http://crosswords911.com/miniscule.html

Having realigned the displaced part, the doctor saw no signs of bone fracture, and did not advise an X-Ray. Instead they lent her a pair of crutches till she can walk properly again.

Medical cost came up to $70.

Once she was back home, my mom claimed that she didn't need any further help, so I was dismissed.

I am just glad there were no complications or anything worse.

Due to the fact that it took 2 ladies to carry her to the Chinese clinic my mom even asked if Christina was free to take leave from work. So it made me worried.

Good thing I waited to assess the situation first before calling on Christina to help me.

At first it sounded really serious when she related it to me. That's because mom already has leg problems. I was really worried this would complicate her condition. What if she was going to be immobile for a week? But now it looks like her joint will recover naturally.

Praise God!

Mom gone for Endogram

Mom called me up yesterday. She told me she's going for Endogram today. I took leave from work to be with her.

She's been having chest pains and always finding herself takingdeep breaths. Therefore the doctor is sending her for an Endogram procedure.

She's in the operating theatre now and I'm checking out what the Endogram procedure is. So here's a site I found. http://www.intercare.com/vasocor/endogram.htm.

In 2010 she's been through an Endogram and had had a stent placed in two of her arteries. Back then my sister, my wife (girlfriend back then), and my mother in law were all there. Today its just me.

I prayed with her before she went in.

She's just came out as I am writing this. It's been less than 30 minutes. Looks like the last stent operation was so successful, it is still working very well. So there's now no need to do another stent (aka balloon procedure).

Praise the Lord!

FFI Review 20130318

After being certified PES A for around 15 years, today I had my second FFI (Fit For Infantry) review at the SAFTI medical centre. I had my blood taken around a week ago.

Today they took my ECG (electrocardiogram) test, eyesight test, blood pressure test, etc. During the review, the doctor gave some stunning news.

First off, I have very high cholesterol ratings. Out of an average person's 3.7, I scored 4.8. The medical officer was even thinking of getting me started on cholesterol medication if I don't show improvement in a few months. I guess its time for more disciplined work-outs.

 Second thing that is of concern, my ECG is showing a 5 regular beats and then a muted bump followed by another 5 regular beats. The MO cannot put down anything conclusive yet, but he has recommended me to the heart centre to find out the nature of the problem.

This is how it looks like. A regularly occuring anomaly.

 

How NASA Will Build Its Very First Warp Drive

I came across an unbelievable article from io9.com. It is entitled:

How NASA Will Build Its Very First Warp Drive

This image is taken from the original article, all rights reserved by owner of this image

 I thought it was a joke, but according to the article it is really happening. For those of you who are really interested in science and the 'geeky stuff', please head over to read the article. I don't want to misrepresent the information there. :)

It is truly amazing how human tirelessly conjure up possibilities of the future, and then strive to realise it.

Discovered My First Medical Allergy

I had a slight runny tummy that woke me up in the middle of the night and kept me in the toilet for half an hour. I went to see doctor next day, and she gave me pro-gut, charcoal pills and spasmopriv.

After taking the meds twice, I got swollen and itchy hands and feet. Hands were bloated and feet swelled up by 1 size.

Doctor observed that my reaction was quite serious. She suspected that the culprit was spasmopriv. To my understanding, spasmopriv is supposed to relax tummy runs by dilating tummy blood vessels. She was surprised because she has never seen anybody allergic to spasmopriv in her 30 years in the profession. Also it does not seem to be any known side effects associated with this particular medicine.

I was given MC for runny tummy yesterday, and 2 more days today because of the allergic reaction. I am also given Adezio (cetirizine HCI) to be taken twice a day, to ease the allergy.

According to my previous medications given to me, I've been found to be quite resistant to allergic reactions. Therefore it is quite surprising that I'm now reacting to a drug that has no known side effects. To confirm the doctor's suspicion about spasmopriv, I am instructed to recover from the allergy, then start taking pro-gut once a day (since it is quite a neutral medicine). if there are no allergic reaction, then the culprit should be spasmopriv.

First Dinner Made by Wife

Tonight my wife made the first full meal all by herself, and she managed to do it with only the bare minimum of assistance from me.

Dinner consisted of 1 green leafy vegetable dish, and a fish, together with pre-marinated chicken wings, all that with brown rice. Rice was not very well cooked on the first try, so we had to wait another 15 minutes for it to be cooked.

Wifey diced the garlic, to fry the vegetables with (and later on the fish), and sliced ginger to steam the fish with. Later she thawed the chicken wings and fry them on a pan.

We've not been frequently cooking our meals mainly because of our work timings. Sometimes it is very hard to cook just for 2 persons since the supermarket sell a lot of stuff that are servings of 4 or more people. However recently my wife has been wanting to cook her own meals. I also realise it builds her confidence in the kitchen. This meal is a huge success!

Well done, and thank you dearest!

Bought My Westone1 In-Ear Monitors

Got them from Stereo Electronics at Ion Orchard

Front of box

Peeping in at the left phone

Read face of box

Side of box

Box opened up

Left page of box interior

Contents of box

Semi-hard case

Ear buds supplied

Ear buds and cleaning brush

Altogether again

Westone 1s are great earphones! I was actually going for the UM1, but it went out of stock at the Headphone Gallery at Funan Digital Mall. They were selling for a good price (with a discount).

A few days after I went there, I was at the Stereo Electronics at Ion Orchard looking for the UM1 again. The sales guy gave me some good recommendations on similar products in the same performance/price range. Some of them were from Etymotic, Westones UM1 and Westone 1.

I found Etymotic to be a bit too soft and (I never thought I would say this) ... flat and smooth. This is the exact feature I was looking for .. flat frequency response. However, I found Etymotic phones to be just that, in an unpleasant way. Areas of high frequency that were supposed to be crisp were somewhat muted in intensity, and overall I had to turn up the volume higher than my normal levels (I am not a loudness fan), just to hear my test tracks properly.

I took a listen to UM1, which sounded more lively but I could hear a roll off on the highs and some muffled lows.

In the end I decided to go with the Westone1. Somehow the stereo image is better an does give nice response across the frequency, for me.

The way the phones are shaped to the ear is quite comfortable, with the connecting cables looping behind the user's ear. This minimises microphonics. I came across this term when doing my research on in-ear-monitors in general. I'll write more about this below.

Image taken from a review on the Westone1: http://www.headfoneshop.com/blog/2011/07/28/westone-1-review/

The cables are formed by smaller cables coiling around each other in a braid. This keeps the cable straight and minimises the chance of the tangling, especially useful for musicians planning to use them for gigs and on-stage performances.

The thing I find a bit of an inconvenience in the first few days of usage is the fact that there were no easily legible markings on the body of the earphones as to which is the left or right piece. This was partially caused by the fact that I took a while to familiarise with the unique way the cables have to coil around the ear lobes. However, true to what the sales staff told me, "you'll get used to it after the first week". Now I just instinctively know which piece goes left and which one to the right.

I think I have rather large ear canals, I find that I cannot easily get a proper seal with the default ones that were already attached to the phones when I opened the box. As seen in the photos above, Westone has supplied quite a few kinds of ear-tips, so I will be going through them to find the suitable size and shape for me. I'll write a bit more about seal below.

Overall I am quite happy with this pair of in-ear-monitors. It is my first set that has a balanced armature. Now I am hearing lots of detail in my mp3 recordings. I am spotting new things in recordings I thought I was quite familiar with. Most importantly, I am using the Westone1 to listen to my own compositions so I can evaluate my own mix that's done through my speakers, to find out how they sound on a very accurate pair of in-ear-monitors.

If you are new to in-ear monitors or in-ear headphones or in-ear canalphones Here is an excellent resource and quite a complete guide to the factors that will make it work for you, and those that won't: http://www.head-fi.org/a/basic-guide-to-in-ear-canalphones
The topics covered in here also include the ones I will write about below: microphonics and seal.

Microphonics is the interfering (undesirable) vibrations (turned into audible sounds in the earphones), caused by the moving/rustling of cable contacting with our skin, clothings, or other items in the path of the cables. This is especially likely for people listening to music while exercising (eg, jogging). Here is a pretty good article to read up on microphonics affecting the clarity of our earphones - http://ear-buds.org/microphonics-and-how-it-affects-your-earbuds/

The seal is another term I learnt when reading up about in-ear monitors. Seal is something provided by the earbuds. It is how completely the earbuds fit the shape of your ear and isolates surrounding noise when you use your earphones. This is very important to users of in-ear monitors. The sound-isolation factor and the perceived power and clarity of the phones is totally dependent on the seal. If there is no seal (earbuds not successfully forming an enclosed space inside the ear), then there is sound leakage. This will affect the overall sound in general, but mostly the noise isolation and the power of the bass will suffer. That is why there are many 3rd party providers of earbuds. Having different shapes and sizes to suit a huge variety of ears, some are made from memory foam, some are sponge, some are silicone and others, rubber.

Because our ears come in very different shapes and sizes, no two buds will give the same results on different individuals. Similarly, to get a good seal, there is no 'best position' for the bud to rest in the ear canal. We must use it for a while (people say a week of use) to let it find its unique rest position the ears for best seal.

Sensaphonics provide users with test tones at equal levels so the user can decide if both sides of earbuds are providing similar levels of seal. This is a pretty neat test! http://www.sensaphonics.com/?page_id=833