It Runs in Their Blood

My aunt (father side), who I mentioned in a previous post, visited my other aunt (her sister), who seems to be suffering from a certain illness.

Tagging my cousin along, they went all the way to their home in Parkway, Quezon City. Their place is quite far from ours.

As a way of showing concern, my aunt bought some pastries and gave them to her sister, which the latter refused to accept, and left the former no choice but to bring it back home. Sweet and Cold.

Sounds familiar? She just tasted some of her own medicine.

It seems that she's not the only one who hates the idea of being fed.

As for the older aunt, I have no idea what kind of sickness she has, however, I'm pretty sure that her miserable condition would not be too far from my dad's and my aunt's.

It runs in their blood after all...

Warning: Graphic Content

Just a few hours after I went to sleep, I was awaken by droplets of rain entering from the window near my bed. As I would normally do, I closed the windows.

But before I could get back to my sleep, I felt something weird inside my mouth. It was blood with some "chewable" mass, which I thought was clotted blood. And there was at least a tablespoon full of it. o_O

After cleaning my mouth, I went back to sleep. A few minutes later, I woke up again and realized that the bleeding never stopped, and I was back to seeing thick, sticky, radiant red liquid coming out of my mouth.

At the time, I realized that there was something wrong...

It has been 4 days since I had the surgery (impacted wisdom tooth removal) but I never encountered any severe bleeding after the surgery. I may have tore the wound while brushing or during my sleep.

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Anyhow, I tried my best to stay calm, because I know that panicking would just increase my heart rate and aggravate the bleeding. How would you stay calm after seeing lots of blood coming out of your mouth? (see picture at the bottom) >:P

I took a 500mg capsule of Hemostan to help stabilize the bleeding. But since it needed an hour or so to take effect, I had to find a way to control the bleeding, otherwise, I might pass out. I took a cotton ball and stuffed it on the operated gum area.

The bleeding continued as I replaced the cotton balls. Either I wasn't hitting the right area or I was bleeding in several areas. At that point I was starting to get worried, my dentist appointment is at 8:30AM and I still have more than 3 hours to wait and probably bleed more. :S

My mom panicked after I told her that the bleeding won't stop. She gave me an ice pack and it somehow managed to minimized the bleeding. I also managed to get an hour of sleep with cotton inside my mouth. :P

I got up around 7AM just to find out that it began to bleed again. I removed that blood coated cotton ball from mouth and replaced it again. Then started to prepare for my visit to the dentist.

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I was accompanied by my sister and our dad was the one who took us to the dentist. The dentist was surprised to learn about the bleeding. I told her what happened that morning and she told me that putting the cotton balls was a bad idea. :))

She then started checking and cleaning the wounds. She revealed to me that one of the stitches was tore open. I had 2 stitches from the surgery. Somehow, one of them tore open the wound and started the bleeding.

After the effects of the anesthesia kicked in, she removed the new formed tissues that was torn. Then she put some powdered medicine on the wounds.

Unfortunately, there's one specific area that the bleeding won't stop. She had to use a stronger medicine and a new stitch to finally control that area. I actually felt the needle punching through my gum because the effects of the anesthesia was starting to wear off.

We left the clinic almost 11AM, she assured me that she won't let me go home until the bleeding stops, and she did. Whew!

I'm lucky enough that it happened this morning. My dentist was scheduled to go to Canada this evening for a 1-month vacation. God still loves me. :D Hopefully, I don't have to go through something like this again. O:) I'm estimating that I've lost at least a half glass of blood. o_O

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For those who are curious, here's a picture of my blood. It appears to be a lot, but it's just diluted with water in the chamber pot. The solid looking objects are the cotton balls that I've used.


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Before I went to sleep last night, I was watching these final segments of Bubble Gang. I'm not sure if my excessive laughing have contributed to the bleeding. Ha ha ha...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn3JayerHoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgewH18IDLE

The moral of the story... never watch comedy shows after surgery... he he he...

Yeah... People Hate Change

If you're a frequent MRT passenger, you probably have come across the following announcement or something similar, scattered across different locations in all MRT stations recently.


I deliberately cropped it for blogging purposes. If you're interested in the full version, you can download it from here.

Surprisingly enough, the supposed "measure to ease overcrowding" resulted in this...


It took me a while to get inside and tried my best to avoid or minimize body contact. I could still remember some people commenting that the new system sucks and that they (MRT) should never have implemented it. Some even started cursing the security personnel who was trying to organize the crowd.

You don't have to be an expert in crowd control in order to realize that their "plan" was not carefully "planned" at all.

And because I don't want to criticize without sharing some constructive suggestions, here are some of my ideas...

1. Remove security checks on all entrances. Obviously, the bottlenecks are the security personnels. The rate of their "bag poking" is far lower than the rate of passengers arriving. >:)
   
2. Put walk-in metal detectors on all entrances. They DON'T have to work. They just have to look convincingly real, and beep randomly. This way we could achieve the same "sense of security" like what we currently have, minus the cost and the effort. >:)
   

And for the fun part, here are some suggestions to instill some discipline among passengers...

1. Deploy stanchions (posts), but instead of using the usual metal chains or nylon ropes, "rusted barbed wires" SHOULD be used. This way, passengers would not attempt to overtake one another or create new lines. >:)
   
2. Attach "rusted blades" or "broken glass shards" at the sides of the train doors. This way, passengers would not attempt to stop the doors from closing. >:)
   
3. An alternative for option 2 is to use "electric doors", similar to electric fences. Same effect, minus the bloody mess. >:)
   
4. Finally, hire bouncers. The can be deployed inside the trains or in the platforms. To help weak passengers in getting in and off the train. >:)

Till next time... ride safely... :)

Really Sad News

Friday afternoon, I received an SMS message from Dominic, informing me that his dad had passed away (Morning of May 30). I was shocked to hear the bad news, and for a while, could not think of a proper way to respond.

Wilfredo Dandan, 50, fell asleep while on his way to San Juan Municipal Hall and never woke up. The taxi driver rushed him to a nearby hospital, where they attempted to revive him. However, it was already too late, and he was announced dead-on-arrival.

Dominic is a good friend from college. Our houses are just few blocks apart. He was my jeepney buddy for 4 years. By his request, I contacted CJ and Carlo, our college buddies, and arranged a meeting so I could bring them to the funeral house on Saturday or Sunday.

On my way home, I went his father's wake in Lorenzo Funeral Homes, just a block away from our house. I stayed there until 12AM, before heading home. I also had a chance to talk to Dominic, Marilen and also Dominic's aunt. Dominic told me what happened earlier that day, while his aunt shared her experiences in her courageous battle and triumph over cancer.

The following morning (Saturday), I met Carlo and CJ at UST and accompanied them to Lorenzo. We had lunch there and stayed for until 1PM. We shared a couple stories on some recent updates on our lives. The last time we had a chance to this was way back in college.

It was nice to see them again after a long time, but as Dominic would put it, it could have been a lot nicer if the circumstances were not sorrowful.

My deepest condolences to the Dandan family for their lost.

To Mr. Wilfredo Dandan, may you rest in peace.

Superiority Complex

After 20 days of inactivity... :P

Refer to a subconscious neurotic mechanism of compensation developed by the individual as a result of feelings of inferiority. - Wikipedia

A few days back, my dad and my aunt had a heated discussion for a very unusual topic, 'which is the shortest way' to Ylaya Street from Jose Abad Santos street. And by “heated”, it means that they were shouting at each other, telling each other how ignorant the other one is.

But, who cares??? It doesn’t really matter which way you take, because you’ll just end up in the same place. Why bother?

Unfortunately, for those two, being correct is like their addiction. They love to argue with people just to prove that they are better, smarter, and superior to others.

My dad would almost always contradict any person’s opinion or idea regardless if it’s already correct. He would always have a “more” correct idea that would render your idea incorrect no matter how twisted his opinion was.

Another manifestation of his condition is his constant complain about food. You would always hear negative remarks from him for almost every meal of every day, except when he’s not around. Some typical comments would be... “rice is burnt”, “rice is half-cooked”, “the food is not edible”, “don’t know how to cook”, "same food as yesterday", etc.

I really hate it when somebody complains about food. People are literally starving to death in almost every corner of the World and yet some people are incapable of appreciating how lucky they are to have food on the dining table.

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Moving on to my aunt, who manifests a different behavior towards foods, she would never voluntarily eat anything that I or my eldest sister buys. Although mainly due to some personal issues, another reason is because she doesn’t like the idea of “being fed” by someone else.

She has always thought that the “feeder” should be in absolute control of the “consumer”, a very self-serving belief indeed.

I do appreciate everything that they've shared to us and I'm really grateful for it and I would be glad to return them the favor. But it won't just happen if they're not willing to accept our help and support.

I would always hear her complaining that she's been working for a very long time and that she should be retired by now. And yet she's not willing to give up the store or do anything to make that happen.

I guess, that basic fear of change have crippled her ability to become satisfied and happy in her life.

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It's just unfortunate because it seems that there's no way they would even consider their behavior as improper, let alone change for the better.

How would you tell a grown person to grow up?

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P.S. I have a lot of things on my mind regarding this topic but I find it a little difficult to put them all into writing... :(

An Expensive Month

I made two major purchases last April, one at the beginning of the month, and the other towards the end. Including the amount of taxes that I've paid, I almost hit the 6-digit mark... ouch!!!

Meet my DS Lite, Misato, named after the character in Neon Genesis Evangelion. It came with a very nice leather case and a bundled game, Brain Age 2. After a week, I bought Cooking Mama from Data Blitz, the same place where I bought my DS Lite.

I was planning to get a Wii but opted for a DS for several reasons. It's cheaper. It's safer, since it does not require major bodily movements which might cause the collapse of our house. It's compact and portable. And finally, because I wanted to play Super Robot Wars W.

I still wanted to finish the previous editions of SRW(A, R, D, J, OG1, OG2) in GBA though, before I get a copy of SRW W. So until then, I'm letting my sisters enjoy playing with Misato.

My other major item would be my new camera. It's a Canon S5 IS, which I got for a very very "tempting" price of P13K++. While on the Laguna trip with sir Melvin, Gloi called me up and asked if I wanted it. And after a careful deliberation (30+ seconds), I said yes. Then, after 2 weeks of waiting, Gloi finally arrived with it. Thanks again Gloi.. :)

I named my new camera Kaworu, who's also a character from NGE. Yeah, he's the controversial character from the Manga/Anime, which started endless debates on his sexuality, and tainted Shinji's as well, unfortunately... :(

Putting those not so important issues aside, I chose Kaworu because he's the 5th child. Asuka was the 2nd. Asuka, S2 IS and Kaworu, S5 IS. That should make a little sense now... :P

OK... now I'm feeling a little weird giving names to inanimate objects... ^_^

Anyhow, I should be minimizing my expenses in May in order to make up with the April expenses... O:)

The Last Gig

Last April 20, we visited Avilon Animal Prison, or more commonly known as Avilon Zoo. As a tribute to my semi-retired camera, I posted some of the pictures taken that day here. By the way, the full set is available on my flickr page... :)

Arapaima Gigas Feeding on Chicken Heads

Sleeping Siberian Tiger

Trixie on a Bicycle with Balancers

Flamingo

Eat Like a Jasmine Bird

Pink Flower

Budgerigars

Sun Conure

A Jas' Duck's Quack

Flock of Jas Ducks

Philippine Government Official Crocodile

Ostreeeeech!!!