Gelato, Anyone?

Everytime my 2 boys and 1 girl pass by a corner food court station named G'lato di Italia in one of our big malls nearest to our apartment, I almost always think of an quintessential question in this diet fad society. How many calories are there in one lick of their fresh strawberry ice cream? To the calorie conscious health nut, every calorie intake counts. It is very strange. Some people never strive to lose pounds, and they lose weight anyway, but there is a big percentile in our society who painstakingly strive to calculate the amount and type of food they eat. I am very lucky not to be in that control group. I can eat whatever I want (I think :) ) and not store these extra calories in my middle.
So how many calories are there in that 2 scoops of creamy strawberry ice cream? Matter of fact, I don't care. Might as well order another cone of rocky road with marshmallows. Scrumptuosly delicious and mouthwatering with every bite. Gelato, anyone?

Conquering the GRE

Finally, I conquered the dreaded GRE! After purchasing a $25 Kaplan reviewer book and intensively looking at its pages for 11 days, I finally hurdled my fear of taking the test after more than 3 long years of my waxing and waning plan to take it. I am more than satisfied with my scores, taking into consideration the fact that I completed my education in a foreign non-US institution. I scored more in the Quantitative than the Verbal Section. The high falloting words it threw to me during the test were never my forte, but I am still satisfied with my overall performance. Never again would I look inside that book again! I am done with it, finally!

On Adam's First Day in School

It is comparable to the fact that some part of you is taken away forever. Three years ago, he was just a mere small 9 pounder in my loving arms, so helpless, so vulnerable. He made me feel important. I was his protector, his shield from all outside harm a newborn would encounter. He was completely dependent on me, and that made me feel very important. Last week, on his first day of school, he looked entirely different. He was grown up, ready to let go of his motherly dependence, wanting to conquer his not-so-small-world-at-all alone.
He started his day early at 7am when he was awakened by my husband in time for his morning shower and dress up for school. He wore a bright orange biker shirt, a pair of short pants and the Thomas the Engine sneakers he personally picked up when we shopped for his shoes. He was a very excited boy. It was his first day of school, the moment he has been talking and thinking about since he turned 3 earlier this year. "I am going to school, Mama!", he would excitingly blurt out every now and then, but most of the time right after he goes to the potty. He has been always reminded by us that once he perfects his toilet training, then he could go to school. He always had this gleaming look in his eyes every time we had a discussion connecting his potty training with going to school.
Arriving from night shift work around 810am, I saw him all ready. He has had eaten breakfast and was sitting on our living room couch patiently waiting for me to drive him to school. I felt enervated despite the 12 hours of shift work the night before. I took a quick shower to drive away any sleepy and tired feeling I normally feel after a full shift work. That did the trick. Adam was not the only one who was excited. His mom was too!
He was tightly holding my hand as we headed in the school's lobby waiting for his preschool teacher to come. There were several other boys and a couple of girls with either their mom or dad who were also waiting. As he was clinging to my one leg and holding my hand tight, I went down on his eye level and told him with a great overprotective maternal tone voice that no matter what happens in the next 2 hours, I will be here on the lobby when he comes out from class. He had this small sense of fearful look in his eyes, but I felt that he was all effort into being the brave boy that he can be. I waved goodbye to him as the teacher walked him with the rest of the kids to their classroom. It was around a 2 minute walk. I felt very ambivalent. It was heartbreaking for me seeing him walk away from me and he didn't even look back! I felt that something was taken away from me, forever. I have dreaded for this to come but I can not turn back the clock. It's hard to let go, but I have to. Even though a part of me got killed, I forced myself to be cheerful, for this is my boy's new beginning for a new phase in his life. I walked away and went home with water hazing around my eyes and fogging my sight.

Cholesterol, Any Takers?

My yearly blood work for my annual check up revealed my cholesterol level to be a whopping 254. I just found out today after I picked up my lab results from my doctor's office. My physique is not that generous so my weight has nothing to do with it. Now I ponder, what have I eaten in the past 33 years that have made this level skyrocket, not to mention the scrumptuous lechon roast, humba, leche flan, oxtail kare-kare, sinigang baboy, adobong baboy, piniritong baboy and hundreds more of fat laden Filipino style cooking? Ironically thinking very very hard, I realize that the answer is just lying at the tip of my nose. Do I need to phase out this style of cooking and eating at home? I need to start eating healthy food the soonest just enough for my areteries to still have enough space left for a sufficient amount of blood flow to my vital organs so I can live 33 years more. I still do want not only to see my chikitings grow up, but also to retire comfortably to our newly purchased Corona del Mar home in Talisay, Cebu and just get lazy sitting down in front of the beach the entire day. I still would want to perfect Lisa Loeb's Stay in the acoustic guitar we just recently bought together (Aaron and I). I still would want to travel to my dream places not to mention Paris and Honolulu. I still would want to perfect my basic drumming skills and at least perform 1 complete pop rock song before I bequeath my red Pearl drum set (complete with a pair of Vic Firth sticks) to either my kids, to whoever is interested beating it. Too many things to do, too little time. Maybe I really do need to eat healthy from now on. Now, who would want to eat oatmeal every morning with me? Any takers?

Unexplainable Unfair Life

How do you explain why certain people would intentionally cut off their life for some trivial repairable reason while a number of patients lie in hospital beds waiting for that lung or liver donor, hoping that they would be able to buy more time for their kids and family? This irony has started me thinking hard. I have come into my personal conclusion that life is undeniably unfair. Talk about individuals who are strong and healthy up until the next day when they discover from their routine doctor check up that they have a life threatening disease such as a malignancy/tumor. I have heard and known people who never smoke and get lung cancer, people who are very conscientious with healthy living, but get morbidly sick anyways. Life is unfair. It stabs me deep in my heart why these things are happening. Out of the billions of earthlings in our society, why does it have to be the good people who get this life threatening problems and not that junkie on the street who smokes and inhales crack everyday. It doesn't surprise me why depression due to a chronic health condition kills people. Depression hurts. Life hurts. Everything hurts.

December 9,2007, PM shift

This is my second night in a row. I got my patient back from last night, a 34 year old Caucasian male who was finally double lung ventilated this noon while I was dreaming myself off to sleep and was somewhere halfway between Japan and the North American continent. We rarely see this happen in our unit, 2 ventilators in 1 room. Each of his lung is independently ventilated with different ventilator settings, lower lung volumes for the bad lung and lesser PEEP for the good lung. He is bleeding everywhere and the only thing we could do is slap him with humungous amounts of blood products to replace his blood loss. He is only 34 with a 3yo and an 11yo at home. Wife is very distraught. I've seen these situations more than any other people in this population and it is very sad that this happens very frequently. My unit is a very gloomy unit. I feel that I have seen all the depressingly sad family situations which involve grieving for the potential and actual loss of a loved one. I feel that that might be me or my loved one in their situation. This is one of the reasons why I hate working in this unit, but then who would take care of these sick people if I move to another unit?