Eighty-Somethings

An ailing octogenarian gentleman conveyed a message to his elder brother, "Tell him I'm not leaving until he goes".

Elder brother who lived in a city 100 km away replied, "No, no, no... tell him not to hang around for me..."

His younger brother managed a laugh on being told the reply, even in his considerably weakened state.

Younger brother eventually succumbed to his illness

10 days later elder brother, who had suffered a stroke weeks before, breathed his last.

They were my uncles, Pak Man and Pak Lah. They had been very pious gentlemen, one had a brand of humour which can be considered legendary.

May Allah bless their souls and place them among the righteous, and to the families they left behind may Allah grant you patience in your time of grie

As my Mum remarked when informed of Pak Man's passing, this world is only temporary, we each will go when our time comes.

Mum was in hospital for a knee job when Pak Man left us.

They had been very chummy in-laws for as long as I can remember - often taking the mickey of one another.

Mum is also in her eighties - 84 this May

Even how impermanent the world, her independence and zest for life will be a hard act to follow should we, her children, ever reach her age.

Her left knee had been troubling her for the past few years and off late the injections of knee "lubrication" hadn't help much.

Despite our anxieties about her being under general anesthesia at her age, she was adamant about getting her ravaged knee replaced.

"It hurts very badly, it's not getting any better and you all do not feel the pain I am going through", Mum argued.

Last Friday, after getting good results for her blood tests, the surgery was performed by Dr Syed at Ampang Puteri Hospital.

The prognosis was excellent. She may be able to go home in 5 days.

Dr Syed marvelled at Mum's bone density being above average for her age.

She has been taking calcium supplements for the last five years actually, and has always been telling us to do so as well.

In fact her bones are dense enough that his surgical tool smoked when he was cutting through ker knee. He had to "soften" the bone with water! Also helped to cool the tool, I think.

He replaced the joint which had already fused together apparently, but retained her knee-cap and ligaments which are still in good condition.

On Monday, 3 days post-op, Mum was already on her feet walking in Physiotherapy with the aid of a u-frame and climbing up and down 3 steps as well. She had 2 sessions, morning and afternoon.

Yesterday (Tuesday) she ambled down the ward corridor with the frame to chat with a friend's 86 year old mother who was in for some geriatric aches and pains.

Being ambulatory has brought back her appetite and Mum is now clamouring for her own cooking. Hospital food "tak sedap"!

Alhamdulillah Mum will be discharged later today and I don't think anyone can stop her from cooking her favourite pindang fish herself when she gets home.

It won't be wrong to say this eighty-something is a living legend.



(I think I'll start on calcium supplementation pronto!)





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Here is an informative link about Total Knee Replacement

http://www.medicinenet.com/total_knee_replacement/article.htm


An extract:

What is a total knee replacement?

A total knee replacement is a surgical procedure whereby the diseased knee joint is replaced with artificial material. The knee is a hinge joint which provides motion at the point where the thigh meets the lower leg. The thigh bone (or femur) abuts the large bone of the lower leg (tibia) at the knee joint. During a total knee replacement, the end of the femur bone is removed and replaced with a metal shell. The end of the lower leg bone (tibia) is also removed and replaced with a channeled plastic piece with a metal stem. Depending on the condition of the kneecap portion of the knee joint, a plastic "button" may also be added under the kneecap surface.



The posterior cruciate ligament is a tissue that normally stabilizes each side of the knee joint so that the lower leg cannot slide backward in relation to the thigh bone. In total knee replacement surgery, this ligament is either retained, sacrificed, or substituted by a polyethylene post. Each of these various designs of total knee replacement has its benefits and risks.

Aduhai Do-Re-Mi

Lawak yang tak lekang dek panas, tak lapok dek hujan


Do Re Mi tiga orang sahabat
Berjumpa terus sepakat
Otak yang geliga
Sekarang dah tersumbat

Re do ti la so fa mi re do


Do Re Mi tiga bujang terlajak
Kerja semua tak layak
Jikalau begitu
Baik gunakan otak

Re do ti la so fa mi re do






:)

How Time Flies 101

Take two balls - both the same weight but different sizes.

You then start them spinning using the same amount of force as possible.

The smaller ball will spin much faster than the larger ball, wouldn't it?

Let's say that the larger ball is Mama Earth BEFORE the 3 catastrophic quakes that occurred in the 2000's ie. Aceh, Chile, and Japan.

These quakes were the results of some of Mama's crustal or tectonic plates subducting one under the other.

When a section of one plate now lies below another, Mama becomes slightly smaller at that point - just like what happens when human mamas go get a little of their facial skin nipped and tucked behind their ears... their faces contracted and tightened up.

Let's say the smaller ball is Mama Earth AFTER the 3 quakes. Mama is now spinning faster than before.

When Mama spins a little faster, then one single rotation is now less than the 24 hours that we were used to before the quakes.

And the day is a teeny bit shorter, a few microseconds worth - but over a year how much is that?

There's another thing.

When the plates subducted, Mama's weight distribution became somewhat off-balanced, just like pregnant human mamas - as their pregnancies progress, they re-adjust their postures and walk differently.

Scientists say that when the 3 recent quakes Aceh, Chile and Japan happened, Mama's rotational axis shifted each time about 7cm, 8cm and 10cm respectively off linear.

Well, on the scale of Mama those are very, very, very, verrryyyy small.

But I wonder, had the first two shifts been enough to perhaps produce climate changes that had wreaked havoc in for instance, Queensland or closer to home, Kedah and Perlis where there had been floods like never before?

Come to think of it, pregnant mamas get weepy too sometimes.

Apparently Mama's rotational axis shift is permanent.

Well, so are those of human mamas who have been pregnant... right?

Here are a few links about the shifts:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100302-chile-earthquake-earth-axis-shortened-day/

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-12/world/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth_1_tsunami-usgs-geophysicist-quake?_s=PM%3AWORLD

Here's famous American physicist Michio Kaku's take on the same subject:

Yet Another Tsunami

I thought we'd never get another devastating tsunami like that one in Aceh seven years ago when many places around the Indian Ocean were inundated taking away with it about 150,000 lives. When this recent one in the north-east of Japan happened, after an 8.9 undersea quake, it took many of us by surprise as it still seemed too soon after Aceh - whose quake registered at 9.2. Yes, these were humongous as far as quakes go.

Christchurch in New Zealand three weeks ago experienced a second, albeit weaker but more catastrophic jolt barely five months after being shaken with a 7 pointer last September. This too seemed too close for comfort for me especially because of the fact that I had just then returned from a splendid motoring holiday with hubby and eldest daughter around that region of New Zealand.

And by the way, only in the last fortnight my second son the airline pilot had flown to Sendai airport - which was badly affected by the tsunami - so excuse the goosebumps please.

Yesterday we watched footages of the devastation on the Japanese channel, NHK, and had the opportunity to observe it's role in disaster management. Information and instructions were aired in an unemotional manner and translated into many languages including English, Mandarin and Korean. They say the Japanese are a stoic lot but whose to know what worries were going on in the broadcasters' minds, as they were going about their national duties.

(added on 24th March 2011)

Like I said, there seemed to be a lot of jostling of Mother Earth's plates in the last few years. And where tsunamis are concerned, according to Wiki, there have been about as many in the last decade as there had been in the fifty years prior to the year 2000 as per the list I've copied-pasted below:

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_tsunamis)

• 6 - 1950–2000
  • 6.1 1952: Severo-Kurilsk, Kuril Islands, USSR
  • 6.2 1958: Lituya Bay, Alaska, USA
  • 6.3 1960: Valdivia, Chile
  • 6.4 1963: Vajont Dam, Monte Toc, Italy
  • 6.5 1964: Niigata, Japan (新潟地震)
  • 6.6 1964: Alaska, USA
  • 6.7 1976: Moro Gulf, Mindanao, Philippines
  • 6.8 1979: Tumaco, Colombia
  • 6.9 1983: Sea of Japan (日本海中部地震)
  • 6.10 1993: Okushiri, Hokkaido, Japan (北海道南西沖地震)
  • 6.11 1998: Papua New Guinea
  
  
• 7 - 2000s
  • 7.1 2004: Indian Ocean (Aceh)
  • 7.2 2006: South of Java Island
  • 7.3 2006: Kuril Islands
  • 7.4 2007: Solomon Islands
  • 7.5 2007: Niigata, Japan (新潟県中越沖地震)
  • 7.6 2009: Samoa, Pacific Ocean
  • 7.7 2010: Chile
  • 7.8 2010: Indonesia
  • 7.9 2011: New Zealand
  • 7.10 2011: Pacific coast of Japan

My daughter wondered whether Malaysia could experience quakes and tsunamis too. We did have tremors from the Aceh one, didn't we? And had our share of damage from the ensuing tsunami in Penang. Going by the prolific activity around the so-called Ring of Fire of late, dare we expect the whole Eurasian Plate on which Malaysia sits to somehow tilt over and under the Pacific Plate? And we awake from a night of sleep to a sunrise in the west?

Brrrrrr....... banish the thought!

Here's a map of the world according to it's crustal plates:

From http://geology.about.com/library/bl/maps/blcrustalplates.htm

"The Earth's outer layers are organized into about a dozen great pieces, called lithospheric or crustal plates—although "shells" is a better name when you realize that they're all curved, not flat. The interactions of these plates, and how they recycle most of the lithosphere over the course of geologic time, are what plate tectonics is all about. In addition to these major plates, there are another dozen minor ones or microplates.

Beneath the plates is the upper mantle. The top part is softer than the the crust above or the mantle below, and that layer is what allows the plates to move without stirring up the deep mantle."

What an amazing planet we live in - so beautiful and so alive!..

I Am A Carbo Person

And I am carbo-overloaded.

Breakfast yesterday was oats with milk and sugar, and a mug of grapefruit juice straight from the box.

Lunch was 2 bungkus of nasi lemak with sambal and half a boiled egg, washed down with a tall nescafe iced.

Snacks were a sliced cheddar slapped between 2 slices of gardenia, and a packet of fried broad-beans.

Finally dinner consisted of rice, singgang ikan tenggiri, 4-5 bite-sized pieces of daging goreng, kangkong stir-fry.

BURRPPP.... oh. and my fill of plain water throughout the day.

Exercise was just some line-dancing routines - Besame Mucho, Pachanga Loco, Demi Cinta, Madu dan Racun, It's Now or Never - at least 2 rounds each.

Gotta crank it up later today with resistance training and cardios.

Dieting is out of the question.

Weight not budging yet... which figures...

Clan Annual Fun Picnic 2011

Held on Sunday 2nd January