Monday, November 24, 2008

Parathyroid

Having too much of anything is not really good for your health. It is a fact of life. Everyone needs calcium for stronger bones but too much of calcium can leads to serious illness as in the case of parathyroidism.

Every year, I'll be having my annual check up (especially now that I'm turning 40++). I've had the same result each year..I'm perfectly healthy. It's just that I had too much calcium in my blood. The doctor would advise me not to take too much milk or reduce my calcium intake. That's all.

When my youngest son was born in 2003, he had to be hospitalised due to lack of calcium when he was 2 weeks old. The hospital took my blood sample and discovered that my calcium was high. Since I was not the sick one, no one bothered to check further. My son was fed with fluid calcium daily and after 2 weeks, he's back to normal.

As for me, my life went on as usual. Early this year, I started to have high blood, shot right up to 170/140. My blood fluctated inconsistently. Every now and then I started having migraine and I knew that my blood must have shot high. The doctor prescribed me high blood medication but I refuse to take because it did not jive with my symptoms. I did an early checked up in March this year and the result was as usual, healthy except for my high calcium. When I asked the doctor if there is anything wrong with me that caused the high calcium, he advised me to do another test on PTH (Parathyroid hormone test). The result came out positive. I have a case of hyper-parathyroid.

What is Hyper-Parathyroid? Everyone has 4 to 6 parathyroid glands in their necks. These glands function is to control and monitor the calcium flow in your body so that the muscle and nervous system can function properly. Once the glands detected low calcium level in the blood, they will disperse parathroid hormone(PTH) into the blood which will subsequently break the calcium in the bones to be dispersed into the blood and also promotes calcium intakes by the kidneys.

In the case of hyper-parathyroid,at least one of these glands is hyper-active and produced excessive PTH into the blood and causes serious calcium imbalance.The doctor used to tell me that the symptom is known as "moans, groans,stones, bones and psychiatric overturns" meaning moans -feeling ill,hyper tension, groans - abdominal pain(gastric), stones- kidney, bones-bone pain and psychiatric overturns-lethargy, fatigue, depression, memory lapses. And I had most of the symptoms.

The bad news is there is no medicine/cure for this illness. The only cure is to remove the over active parathyroid galnd. So, I had it removed in May 9,2008. The operation was done in Putrajaya Hospital because no other hospital has the specialist for PT cases except UKM and Putrajaya Hospital. Well, I chose the best doctor. Since then, no more high blood, lesser bone pain, better temperament or gastric.
However...the bad news is the operation had cause an injury to my voice nerve chord. The gland was on the nerve and resulted with me losing my voice..That is another story...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Auni the invincible

"Ibu!!! Kepala Auni berdarah!!" my maid screamed from the hotel's bathroom. I rushed to the bathroom and saw Auni holding her hand full of blood while my maid is trying to put pressure at the back of Auni's head.
"Apa dah jadi?" I asked my maid while looking at Auni's head and saw blood oozing out at the back of her head.
"Auni tergelincir dan kepalanya terhantuk kat tepi bathtub, ibu" answered my maid. I went back to the room and get ready with jeans and told my hubby to do the same. We went down to the lobby and I stopped one lady, Puan Nora, the hotel staff, asking if they have an in-house doctor. When she heard about the accident, she told us the hotel will send us to the nearest clinic.
They drove us to Sg Ramal and Auni got 3 stitches at the back of her head.
Through out all the incidents, she did not shed a single tear. Not only that, she was so cool all the way.
It was amazing!! Everyone was amazed at her. They said they had never met a child who stayed so calm like Auni....When I asked her if it was painful, she said "no".
By the time we got back to our hotel room, she was back to normal and chattering away....boasting to her brother that I said that she is a supergirl and so brave....as though nothing had happened.
That night, the hotel treated us very special...the gave us extra mattress, help to launder and dry our clothes and gave us a plate of fruits...not to mention the courtesy calls from the manager that night and the next morning...enquiring on her condition...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Anugerah cemerlang Auni


When I reached home last Thursday, my Auni came running to me with all smiles...."Ibu, Auni nak dapat hadiah hari Isnin ni. Cikgu nak bagi" shoving a piece of paper to my face...It was a letter from her school inviting parents to the "Hari Anugerah Cemerlang". It said that she was one of the recipient.I asked my hubby..."Auni cemerlang apa?" "Tak tau, cuba tanya cikgu" he replied...

But I was so proud of her...I call my mom and told her about it...Then, I remembered...alamak!! I got to take leave on monday...I dont have a lot of leave left but for Auni...I will take leave..

The next day, I sms'ed my boss who was away attending meeting in KL. She gave a go ahead. Thank you...

On Monday, Auni got up very early...we sent her to school and I asked her teacher reasons for her receiving the award....The teacher, Puan Rosni told me that she had showed tremendous improvement compared to the first day she came to that school. She's now willing to participate in the classroom activities and answered when spoken to...

We took photos of her receiving the award...as usual she made her "selamba" face when spoken to...we stayed for the show for a while and I took her home. She started showing off her award to her brother and sister...and whoever came by the house that day...

I'm proud of you Auni...Keep up and Success will be yours one day.....Insyaallah..!!

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Prince of the night








Zhafri is prince of the night at GALA dinner organised by his school...

Friday, November 07, 2008

Zhafri injured

On wednesday nite, my mom called me when I was on the way back from work..She said Zhafri wanted to came back. His ankle is hurting again..(too much sports) It was already 8.30pm. So I told her to wait for me. I dont want her to drive all the way to Pokok Sena alone at that hour. I reached Alor Star around 9pm and called my mom. She told me that the teacher refused to let him come home when she called the warden for permission. Since it was already late, we let it go for the night.
Yesterday, I called my mom again to find out if Zhafri came back or not..He's already at home with cast ankle which had already swollen. He needed to use "tongkat" to walk. My mom told me that the warden did not bother to give Zhafri a visit at all that nite...
When my dad found out about it the next morning, both my mom and dad went to his school and took him home and straight to the clinic... He got 4 days mc.
Now, he's at home and I'm worried of all the extra classes he had to miss...SPM dah dekat and he had sprained ankle...!!Being a mom, I cant help worrying how he's going to the exams if he cant even walk properly. The distance from his hostel to the exam hall is quite a distance and going down hill..
Dugaan...