“Oh! Wass! I’ve been looking forward to meeting you! The nurse told me that you’re a very funny man!”

Thus spoke the physician at Lapinjärvi educational center when I arrived for my medical check-up today. Actually, the doctor slam dunked the battle of funniness. A wonderful old lady who must have been in her sixties, she had put a Bob Marley flag in the waiting room and told me how much she loved to work here, how wonderful it was to get to know the young men who serve here. And the stories she told. She joked about most everything and anything when I said I was something of a hypocondric, she told me about a young man who claimed his intestines were flapping and his brain was assaulted by cold waves. Then she made me promise not to tell anyone that she and the head nurse sometimes smoke behind the corner and gossip about the patients. Which is how she had found out about me. I’d love to get the swine flu just to chat with the doctor again!

Oh yes, two weeks ago 53 guys over here came down with suspected swine flu in one day and the facility was shut down.The doctor suspects we will get it in about 3 weeks. Everybody wash their hands like maniacs and the diner smells of alcohol-based hand disinfection fluid.

Anyway, despite the overweight, the smoking, the coffee drinking, the bad hearing and my tendency to lie awake during the nights suspecting I’ve got brain hemorrhage, only to realize that I feel strange because I haven’t eaten anything, I was classed as an A class “soldier”, which only makes me wonder how many extremities one must lack before being classed as a class B soldier. Well, I guess dad was right when he called the B class soldiers “the crutch and prosthetics company”.

One of hour classes today revolved around the civilian service law, and involved a group effort in which we were required to read the law and tell the others in class what the law stated. Another class was called “politics and involvement”. To my disappointment, it meant that we were explaned what “politics” means. I had hoped for my classmates to give more nuanced answers than “lies”, “deception”, “unnecessary”, “I don’t know” and “I don’t care”. The room fell silent when I suggested that it might involve putting some thought behind the decisions we do in our daily lifes. I was genuinly baffled by how little these grown men seem to know or care for politics or society. I can’t judge them all, of course, there were a few solitary voices of reason in the room, too. But today’s classes sadly seemed to crush the few hopes I had of actually learning something new during these four weeks. Fortunately I have my book about the history of Africa to read during class.

Today I also walked to the village center in the rain and got blisters on my feet. The church was very beatifully illuminated in the darkness, but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me. I’ll have to go back and take some pictures next week. I suspect my blisters will prevent any long walks tomorrow.

The crutch and prosthetics company

In the afternoon of May 10,2009, Dr.Arthur Yin Fan, a Chinese medicine doctor, acupuncturist, was invited to see a coma patient in Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Neuro-Critical Care Unit in Baltomore, Maryland. This is based on Dr.Fan’s special background-he was trained extensively in Chinese Medicine and neurology and clinical experience in China’s hospital, also based on colleague’s strong referring.

The patient was severely injured by a car accident, already fell into deep coma 46 days with severe brain hemorragic contusions (multiple lobes),diiffusive axonal injury, currently also with ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) and infections.  Due to the good medical team’s rescuing, patient’s condition is still under the controll.

There were two other CMDs/acupuncturists also seeing this patient in the same time, so we had a meeting with patient’s doctors. Dased on patient’s condition, his doctors accept our suggestion for adding the acupuncture, but they are very hesitate to use Chinese herbal products. And more important, because this is an urgent consultation, all treatments in Chinese medicine or Complementary medicine need the hospital authority’s formal approval.

A few thoughts:

1. Nowadays, more and more Americans, including the conventional MDs, accept acupuncture, but still at the beginning stage. The most famous American hospital-Johns Hopkins University Hospital already has its own licensed acupuncturist, although the acupuncturist currently is only in oncology department. Its Neuro-Critical Care Unit will have its own acupuncturist–currently she is a registered nurse working in this Unit.  She plans to use acupuncture in critical patients.

I hope in near future, the Johns Hopkins University Hospital will have its own Oriental Medicine department, and integrating acupuncture and other Oriental medicine contents into Coventional medicine.

To the patient we saw, the Unit will contact the acupuncturist in oncology department, she may involve in the actual treatments.

2. There are too little information in Chinese herbology in conventional medicine, so how to bridge Chinese herbal therapy into western hospital is still a big challenge, especially for the rescue treatment of patient with critical condition. Too little translation information from China.

3. We suggested use wild American ginsheng and An Gong Niu Huang Wan, a famous herbal product in rescuing patients in Chinese medicine.  However, it might be very difficult to pass the approval process in this hospital.

While the 90 minute documentary, Life. Support. Music. premiered last night, it will be showing tonight and tomorrow night on many PBS stations. Check your local listings or the film website for the schedule in your area. Also you can watch the trailer, read reviews by people who watched it last night, and watch an interview with the filmmaker and more.

After watching this movie, you might understand better why some of us don’t feel a donut should be named Massive Head Trauma.

Here is a synopsis of Life. Support Music.

In 2004, Jason Crigler’s life was taking off. He was one of New York’s hottest young guitarists, his new CD was due for release and his wife, Monica, was pregnant with their first child. Then, at a gig in Manhattan, Jason suffered a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. His doctors doubted he would ever emerge from his near-vegetative state. The astonishing journey that followed, documented by friend and filmmaker Eric Daniel Metzgar (The Chances of the World Changing, POV 2007), is a stirring family saga and a portrait of creative struggle in the face of overwhelming tragedy.

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A study from India finds that a single round of screening for human papilloma virus (HPV) brings significant reductions in cervical cancer death, even when compared with Pap smears. This revelation is reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

How does this relate to women in the United States? An editorial predicts that the result will be controversial because it “disrupts” accepted practice, but that less frequent HPV tests may eventually replace annual Pap smears.

A new study of HPV genotypes in American women, reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggests that it is reasonable to delay the onset of cervical screening for young women who have had the HPV vaccine.

The NEJM editorial cautions against “overtreatment,” because the HPV test picks up nonthreatening infections among young women.

But expect patients to ask for DNA testing anyway, in addition to Pap smears. This is already being suggested in the public press.

Practical Articles/News

Look in this category for several recent updates on current cervical cancer screening practice in the United States.

RECENT SEARCHES in All of Medicine
Results recommended by your colleagues

screening intracranial aneurysm

RESULT: Guidelines for the Management of Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage
Stroke

annual physical exam

RESULT: Death by bureaucrat?
Physicians Practice

NOTEWORTHY SEARCH of the week
Lessons from an actual clinical search

Someone wrote in about a search using the term zygomatic fractures. “Please, I want this article” was the plaintive message.

RESULT #29: Treatment of zygomatic fractures without inferior orbital rim fixation
The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery (PubMed)

TIP: We tried to reach the full text of this article located as a PubMed abstract. It’s a challenge. Even if you are willing to pay (it’s not free), the publisher has made it difficult to do so.

But if you’re determined, you’ll find it. Here’s how:
1. At the bottom of the PubMed abstract, click “View Medline abstract on PubMed.gov.”
2. When you reach PubMed.gov, click on the link to Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins to the right of the article title.
3. A pop-up asks you to choose your article source. Select “LWW Journals,” unless you subscribe to OvidSP or Athens.
4. At the top of the abstract, click “PDF.”
5. At the bottom of the next screen, click “Activate/Register” to register as a guest.
6. At the bottom of the next screen, click “Activate Account,” and fill out the information required to buy the article. That will run you $50.

We wish we could offer it for free.

I don

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”1 John 4:7 (NLT)
Today’s guest devotional is from Tom Holladay, teaching pastor at Saddleback Church .

Relationships are painful. Relationships are wonderful. We all live in the drama that plays out between these two truths.

I think of Neal and Robin when I think of the drama of relationships. Married for only a few years, their life together had started strong. And then, with a suddenness that tore their world apart, Robin suffered a brain hemorrhage.

As I sat with Neal in the waiting room on the night it happened, we heard the doctor speak in hushed tones about high-risk surgery and low odds of success.

Even if Robin were to survive the surgery, she would likely be in a semiconscious state for the rest of her life. Neal’s immediate response was simple faith and sacrificial love. He believed that God had a plan even in this dire circumstance, and Neal was committed to love Robin, no matter what it would take.

Robin survived the surgery, and Neal kept his commitment to love. Day after day, he sat with Robin and spoke to her and nurtured her. Little by little, he loved her to unexpected restoration.

Robin learned to speak haltingly and began to be able to use her hands and arms again. She has even taken a few victorious steps on her own. Almost every weekend at church, there they are — Neal, a shining example of overcoming love, and Robin, a powerful example of overwhelming courage and faith.

Robin sometimes wonders just what she can accomplish for God in a wheelchair. The truth is, she speaks a life-changing sermon on the power of love by her mere presence.

Those who have been involved in Robin’s care see her life as a miracle. The greatest miracle, they say, isn’t in the healing (they’ve seen bodies healed before) but in the love.

This is the love of a couple who made the choice to continue to love, even in the most crushing of circumstances — Neal having chosen to practice sacrificial love in a marriage that wasn’t close to what he and Robin had dreamed it would be, and Robin having chosen to accept and return Neal’s love rather than allowing her own hurt to push him away.

Source: Tom Holladay

PurposeDrivenLife.com
a Ministry of Saddleback Church
1 Saddleback Pkwy
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(800) 633-8876

I want to share with you a powerful, emotional experience on YOUTUBE.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. Here she describes her experience.

My latest client is an amazing man.  He was a senior instructor in the Department of Surgery at the local University Medical Center.  He was responsible for liver and kidney transplantation procedures.  He was involved in research of anti-rejection medicine and organ preservation techniques.  He was a member of the surgical team that in 1963 performed the world’s first human liver transplant.

Six months ago he had a brain hemorrhage, and is now paralyzed on his right side.  He can only say a few words, but I can see that his mind is still so sharp.  I am sure that in time his brain will find another path for his speech.

Jim

I have been amassing a list of creepy-sounding, yet great-tasting drinks to complement the Halloween season.

Lets’s begin with the Brain Hemorrhage.

Ingredients:
1 oz peach schnapps
1/4 oz Bailey’s Irish cream
dash grenadine

Pour schnapps into a shot glass. float Baileys (Irish cream) over the back of a spoon. Pour a little grenadine through the Baileys until it falls into the schnapps.  It should look pretty cool if made right.

And here’s the Swamp Thing.

Ingredients:
1 shot vodka
1/2 shot Bailey’s, Dooley’s or a cream liqueur of your choice.
Coca-Cola

Shake vodka and a creem liqueur of your choice with lots of ice in a cocktail shaker.
Strain into a highball glass with large ice cubes.
Fill up with cola.

And while you’re here, click this link for a creepy Halloween message courtesy of the WFMU blog.

More to follow!