Heart Attacks (5 things - Week 91)

I love the week between 25th December and 1st January in any year. There's Christmas in that week; there's the beginning of a brand new year in that week; there's also my birthday in there. It is that time of the year, when it's the norm to be glad and jolly. And keeping in toe with the standards of narration in this conversation of ours, in this festive period. we will talking about Myocardial infraction aka Heart attacks.

The reason this topic was chosen during this time of the year will have to wait. Before that, we'll go through some general information regarding this topic.

Shall we begin then??

***

1. What is a heart attack?

The heart muscle requires a constant supply of oxygen-rich blood to nourish it. The coronary arteries provide the heart with this critical blood supply. If you have coronary artery disease, those arteries become narrow and blood cannot flow as well as they should. Fatty matter, calcium, proteins, and inflammatory cells build up within the arteries to form plaques of different sizes. The plaque deposits are hard on the outside and soft and mushy on the inside.

When the plaque is hard, the outer shell cracks (plaque rupture), platelets (disc-shaped particles in the blood that aid clotting) come to the area, and blood clots form around the plaque. If a blood clot totally blocks the artery, the heart muscle becomes "starved" for oxygen. Within a short time, death of heart muscle cells occurs, causing permanent damage. This is a heart attack.

2. What are the symptoms of heart attack??

Many people aren't sure what's wrong when they are having symptoms of a heart attack. Some of the most common warning symptoms of a heart attack for both men and women are:

Chest pain or discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center or left side of the chest. The discomfort usually lasts more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back. It can feel like pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain. It also can feel like heartburn or indigestion.

Upper body discomfort. You may feel pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, shoulders, neck, jaw, or upper part of the stomach (above the belly button).

Shortness of breath. This may be your only symptom, or it may occur before or along with chest pain or discomfort. It can occur when you are resting or doing a little bit of physical activity.

3. How to survive a heart attack alone??

Should you experience a heart attack – regardless of whether you’re alone or in the presence of others – the very first thing to do is to call for emergency medical help. You need specialized treatment to be delivered to you as quickly as possible in order to save your heart muscle.

Large studies have also shown that taking an aspirin – the most commonly taken blood thinning medication in the world – during a heart attack improves survival.

Most cases of heart attack are caused by a blood clot forming in one of the blood vessels responsible for supplying blood to the heart. Taking an aspirin during a heart attack may help as it prevents the clot from getting bigger, giving the body a chance to break down the blood clot. If you have aspirin at home, and you know that you are not allergic to it, then you could consider taking it while waiting for the emergency medical services to arrive.

4. How to administer CPR??

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, commonly known as CPR, is an emergency procedure performed in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person who is in cardiac arrest. It is indicated in those who are unresponsive with no breathing or abnormal breathing.

CPR alone is unlikely to restart the heart. Its main purpose is to restore partial flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and heart. The objective is to delay tissue death and to extend the brief window of opportunity for a successful resuscitation without permanent brain damage. Administration of an electric shock to the subject's heart, termed defibrillation, is usually needed in order to restore a viable or "perfusing" heart rhythm.

How to perform CPR is given here and here.

5. How are future heart attacks prevented??

Having had a heart attack or treatment does not mean you will never have another heart attack; it can happen again. If necessary, bypass surgery may be performed in the days following the heart attack to restore the heart muscle's supply of blood.

The goal after your heart attack is to keep your heart healthy and reduce your risks of having another heart attack. Your best bet to ward off future attacks are to take your medications, change your lifestyle, and see you doctor for regular heart checkups.

***

The reason this topic was chosen was because two of my relatives experienced this in two vastly different ways.

The first case was nothing short of a miracle. He was taken to the hospital because he was experiencing stomach pain since the day before. An ECG was taken and it was found that he had had an heart attack more than 17 hours ago. It was nothing short of a miracle that he was alive.

The second case kept begging for a miracle to happen. He had laid down to sleep, but was making unusual sounds. When he didn't respond, he was immediately taken to the hospital. But his heart had stopped beating for almost 20 minutes by then. Doctors were able to bring back a heart beat and he was put in the ventilator. The doctors feared that brain death had occurred. Still he was kept in the ventilator for four days - because his son was reluctant to sign the document to bring him out. His son waited for a miracle to happen as long as he could.

In this moment, I pray that his soul rest in peace, and may God give his family the strength to get through this tough period.

***

'til next week.

Situations on Train (5 things - Week 90)

Do you know what's going to haunt you your entire life?? That piece of dumpling which you took from the plate. The actual culprit is the food outlet serving five dumplings to two persons - giving them the unnecessary headache of splitting one in half to keep things equal. But they can excuse themselves saying that they are a profit organization, and that they would rather have two people ordering two plates.

In that scenario, all of this boils down to the individual who eats the fifth dumpling without even asking the other, whether they want half of it. And I thank God that I wasn't that person. Because if I were to be that person, then I would have to hear what I'm saying right now - "..how could you eat that half of my dumpling.."

In short, life's going great.

What's not going great is this Jan Shatabdhi train being an hour late. It's going to act as an unnecessary catalyst when it comes to the post scribbling review session. Which means that I'll be compromising on paragraph spacing, indentation, spell check, grammar check, etc etc. And here you were thinking that it's easy to write these things.

I agree that I'm not doing much more than stringing together sentences in a logical pattern, but still it takes effort. If you are in doubt, ask the person who took my half of the dumpling, who was supposed to have a post ready for publishing last week.

And here I am, writing things in the last minute to keep the ball rolling over here. My answer to what to write about is the mantra that a senior bestowed upon me a few years ago. When Dijin chettan read this blog after it had gone dormant (pre-2013) he commented that I "needed to have experiences to get writing again. And if there's a lack of motivating experiences, then just observe your surroundings. There are more stories to be told that you can imagine."

For this week's "5 things", I'm going to observe my surroundings and we'll have five situations we come across whenever we are traveling by train.

Shall we begin then??

***

1. Weird smile by children

So you are a child and you are traveling with your parents by train. And they meet this long lost friend of theirs who you haven't met on your life. What should you do?? Smile. And I've seen these smiles to be weird and uneasy most of the time. I don't know the reason why though. You're welcome to check it out for yourself the next time.

2. The teenager who is too cool

So you're a teenager now and you are traveling with your parents by train. If you even sniff a chance to get a seat away from them, you'll take it. Why?? Because you are too cool to be seen with them that is.

3. The ticketless running from TTs

If you see a string of people making their way to one side of the train, throwing plenty of nervous glances towards their posterior, then you can be sure that the TT is coming to check your ticket. And if you don't have a ticket, better join that group.

4. Different sleeping positions

Open mouth is my favorite - to watch that is. To execute, I prefer "banging your head on the window frame" position. And there's lots more. The "Nod off on to that complete strangers shoulder" position, the "vertical axis head exercise" position and the "I'm not sleepy, I'm just imitating a pendulum" position demand special mention.

5. What's that guy doing on his mobile??

The one on the left is playing Pokemon on his phone. The one on the right is playing Grand theft auto on his phone. And someone here might actually be reading what I'm writing down. We are all snoopers.

***

Just last night I was joking with my mother that railways is my other mother. And not just because it feeds my entire family. I've been traveling in trains since I was nothing more than a toddler. Only since the turn of the millennia, when we settled down in Thiruvananthapuram did the frequency of train journeys come down. The rail network has kept me company in long journeys and taught me the virtues of patience and observation. Both of which helped in making this conversation today.

***

So, that's all for this week then.

Have a great weekend!!

'til next week.

Five of the best (5 things - Week 89)

A very short post for this week, as a lot of unexpected stuff keeps on happening around me these days, derailing me from my normal routine.

The engagement ceremony went off without any hitch thankfully. I had to readjust my mundu [dhoti] only once, which was like one percent of what I expected. And there were relatives going around clicking pictures like that's why they came to the event. Can't complain though. They have given in their creations before the professionals come back with their art work. For the 5 things for this week, we'll go through five of the best pictures to come in till now.

***

1. The “MAIN” event of the day.

2. The “COMEDY” event of the day.

That's my cousin sister placing a strand of flowers on her, as per the custom. But my cousin was so afraid of ruining her hair that it took way longer than required.

3. The “SMILE” event of the day.

This was the default smile we decided on to give to everyone who came looking for one. Not bad, huh.

4. The “pain-in-the-a**” event of the day.

“Stand over there. Put your hand on her shoulder. Look at each other.” Thank God that we had only one professional photographer for the ceremony.

5. The “What-the-” event of the day.

That's my mother-in-law being genuinely surprised by my dining tactics. I was trying to avoid the camera that was trying to get me eating food.

***

We've all heard of friends giving surprises to the groom and bride on their special day. Let it be putting up big humiliating banners outside the marriage hall, putting itchy powder on the bed for the first night, etc etc. My dear friend, Dileep, went one step further and decided to give such a surprise for our engagement.

He created the following comic strip from a collection of innocent pictures taken at the engagement. Suffice to say, he's not getting invited to the marriage.

***

So, that's all for this week then.

Have a great weekend!!

'til next week.

Will you marry me??

***

Ek bandha thaa,

Ek bandhi thi,

Ye he unki love story,

And for us, it is the most beautiful piece of history.

***

We met 285 days ago. Our first impression were the polar opposite of what it’s now. After all, “Meh” and “Nerd” aren’t the more pleasing of first thoughts about your life partner. Over six months, our perceptions changed as we slowly fell in love, as fast as we could. And now, in another 30 odd hours, we are going to exchange two pieces of precious metal to officially indicate that we are each other’s for as long as possible. However, it has been months since we decided to be each other’s for forever and more.

The journey of us reaching this point will have to wait though. Today, there is a more pressing story to pursue. I’ve an important question that I have to ask her. I’ve already asked her this question before, and I know the answer to it. And, if you have read the heading for this post, you’ll know what the question is. If the question and the answer are already known, the real question is then with regards to the purpose of asking it again.

The original purpose was that I had made a promise to her that I would write about her the day before our engagement. But as the days caught up with me, I found myself at a loss of words. But slowly, there came into view another purpose for this prose. The purpose of this prose now is to remind her why I asked her that question the first time.

Shall we begin then my dear??

***

1. Total disclosure.

If there was a foundation to build our life on, it couldn’t have gotten better than this. Our deal to enforce total disclosure was not the best of ideas back then. It had its rough moments. To compensate for that, it also had its not so rough moments. But what it gave us was the freedom of speech – the freedom to tell what we love/hate about each other. And it’s what paved the way for us to find out that we love as much as possible about the other, and we hate as less as possible about the other.

2. Can’t say no to each other.

The idea of not being able to say NO to the other works marvels when you are with the right person. If not for the right person, it may leave you feeling vulnerable and exploited. But the idea of saying yes to everything you say, keeping full faith and trust in you, is not something I dread, but actually something I enjoy. And I love the fact that you trust me as much, to say yes all the time.

3. You support me supporting Arsenal.

I always feared about how my future other half would feel about my unhealthy obsession with the football club, Arsenal FC. Just the past fortnight tells the whole story. Two Saturdays ago, you saw me go into grumpy mood after the Man United game that we lost 2-1. Over the past two days, you see me merry as we won three games on the trot. I’m highly susceptible to the fortunes of a team playing 8500km away. To understand and handle this fluctuation, on top of the myriad other factors which affect ones mood, is difficult.

And so, I am as happy as I can be, in knowing that you support me supporting Arsenal.

4. Similarities

Just the past week, you knocked your left knee against something, making it swell up. To mirror that, my body decided to skip more than a couple of steps on the stairs. Now, I’ve a swelling on my left ankle. I know you hate me saying this but, "See, we are sooooooooo similar."

Jokes and painful knocks aside, I think we are way too similar than you would like to admit. For starters, we both had to give up an activity that we love because of an ankle ligament injury we had while performing it. You lost your left ankle to dancing, I lost my right ankle to football.

We both decided to try to make it in core engineering and hence, passed up opportunities in other sectors which would have suited us better. We ended up regretting our decisions and chose a different course.

What I mean to say by all this is that we could understand each other’s viewpoints, and more importantly pains, because of these similarities. And that brought us closer.

5. Accepting me

I always feel like I have different personalities to match different situations. One to fit in with my friends, one to fit in with family, one for work, one for strangers, one for acquaintances. When I felt someone/some group needed me to be something else, I make a new personality to match that. For you though, I didn't have to make a new personality. I tried on a lot of different personalities before deciding that being myself was the best option with you. Because you accept me for what I’m.

***

And for these reasons, and lots more, I love you. But most of the time, I love you for no particular reason at all.

I still haven’t decided whether I should go formal and ask

"Ms.Sreerenjini Menon, will you be interested in accepting a proposal of marriage from me??"

Or, whether I should try the other way.

"Ammu, will you be mine forever??"

I am going to put them both away and just ask

"Will you marry me??"

I know we both can’t wait to start our lives together.

***

I think I have just justified my nerd credentials with this writeup. I don’t care. I am lucky enough to find someone who loves me as much I love her. I have refrained from terming us as soulmates during the discourse, but I would be hugely surprised if this isn’t as close as it gets to being soulmates.

And so, let me take your leave. There’s a lady waiting for me, with a ring. I never intend to disappoint her.  Hopefully, we will have a few snapshots of the function when we meet next week. Until then, bye.

Goof ups (5 things - Week 87)

Yes. We're going to talk about some of the more spectacular goof ups, instigated and carried out to imperfection by yours truly. Let me start off with the latest one then.

I normally am very hesitant to buy shoes online. The main reason being I can never be sure that they look as good as they look in the pictures on the site. We live in an age where, with artificial lighting, clever posturing and unbelievable editing, anything that looks as drab as garbage is made to look like next big thing in fashion.

So, it was nothing short of a monumental decision that I made earlier this week to buy shoes from Amazon.in. I went to their site, went to the men's shoes section and put in the filters - size UK11 or above, preferably Puma [as Puma is now sponsoring Arsenal]. And that's how I chanced upon this predominately black, with red designs and a Ferrari symbol "boat" shoe. No. The goof up isn't with respect to it being a "boat" shoe.

I clicked order and spent close to what you would spend for a dinner buffet for two at a Taj restaurant. It got delivered to me, within two days, yesterday. I came back from work, all excited - I made a mental note that this would be what a teenager feels on Xmas day. You know what is inside the package when you are opening. But that doesn't take away the feeling of genuine happiness as you open it. You can't wait to get your hands on it.

Alas, the shoe was only big enough for me to put my hands into it. In the name of the product, there was a "Puma NM Jr". I thought Jr was just an extension to the naming sequence put out by Puma. And since they didn't say it was for kids anywhere in that page, I assumed my assumption to be correct and brought the shoe.

Fortunately, Amazon was kind enough to accept that it was a mistake from both sides which created this situation. Kids shoe in the men's section, along with myself overlooking the Jr. They have accepted my request for return, and will refund me soon.

I guess, all's well that ends well. But it'll be some time before I return to buy shoes online.

And for today, we'll go through five such goof ups as the "5 things" for this week.

Shall we begin then??

***

1. Amazon shoes

The less said, the better.

2. Hollywood chappals

Four months before, I brought chappals from an established local store, Hollywood. In one month, the sole began coming off. I stuck it back together using Fevi-qwik. Last Sunday, it came off completely while I was in the neighborhood of that store. I went in and expressed my lack of satisfaction in the product that they sold. It was then that they said this *conditions apply thing to me.

"This chappal is not intended for rough use. Stay away from water, and it'll be fine."

If you live in Kerala, you'll know that recently, the rain isn't stopping for more than a few days. To avoid water while walking here is like to avoid potholes while driving. But the shop owner was good enough to hear me out, and offer me merchandise for the money I had spent on the original chappals. I went from home wearing half torn chappals. I came back wearing brand new chappals, one belt and a pair of socks. :D

3. Wolverine Tee

I think I might have mentioned this Tshirt before. The first one I brought without parental guidance. A black Tshirt with three cuts across the chest, showing a red underlying layer of cloth. Wearing it would make it look like you just had Wolverine strike you. I still don't remember why I brought that.

4. My phone

Well, get this into your head. When they offer you 10% off on a phone, check if they are going to release the next generation phone in that series anytime soon. If you can wait that long, that's better. Cause they'll selling it at around the same price then. And yes, I fell for the 10% off.

5. My Engagement shirt

"A little lighter."

"I think the last one was better"

"This one is okay, but I think we should check for more options in regular fit. If nothing good comes up, we'll settle on this one."

"Size 42 is not there. Let's check the other shop."

A pleasant Saturday which I had hoped to spend with my fiancée, turned into a sneak-peak of what my future shopping experience would be like. The shirt we finally picked up for the engagement turned out to be a lighter version of what I originally had brought. To spend an equal amount of money to buy another similar shirt is certainly as close to a recent goof up as I can serve to you.

P.S. The lady choosing the shirt isn't always this crazy. She just wants all the wedding proceedings to be as close to the one she has always imagined.

***

It would close to being criminal if I invite you for my engagement only a day before the event. So, let's get the formalities out of the way. I'm getting engaged to this amazing woman on the first Sunday of next month, 7th December 2014. Even if our relationship can wait for a little longer, she is very much due a post dedicated to her. And that's how it's going to be next week. A little bit of added pressure for me.

P.S. Don't remind her that I wrote a post on having that operation on my ass within a week, and I kept her waiting this long. And NO!!! I'm not giving you a link to that operation post. You are welcome to search and find it out for yourself. :P

P.P.S. Technically, it's still Saturday for another 1200 seconds.

***

So, that's all for this week then.

Have a great weekend!!

'til next week.