Thursday, October 18, 2012

Natural gas explosion

I recently wrote a post about surgical fire, an event that could happen often enough that it merits a good few pages on the FDA's website (check 'em out, you don't need to sleep, do ya?). I thought, there goes the once a month (or maybe longer) medical scare I dish out to the lovely people who visits my blog (You love me! You really love me!  ♥♥♥!).

But I came across this and just had to share. I mean, colonoscopy (where a tube with a camera attached gets shoved up where the sun don't shine so the doctor can have a good look at the condition of your intestine) has become one of the most widely performed medical procedure, thanks to greater appreciation of how hard it is to survive cancer in your colon if you don't get rid of it. Colonoscopy is also performed when you see blood before flushing your daily load (I ain't talking about the ladies' monthly haemorrhage, aye?), you have problems with your bowel movement (too much, too little, too rare, too often, spurred by the food you love to hate) or you are so anaemic that Edward passed you over for not being nutritious enough.
Edward Cullen: a centenarian who still goes to high school. Cos high school is so *hard*, you know.

As much as you enjoy letting a loud one rip in the privacy of your loo, or releasing a silent killer in a crowded elevator, intestinal gas is not something to take lightly when the surgeon is trying to remove a nasty polyp using laser.

Because it could be a blast.

And not in a good way.



Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Sanity is overrated


Good friends, good times.


Yeah to my Mom!


Be afraid. Be very afraid.



Reality. Really?

I should be grateful we don't celebrate Halloween.

Gojira!

Mind when they step softly, aye?

Parents are people too. Sometimes, they make porn. So watch out when downloading porn. What has been seen cannot be unseen.


Not the nursery rhymes they taught you?


Collecting blackmail threats ... start early.

Kat vonD in her golden years, maybe?

When you really want something, go for it.

It's all a matter of perspective, innit?

Well water contamination is a serious problem. So is a missing child that went uninvestigated.


No kidding?

Heh. It has now been verified. You got to stand up for your right, ladies. Cos the men ain't just gonna hand it over.

The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Monday, October 8, 2012

Mooning ...

You were born during a Waning Gibbous moon
This phase occurs right after a full moon.

- what it says about you -
You love to let people in on the story of how things come together. You know the background of ideas and have a deep understanding of things others just touch the surface of. You can surprise people with your wide variety of knowledge, and they'll remember and appreciate you for it.
What phase was the moon at on your birthday? Find out at Spacefem.com

Do you think the description fits me?

 *blushes demurely*

Hearts on fire

You would think that the line above is only something out of a torrid romance novel, right? But what if I tell you that it can happen to you while you are lying helpless and paralysed?

Yup, I'm talking about surgical fire.

What's that you ask me? It's fire that can happen while you are under the knife for something as innocuous as an appendectomy (removal of that little caecum that nobody knows the raison d'etre of which that is inflamed, causing you pain and potentially fatal) or even something as scary as a quadruple bypass. The operation theatre is a ripe fire hazard what with the easy availability of fuel (e.g. surgical drapes, clothes, alcohol-based prep, the patient [yes, that's right. Spontaneous human combustion nightmare much? Hahaha!]), ignition source (you don't need a smoker to light up, just the surgeon happily working with lasers and lights and whatnot) as well as an oxidiser (i.e. oxygen for you to keep breathing while being sedated).


Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Fire in the surgery may be minor (no one got singed, nothing got damaged) or even catastrophical (someone - usually the patient - has minor to third degree burns). If you want the gory stuff, there's this magical thing called Google. You can look it up!

However, I am not here to be a fear-monger and make you cancel that life-saving surgery you just scheduled. It's just a little educational tip for you to know that there are more risks to medical procedures than overdosing on your painkiller and permanently damaging your kidneys or suffering another heart attack when your insurance company won't cough up for the much needed quadruple bypass.

Surgical fires are preventable. There are training for the medical personnel and information made available to patients. So please ask questions before you go for ANY medical procedures and make sure that your health care providers are able to educate you on the risks

If I gave you another medical phobia, well, too bad.

*insert evil laughter*


Friday, October 5, 2012

You can't be what you can't see


As much as we would love to blame everything wrong with the younger generation on lousy teachers and the horrible education system, we should also own up to our role and responsibility in shaping and being the example for the younger generation to emulate. It is very hard to be something that someone TOLD you to be but not having SEEN what the example is really like.

(The rest is under cut due to lengthy rant)

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Science does it


All that noise for a booty call.


Raindrops keep falling on my head ...


Tattoo the cheat sheet where you can see it, dummy.


E. coli evolution art. Those microbiologists sure have a lot of time on their hands, don't they?


Sneaky fluorine.


Let me endocytose, I mean, embrace you, darling.


Those dratted engineers!