Time flies

Few months have elapsed since my last blog.. new year has passed, even Chinese new year has passed.. So many things happened, and yet few are making real sense to me, and even fewer gives meaning to my life.

One of the thing that give meaning to myself was something related to my own health.

Couple of week ago, I've tried a herbal remedy (in the form of eye drops) for short-sightedness, half heartedly believing that it can make me see the world clearly without ever need to use corrective glass.
After few week using it, I started to have bad headache. It does not resolve with paracetamol, and even with stronger painkiller, such as Ponstan (NSAID). I noticed that the headache went away immediately after waking up the next day, and as day progressed, my headache started again. Then I realised that this may be due to my improved eyesights. The I went to a nearby optometrist to check my eyesight and compared it with my glasses. True enough, my eyesight has improved tremendously. And you can guess what happened next.

This experience truely change the way I looked at complementary medicine like herbal remedies. Of course, most of the effects cannot be explained by pure science, but I think that's the beauty of God's creation, and of course, that just prove how great Allah is.

Sad day

Such a sad day today.
I'm actually post call today. On call last night. 2 patients passed away, both cancer patients, both are leukaemic patient.

What more saddened me was, one of them, was offered chemo drug (drug for cancer), but the mother refused. more disappointing was, her mother is a staff nurse in ICU in a hospital nearby. The parent opted for 'alternative treatment', using 'transfer factor'. I dont know much about this drug, but it is definitely not approved by health ministry to be sold as a drug, only as a food supplement.

However, when I sit back and reflect, I learn a new lesson, and a new perspective.

I remember a story being told by our Great Prophet Muhammad SAW about Prophet Musa.
One day, Prophet Musa fall sick. He make a prayer and asked Allah for a cure. Allah then ordered him to take one kind of leaves and eat it. The moment he eat the leaves, his illness was cured.
Few months later, same illness strike him. So, without making prayer, he straight went looking for the same leaves, and eat it. However, this time, his illness was not cured. He was puzzled. So he make a prayer and ask Allah;
'O Allah, why did my illness was not cured even I eat the same leaves that you ordered me to do so previously?'
Allah then answered him:
'previously, you ask for a cure from Me, so I put 'the cure' into the leaves that you eat before. However, this time around, you did not ask Me first. So the leaves that you ate was just plain leaves without any 'cure'.

I understand now, no matter what kind of treatment that we sought, be it 'conventional' or 'alternative' medicine, we should also make a prayer for Him to bestow the cure into the medicine that we took.

How to have a smarter child: Intro

It is an almost universal dream of parents to have smart, lovely and genius kids. But the problem is, majority have little or no clue at all on ways to achieve this. Many thoughts this 'genius or smart' trait, gifted children are by chance rather than by choice. Is it true?

First of all, we do have SOME degree of control on the outcome of our children. And it all starts even before conception (ie before our 'egg' meets our spouse's 'egg').

To have a gifted/ genius/ smart kids, it has prerequisite. Our child must be a normal, healthy child. If the child have major brain abnormality, do you think he/ she can be genius?

So, what you need to do is/ are: (well before marriage/ even while planning to have babies)

1. Live a healthy life (well, this is a reminder to me as well). Healthy lifestyle, means especially a NO-NO to SMOKING and ALCOHOL. Various studies have shown the detrimental effects of these two culprits on the baby's health. So, if you are a smoker/ consume alcohol, and at the same time you want to have a normal, healthy baby, please find ways to stop smoking, and also become a tee-totaller.

2. Take folic acid 1 tab per day even before having sex/ getting pregnant (in medical term, it's called periconceptional). Studies have shown that folate can reduce the risk of neural tube defects (brain malformation) by up to 75%.

So, go and get your pills.

3. cant think anymore.. too sleepy, not having enough sleep last night. Ward was full, and my senior was so damn lousy.. such a bi*ch..

more tips will follow..

Ice-breaking

Hi. This will be my first blog. I've so many plans for the blog, and hoping that all my plans will materialised, sooner or later.

I'm currently working as a medical officer in one of university hospital in Malaysia, under training to become one of the scarce paediatricians in Malaysia.

My interest? Aside from paediatric world, I have strong enthusiasm towards personal finance, and mainly stock market. I do hope that I will be able to write regularly on these 2 topics.

In paediatrics, I'm very much into child development and behaviour. I would love to share with the reader (if any) on how to raise a brilliant and genius child(ren). Feedback is almost welcomed.

During my past school days, I never go through formal education in finance/ accounts. In fact, I loath the subjects. Whenever I read newspaper, I would skip the 'financial section', jumping straight to next section, usually sports section. But, at one point in my life, I was directed towards finance, and from that moment, I was hooked up with finance. Maybe I can share later on how I was attracted to indulge in this rather boring topics.

Ok, enough for the intro. Actually, this writing is created when I'm on call. still got another 8 more hours to go before my duty is over.

See you guys later.