Suspend-It

Recently, there has been several reports about diarrhea being caused by our office water supply. A team investigated the issue and found out that the water dispensers themselves were the problem. The filters have already been worn out and they needed to be replaced. This made me wonder, how often do we replace our water filters at home?At home, we have a four year old refrigerator with an built - in water dispenser. Since the ref was purchased, I haven’t really checked if the filter needed to be replaced. I was just too lazy to check. Because of the recent incident in the office, I had my ref checked by a technician. Good thing the refrigerator filter is still in fair condition but I had it replaced anyway just to make sure.Some of us often overlook these things. Small things that can lead to relatively disastrous situations. I learned my lesson and fortunately, I was able to prevent the office incident from happening in our home. So the moral of the story is… Do not be lazy to check your filters.

For women ages 23-33, especially those that are of marrying and child-bearing age and would like to have a baby soon, it is very essential that you include pap smear and transvaginal ultrasound in your routine. That’s aside from the usual selection of women’s vitamin and integration of regular exercise.

This is because based from studies, a lot of women, especially the sexually active ones, usually find out too late that they are at the late stages of cervical cancer. This could have easily been prevented had they only gone through the every six-months or once a year pap smear and a vaginal ultrasound.

Pap smear screening can identify potentially precancerous changes. And in developed countries, according to Wikipedia, “the widespread use of cervical screening programs has reduced the incidence of invasive cervical cancer by 50% or more.”

A transvaginal ultrasound, on the other hand, is very essential especially for those who are planning to have a baby. As described by Jennifer Gerics, “It is a diagnostic test which gives a magnified view of the cervix, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes (if visible), the endometrial lining, and surrounding (adnexal) areas.

Transvaginal ultrasound is used to evaluate a variety of abnormalities of the female genital tract. Some of these include the endometrium of women with infertility problems or abnormal bleeding; sources of unexplained pain; congenital malformations of the uterus and ovaries; ovarian tumors and cysts; possible pelvic infection; and causes of infertility.”

Although those two aren’t your usual every-six months hygiene routine like your teeth-cleaning routine, integrating them into your health and hygiene yearly must-do routine can make a huge difference in your life. As always, prevention will ALWAYS be better than cure.

“Why don’t we build a studio in our vacant front lawn? We’ll make the walls into an all-glass and furnish it for visitors and small drinking parties,” Anne, my artistic sister who’s into outdoor décor nowadays, pitched in to us over lunch. The idea of having an all-glass studio in front of our house is actually quite appealing. Only, we need to have our basement and rooftop fixed first.

Anyway, with her being newlywed and leaving with her husband to New York in a few months time, and with my brother getting married soon, the house will be quite empty – so having that studio might not be that practical.

“How about a walk-in closet in the hallway?” suggested Ruth, my youngest sister. Now THAT’s a practical idea. We’ve been having trouble organizing our stuff for the longest time now and it’s all due to lack of cabinets and placeholders. We all agreed that with proper installation of customized cabinets, our house will look sleek and much more inviting in no time.

While most are busy reading diet pills and colon cleanser reviews, I think it’s high time we all should think of deworming as well. After all, the world is full of parasites that there are chances of acquiring them however clean you are. A simple negligence on your part to wash hands thoroughly before eating or preparing food or even just eating an unwashed salad or under cooked meat can get you the eggs of these parasites.

Makes you shiver, huh? It’ll make you shiver more when you find out that according to UNICEF, report of “The state of the world’s children 1998” says that about 1.5 billion people have roundworms, making it the third most common human infection in the world. It’s very clear; the chances of these parasites creeping inside us are very high.

With this information, I’m sure you’re now asking yourself this, “How often should I deworm myself and my family?” The answer to the question is that in most cases, deworming once every six months is sufficient. However, it can be done more frequently as deemed appropriate by your doctor. In any case, deworming the whole family twice a year is necessary.

The conventional drug of choice is Mebendazole/albendazole in suspension or chewable tablet. This is because the side effects are too few and those side effects that exist are not caused by the drug itself but by dead worms being expelled from the body. Before deworming though, it is still best to consult with your doctor to know the prevalence of parasites in your areas and consequently know the amount of dosage and frequency on taking the deworming drug.

I was supposed to buy memory for my laptop when I was called to go back to the office due to some pest infestation (I was in charge of the fumigation stuff just so you know). The guys responsible for the pest control sort of skipped a part of the office. My boss saw an army of ants ready to invade our pantry. My boss, OC as he is, “requested” that I immediately call back the pest control guys to complete their unfinished work. Sigh.

Office pests are typical especially if you have a pantry with lots of milk and Ovaltine. Ants are not much of a problem but rats and roaches might jam with them if you get too careless. So we have monthly fumigation to rid the office of the pests. Anyway, I learned a lesson from this experience… never trust people who kill rats for a living (haha just kidding!)