Ready

Friday, February 8, 2008

I do know when can you ever be ready with things like this. I for once readied myself for today’s appointment and not even the long walks, smoothing music and just distraction would even help.

I was scared as hell and how I wish that hubby was with me during the ordeal. I know it might sound that I am just exaggerating this thing but it wasn’t that easy going through all of this all by yourself and don’t even know the outcome until I the 19th. I tried to be strong but I guess you just can’t be ready for a lot of things.

Was born ready for a lot of things but this one I came unprepared and from looks of it I was slaughtered and eaten alive.

My Dx

What is cardiomyopathy?

Cardiomyopathy is a serious disease in which the heart muscle becomes inflamed and doesn’t work as well as it should. There may be multiple causes including viral infections.Cardiomyopathy can be classified as primary or secondary. Primary cardiomyopathy can’t be attributed to a specific cause, such as high blood pressure, heart valve disease, artery diseases or congenital heart defects. Secondary cardiomyopathy is due to specific causes. It’s often associated with diseases involving other organs as well as the heart.

There are three main types of cardiomyopathy: dilated, hypertrophic and restrictive.

What is dilated (congestive) cardiomyopathy?

This is the most common form. In it, the heart cavity is enlarged and stretched (cardiac dilation). The heart is weak and doesn’t pump normally, and most patients develop heart failure. Abnormal heart rhythms called arrhythmias and disturbances in the heart’s electrical conduction also may occur.

Blood flows more slowly through an enlarged heart, so blood clots may form. A blood clot that forms in an artery or the heart is called a thrombus. A clot that breaks free, circulates in the bloodstream and blocks a small blood vessel is called an embolus.

• Clots that stick to the inner lining of the heart are called mural thrombi.
• If the clot breaks off the right ventricle (pumping chamber), it can be carried into the pulmonary circulation in the lung, forming pulmonary emboli.
• Blood clots that form in the heart’s left side may be dislodged and carried into the body’s circulation to form cerebral emboli in the brain, renal emboli in the kidney, peripheral emboli or even coronary artery emboli.

A condition known as Barth syndrome, a rare and relatively unknown genetically linked cardiac disease, can cause dilated cardiomyopathy. This syndrome affects male children, usually during their first year of life. It can also be diagnosed later. (For more information on Barth syndrome, visit the Barth Syndrome Foundation at http://www.barthsyndrome.org.)

In these young patients the heart condition is often associated with changes in the skeletal muscles, short stature and an increased likelihood of catching bacterial infections. They also have neutropenia, which is a decrease in the number of white blood cells known as neutrophils. There are clinical signs of the cardiomyopathy in the newborn child or within the first months of life. These children also have metabolic and mitochondrial abnormalities.

How is dilated (congestive) cardiomyopathy treated?

A person with cardiomyopathy may suffer an embolus before any other symptom of cardiomyopathy appears. That’s why anti-clotting (anticoagulant) drug therapy may be needed. Arrhythmias may require antiarrhythmic drugs. Therapy for dilated cardiomyopathy is often aimed at treating the underlying cause, however. If the person is young and otherwise healthy, and if the disease gets worse, a heart transplant may be considered.

When cardiomyopathy results in a significantly enlarged heart, the mitral and tricuspid valves may not be able to close properly, resulting in murmurs. Blood pressure may increase because of increased sympathetic nerve activity. These nerves can also cause arteries to narrow. This mimics hypertensive heart disease (high blood pressure). That’s why some people have high blood pressure readings. Because the blood pressure determines the heart’s workload and oxygen needs, one treatment approach is to use vasodilators (drugs that “relax” the arteries). They lower blood pressure and thus the left ventricle’s workload.

What is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?

In this condition, the muscle mass of the left ventricle enlarges or “hypertrophies.”

In one form of the disease, the wall (septum) between the two ventricles (pumping chamber) becomes enlarged and obstructs the blood flow from the left ventricle. The syndrome is known as hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (H.O.C.M.) or asymmetric septal hypertrophy (A.S.H.). It’s also called idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis (I.H.S.S.).

Besides obstructing blood flow, the thickened wall sometimes distorts one leaflet of the mitral valve, causing it to leak. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the most common inherited heart defect, occurring in one of 500 individuals. Close blood relatives (parents, children or siblings) of such persons often have enlarged septums, although they may have no symptoms. This disease is most common in young adults.

In the other form of the disease, non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the enlarged muscle doesn’t obstruct blood flow.

The symptoms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy include shortness of breath on exertion, dizziness, fainting and angina pectoris. (Angina is chest pain or discomfort caused by reduced blood supply to the heart muscle.) Some people have cardiac arrhythmias. These are abnormal heart rhythms that in some cases can lead to sudden death. Often an implanted cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is needed to shock the heart to restart a normal heart rhythm and prevent sudden dealth. The obstruction to blood flow from the left ventricle increases the ventricle’s work, and a heart murmur may be heard.

How is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy treated?

The usual treatment involves taking a drug known as a beta blocker (such as propranolol) or a calcium channel blocker. If a person has an arrhythmia, an antiarrhythmic drug may also be used. Surgical treatment of the obstructive form is possible in some cases if the drug treatment fails.

Alcohol ablation is a type of nonsurgical treatment for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. It involves injecting alcohol down a small branch of one of the heart arteries to deaden the extra heart muscle. This allows the extra heart muscle to thin out without having to cut it out surgically.

What is restrictive cardiomyopathy?

This is the least common type in the United States. The myocardium (heart muscle) of the ventricles becomes excessively “rigid,” so it’s harder for the ventricles to fill with blood between heartbeats. A person with restrictive cardiomyopathy often complains of being tired, may have swollen hands and feet, and may have difficulty breathing on exertion. This type of cardiomyopathy is usually seen in the elderly and may be due to another disease process.

 

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What causes heart murmurs?

Heart murmurs are most often caused by defective heart valves. A stenotic (sten-OT’ik) heart valve has a smaller-than-normal opening and can’t open completely. A valve may also be unable to close completely. This leads to regurgitation, which is blood leaking backward through the valve when it should be closed.

Murmurs also can be caused by conditions such as pregnancy, fever, thyrotoxicosis (thi”ro-toks”ih-KO’sis) (a diseased condition resulting from an overactive thyroid gland) or anemia.

A diastolic (di”as-TOL’ik) murmur occurs when the heart muscle relaxes between beats. A systolic (sis-TOL’ik) murmur occurs when the heart muscle contracts. Systolic murmurs are graded by intensity (loudness) from one to six. A grade 1/6 is very faint, heard only with a special effort. A grade 6/6 is extremely loud. It’s heard with a stethoscope slightly removed from the chest.

Kids

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Kids always find the right amount of words to make any parent run, dock and hide from embarrassments.What do you expect them to be, right? They are kids and kids will be kids. Not matter how you teach them from the right and wrong, the left and the right. Kids will bring the out other side of any good abiding parents sane into a whirlwind. But sometimes don’t you just wish that they will grow up fast enough? or you have wished that before when they were just babies.

But we all parents wish that they would just think before they open their mouth and let those words run wild. Sometimes it’s just too much to handle and that sometimes we just want to run for cover or better yet be invisible so that nobody will see your facial expression.

Of course we parents understand that they are growing and discovering new things and that includes new words. Every kid is different and kids don’t come with a manual cause if they do, we parents won’t be this crazy over their behavior and attitude in public.

Well, kids will be kids and hope that in moderation will help slow down in growing too fast. Like another parents I want my kids to enjoy each and every moment of their youth and I want them to take their time in growing and just be a kid.

After all growing up is not optional but being a kid at heart is.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent Season and as we all know it’s time for fasting and abstinence.

Abstinence from eating meat is to be observed on all Fridays during Lent. This applies to all persons 14 and older. The law of fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday applies to all persons 18 years old and younger than 59.

Fasting means that one full meatless meal per day may be eaten. Two other meatless meals may be taken sufficient to maintain strength, but together they should not equal a full meal. Liquids, including milk and fruit juice, may be taken between meals. If health or ability to work are affected, fasting does not oblige.

Private, self-imposed observance of fasting on Lenten weekdays is strongly recommended. Pastors and parents should ensure that children, who are bound by laws of fast and abstinence, are taught an authentic sense of penance, conversion and reconciliation.

This is the hardest for me of all the season for I am in constant fight with my hubby. He loves meat and by giving up means death to him. I have practice this fasting and abstinence since I can remember and attending to a catholic all girls school in Cebu it’s a must to follow the rules and law.

So far he is respecting my views as a Catholic and a practitioner of the law and rules. He has been following the fasting and abstinence for quite awhile and has been on his eating habits. Well, I guess sometimes you can teach an old dog some new tricks.

I don’t just practice not eating meat on Fridays of the Lent but for the rest of the year. Before coming to California I eat on fish and chicken alone but since fish is kinda expensive here so I learned to eat pork and beef but still not a fan of them.

I left my heart…

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

You might have notice the I have been blogging lately about life and it’s ups and downs. Through my 13 years here in America I can’t still call it “home.” My home is still Cebu and although I have been living here for quite awhile I still love and still misses talking in my own dialect and some friends and family that I left behind.

There’s still a lot of adjustments that I am still  in denial I would say. I missed being with my Mom. The places that I am used to going. Larsian, Carbon Market, Carmelites, SM, Sto. Nino, Cathedral, Reclamation and a whole lot more. But lately, Cebu has improved a lot and a lot of changes from this favorite places has been change. Once thing that Philippines hasn’t change according to them are that corruption, traffic and poverty are still at high.

I want to visit Cebu and tour and see the wonders of Philippines and only through the web I have visited them. Sad to say that I am tourist in my own country. I haven’t seen Manila as much as I wanted too. Traffic in Manila alone is bad and going from one place to another will literally take you a day. But, I am so hopeful that one day I will be able to fulfill that dream. One day I will be able to tour the in and outs of Cebu as well. I have heard that they have improved so much that even some roads are cemented or asphalt are present. Not the old roads that I remember that we need to keep our balance so that we will not fall.

I miss during the All Soul’s Day going to the cemetery and staying until the wee hours of the morning and sometimes sleeping over. Christmas and New Year with a lot of friends and family caroling from one to another and the fireworks, of course! Let’s not forget the ever colorful and wonderful sounds of Sinulog!

As you can see I miss my home a lot. I miss the “bahay-kubo,” that we used to play around with and take a dip in the river and ride the carabao all day long while tending the rice fields, the mangoes and santols. Makes my mouth water already.

After all, Philippines is such a beautiful country with beautiful people and very rich culture and history. Anyone who has visited Philippines can’t help but raved and wants to go back. I have a lot of good memories in Philippines and I am also making new one where I am at, but still I left my heart in Cebu.