One of the little educational games I remember I used to enjoy was ‘connect the dots’ by following a series of numbers. Eventually an outline of an animal or an element would emerge. Quite fun. Similar to solving a mystery. Dots (clues) could be connected and re-connected. Time will reveal the significance of the dots.
As a kid, the game taught me how to recognise numbers, shapes and patterns. One often starts with number 1. But soon I realised if you could identify the shape, you could start at any numbers 😉
I wonder if that is how it works in Life…
Today a long lost friend of mine contacted me on Whatsapp while I was doing my reading on anti-arrhythmic drugs. At first it was an unknown number which turned out to be my good friend ZA. We met in Cardiff as undergrads and got on so well. She makes great cups of Nescafe, and always made me laugh with her jokes. Always positive. A kind soul.
If you’ve been following my blog, you would know that in the last three weeks, I’ve been working on Cardiovascular System and Therapy course.
Quite busy preparing learning materials, designing activities and my slide decks for this new topic this semester. It takes a while to get my head around this big topic because the last time I had cardio lectures was… in Cardiff.
That was 20-odd years ago.
Likewise with my friend ZA. Except for occasional group messages, we haven’t really re-connected with each other since our undergrads.
Today she contacted me to ask, what’s Furosemide? Interesting. So happened that I was a few clicks away from the ‘Bible’ of medicinal chemistry, Foye. So I looked it up. The function of the drug is to reduce water retention by increasing urine production.
According to her doctor, she needed to take the drug because of “jantung ada air” (the heart has water in it). It’s a simplistic explanation to make a patient understand, but it’s off the mark. That’s what I informed ZA.
And I think she could sense the doctor’s explanation was not right, thus contacted her pharmacist friends.
I explained to her further, we tend to retain water in the lower limbs if the heart pumps slower or kidneys produce less urine, or could be due to the stationary nature of her work. Several hours sitting at her desk.
She asked if cholesterol could be a contributing factor to this manifestation? It could be… I answered. If the cholesterol happens to be accumulating in the heart blood vessels. High cholesterol could lead to smaller lumen thus, hampering the flow of blood to the heart.
I gave an analogy of a closure of two lanes in a 4-lane highway leading to the city centre. The closure results in traffic slow-down and could create massive jams during peak hours. If it goes unchecked, such closure may cause disturbances in certain areas around the city.
Watch the video below to see how plaque formation (due to the accumulation of cholesterol) could lead to heart attack (0.22 seconds).
The heart has high demands for oxygen to sustain its 24/7/365 pumping action. Your heart rate tells it all. The typical resting 60-100 beats per minute means every minute, our heart consistently pumps 60 to 100 times to supply blood to the rest of our body. Take 60 beats, and times that by 60 minutes and 24 hours.
86,400 beats every day. An astonishing feat to sustain our body in a lifetime.
Thus, we need to take care of our heart by eating healthy, go for more vegetables and fruits, more fish; stay active and keep positive outlook on Life.
As a pharmacist, I am trained to look for symptoms, and recommend pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions based on the symptoms. I asked ZA to take good care of herself as her symptoms may indicate some underlying causes. It was good catching up.
Dots re-connected. 20 years later.
Sometimes you wonder about your purpose in the grand scheme of Life. Why certain things happen this way, not the other. Always seems like a good mystery, until you look backwards.
Then Life gives you the answer in the most unexpected ways. #syukurselalu
I leave you with this beautiful quote.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
Steve Jobs
The cover photo is an example of Australian aboriginal art. Many dot paintings of the indigenous peoples are stunning to say the least. I find them mesmerising to look at, the dots, clusters of dots, circles, colours chosen. Breathtaking. The artwork also tells a story. A visual story.
