Cervical Cancer

I would like to share on something really important and useful to all my lady friends. Recently, while in a clinic, a leaflet on the counter caught my eyes and so I went closer to read the contents. It says in bold “In Malaysia, cervical cancer is the 2nd most common cancer affecting women.” A picture showed a solemn little girl with her sad daddy looking over a birthday cake on the table with a card that says… I love you mummy. And at the bottom of the picture says, “Honey, we still miss you everyday… Happy Birthday”

That was it. The entire message was too much for me but still, the urge of wanting to know more about this leaflet was strong. So, I took the leaflet and decided to read through the contents. What I found out from the leaflet is alarming.

In 2002, cervical cancer accounted for 12% of all female cancer in Malaysia. See the chart below to get a better idea of how disturbing the figure is.

And the second point says, virtually, every woman is at risk of cervical cancer, regardless of age or lifestyle.

So to say, you can be living a very healthy lifestyle and yet, you can be still at risk. Scary isn’t it, I thought to myself. I continued reading and came to know that cervical cancer are commonly caused by a virus called “high risk” HPV (Human Papillomavirus) that can be passed from one person to another during sex , though not necessarily. It can even be transmitted through just genital skin to skin contact. And here’s the strange thing. At least half of sexually active people will have HPV at some point in their lives and some leads to cervical cancer. To the lucky ones, this is because the body’s immune system gets rid of the HPV infection naturally within 2 years. However, in some cases, the infection persists and thus, leads to the risk of progression to cervical cancer. And I thought to myself again, why take the risk? Because I can actually be protected against the cancer causing HPV by just taking the vaccination. Yes, I thought to myself. It’s about time I should start taking control of my health and be a more responsible person. I have a daughter now and the picture shown on the leaflet sort of in a way, gave me a ‘wake up call’. I decided to proceed with the vaccination.

If I could recall correctly, a friend of mine who went for this vaccination previously told me that the vaccination (per jab) could range between RM 300 – RM 400. But guess what? This clinic charges only RM 200 per jab. In total you would need 3 jabs. The second jab should be given one month after the 1st jab. And the 3rd jab, 6 months after the 2nd jab. If you wish to go to this clinic, please let me know and I’ll provide you with the details.

So back to the story, when I consulted my doctor, she told me that even in schools now, they are giving out HPV vaccination for girls as young as 9. Some parents are outraged by this because they felt that it is not necessary for a 9 year old girl to get such vaccination. But I think should they be briefed properly on the intentions, these parents may change their mind and look at it at a different perspective.

My doctor told me that by providing vaccination to school girls, even as young as 9, allows the immune system to be activated before she's likely to encounter HPV. For example, if an adult, assuming at the age of 31 obtains vaccination, the level of protection is perhaps only at about 80% comparing to a school girl who gets vaccinated at say, age 13, could increase their level protection up to 90%. In short, vaccinating at a younger age allows for the highest antibody levels because the higher the antibody levels, the greater the protection is.

Here’s the thing, ladies:

CERVICAL CANCER is preventable. It is the easiest female cancer to prevent, provided with regular screening tests and follow ups. It is also highly curable if found and treated early.

And as a woman myself, I realized that since I came to know of this now, I cannot be ignorant about it. It is only right that I should help to create awareness on this issue. Actually the truth is, each one of us have this important role to play in saving women from contracting cervical cancer. I plead you to read on more on this, do research and more importantly, to consider the vaccination.

Some other information that is crucial to all of us.

There are 2 type of tests that can help to prevent or detect cervical cancer.

1) Pap Smear, advisable to be done 3 days after your period is completely cleared.
2) The HPV test. Talk to your doctor about whether this test is right for you.

If you

1) Do not have regular Pap Tests
2) Do not follow up with your doctor if you had a pap test result appearing not normal
3) Smoke
4) Sexually active with more than 1 partner….

then, you are under the category of high risk.

What is worrying is there are no signs or symptoms for early cervical cancer. But, should you experience bleeding of discharge from the vagina, which you know is not normal, especially bleeding after sex, then go and check with your doctor immediately. And this information was again typed bold in the leaflet, so ladies, we must take note on this.

I think I have summarized what I read in the leaflet together with my other resources to a pretty short informative article here. If you want, you may pass this article on to your girl friends and family members. After all, sharing is caring. Value & take control of your life before it’s too late. This is in fact a reminder to myself as well.

Charts obtained from http://www.radiologymalaysia.org/breasthealth/about/FactsNStats.htm

Stress, stress and stress!!

You know how sometimes when you are so tied up with work and then you realize 8 hours a day is just not enough for you to finish up the backlogged work but at the same time, you know you cannot expect yourself to stay up too late to get the job done. What happens next? You are becoming stressful. And then you start to reflect on your whole days work.. why is it that you can’t get the job done, why this and why that and slowly but gradually you realized it's because there were many interruptions in your work flow. And for that.. got you even more stressful!

Okay, so don’t get me wrong here. I won’t be able to help you out on those work flow issues. I suppose that is all about time management and believe me, even I am still learning on that after being a secretary for more than 10 years now! What I would like to talk about today is on how to cope up with stress, be it the type of unnecessary stress, you asked for it stress, unavoidable stress or give it to me stress. (this is where you are the type of person who do not know how to say No) Yup, I want to talk about it because the truth is, I too have been pretty stress at work lately and so by talking about it, in a way, I am actually de-stressing. Yep, that is right. One of the method of de-stressing is by writing it out. Oh well, at least it works for me!

If writing is not your type, you may want to consider these then. Firstly, if you are very stress and you feel that your head is going to explode but because you are in the office, and there’s nothing much you can do about it except for to keep it within you. (For the sake of being professional) Therefore, one effective way to de-stress is try walking over to the pantry to make yourself a nice cup of coffee or tea.  Okay, here's the trick.  You gotta walk slowly because if you walked fast, you are indirectly creating stress to yourself again (remember the unnecessary stress type?). So, walk slowly and go indulge yourself with a nice cup of coffee/tea. When I say indulge, it basically means, you stand there.. take your time to make the coffee/tea, whichever you prefer, and appreciate the aroma while sipping it. Once you are done with that, now take your time to walk back slowly to your work station. Believe me, that 5 minutes break will really help a lot.

In fact, by just watching this lady sipping on to her coffee makes you feel kinda loosen up isn't it. AAaaaaaaahhhh...

Okay, say you are still stress. Now, don’t you go worrying about it because the key is, don’t keep thinking about the stresses!! So back to the you are still in a stressful situation. Trust me it helps on this. Turn on your PC speakers and listen to some songs. This is good because you get to work while listening to your favorite music. Okay fine. You don’t have speakers. Now, that’s too bad. But hey don’t worry! You can always do things that may soothe you after working hours.

Point is, don’t worry too much because if you do, you are basically welcoming stress with wide open arms. Remember give it to me stress? I always find that by keeping some time for myself does make me feel better because I get a chance to do things that I like, for myself. So after work, how about pampering yourself with a long warm bath. Some friends that I do know of, shower for less than 5 minutes! Unless you are in a hurry, why not try to learn to appreciate and enjoy the long warm bath? You owe it that much to your aching tension muscles. Even better if you use those sort of soothing aromatherapy shower gel like Lavender or Rose scented type. Trust me, it really works!

You may want to try exercising too. I actually felt the difference when I don’t exercise. That is why as busy and hectic my schedules are, I keep Thursday nights free and that is for my dance class. I found out that exercise releases endorphins, they call it the “happy hormones,” and that is why you WILL feel the difference after a good workout. Of course to practice this healthy habit, you have to be really, really disciplined to push yourself to kick start it.

Point is, we all have to find things that we love to do to de-stress. If we were to keep thinking about our problems and the stress till late nights and it snowballs till the following day, these problems will not go away.  When you are stress, you can't think of solutions.

We are in control of our lives and I truly believe that life is worth much more if you start to love yourself and appreciate the good things in life. In fact, as I am writing this journal, I am actually beginning to feel better already! La la la la.... See it works! 

 

Happy Lunch

Went for lunch today with my colleagues to Little Ben, Kota Kemuning only to find out that a new management has taken over and it's now known as Lohas Lifestyle cafe. Since I am quite careful with my food intake nowadays, I've decided to go on some light snacks and went for Wholemeal Green Tea Sandwich which costs about RM 6.90.  I love it.  What more can I ask for, a nice, healthy lunch :)

Yummeh!

The 3 of us shared a pot of Fruit Tree and I have to say, it's excellent.  You can refill it as many times as you wish, but of course you will know when to stop lah when the fruity taste is finally diluted. :)  

My colleague, Cheryl ordered the same snack as mine while Siti went for Tomato Baked Fish Rice for Kids serving.  Check the picture out..

I am already drooling now.... Double Yummeh!

Did I also mention that the 3 of us were served with FREE lemongrass drink the moment we were sitted?  Yep.. another good stuff! Seriously, no hesitation to recommend this place to you guys.  For more info, you can call them at 03-5121 0151 and nope, they are not paying me for this free publicity! :)

Annoying Day

Have you ever been in a situation, whereby you just feel like strangling a person for being so ignorant in their work? And you know it’s all because they are just being lazy. Sometimes, because you are a nice person and they keep asking you for help just to get the job done for them. Don’t you just feel like telling them off and tell them this: "DO IT YOURSELF!" And then when you try to tell them the DIY statement in a diplomatic & and in a professional way, they’ll tell you… “Oh, I don’t know how to do this lah, you don’t mind, please help me?” Oh well, don’t you just feel like shooting them?!!!

Ok, assuming you’ve decided to help them on that task. And then guess what, before you could even help that person with the job, the person had actually made a big mistake right at the beginning and that person wasn’t even aware of their mistake until you highlighted to them! Can you believe it ?!!!

ARRRRRRRGHHHH!!

Oh well, point is, yes... it was a very frustrating day for me yesterday with all these sort of unnecessary problems and I'm beginning to think, perhaps, it's really about time for me to learn how to say NO to people like that, who do not take initiative to learn to do their own job. Sigh...

I love Thursdays

I'm always looking forward to Thursdays? Wanna know why? Hehehe.. Because it's my latin class day!! Yup, I love Thursdays!!

Am I spoiling my baby ?? - Add On

I received an interesting article yesterday about 12 reasons babies cry and immediately I thought of my article which I wrote about Am I Spoiling my Child? And since it’s quite related, I am posting it here on the 12 reasons babies cry....

1. Hunger
2. A dirty diaper
3. Needs sleep
4. Wants to be held
5. Tummy troubles (gas, colic, and more)
6. Needs to burp
7. Too cold or too hot
8. Something small
9. Teething
10. Wants less stimulation
11. Wants more stimulation
12. Not feeling well

To read further in details for each point, click here to go to the related page.

Beware of hoax emails

I received an emergency email today from a friend of mine. At first glance, the email sounded pretty urgent and desperate and I have to admit, my heart skipped a beat reading the contents. But as I read on, the back of mind told me to call my friend to verify the contents and true enough, that email turns out to be a hoax.

Luckily I called her but oh well, I wouldn't have transferred any cash to her account just like that anyway. Yup, that email was about asking me to send cash urgently as my "friend" was stranded in Madrid, Spain. Though I NEARLY believed as this friend of mine happens to travel a lot, my common sense said - "check first".

And after talking to my "real friend", she asked me to pretend as if I didn't know it was a hoax and reply to the email requesting for an account number. Can you believe it, that "bogus friend" actually replied and provided her full details.

Click on the snap shots for larger view.

Snap shot on the hoax email received:


and I replied: -


and she replied!! : -


So guys and gals, moral of the story, beware of such emails okay and remember to check with your friends first.