The Dentist

doodle taken from organizeddoodles

How many of you dread visiting the dentist?

Let me tell you a story of a girl. When she was in primary school, she loved to go to the dentist so much. Her mother worked at the district dental clinic as a clerk and she spent most of her time after kindergarten there. She loved the huge toothbrush they use to show the way to brush properly, she loved the big teeth model they put on display and in short she loved everything and everyone at the dental clinic, including the late Dr. T.J Ganesan who kept patting her head and Dr Mak who were busy 24/7.

She loved it so much that she always look forward for her tooth to be pulled out or caries to be patched in. She even pulled out her neighbour's tooth using a very sharp pencil when they were playing doctor (no kidding there).

Well that was not what happened to the girl now.

Yeah, she still love to visit the dentist and she still look forward for a scaling session. But she was putting off seeing the dentist for years because she knew she had a very healthy wisdom tooth that needed to be pulled out.

In 2002, she had gone through a minor surgery because her lower left wisdom tooth grew out horizontally instead of vertically. Back then the upper pair was still growing. Needless to say, that wisdom tooth were still healthy and she had to spend 30 minutes with too many anesthetic injected to her gum to make her feel numb. They cut the tooth and extracted the roots one by one. They had to inject her once more because the anesthetic worn off during the pulling session. Not a good experience. When the upper pair grew, it occupied the empty space down there and food kept sticking in between the wisdom tooth and the tooth in front.

So one day, the girl who had grown into a woman had to go for a medical check up so she could not avoid the visit to the dentist. As she predicted the dentist listed her up for an appointment that very afternoon.

She was scared. The dentist looked young and brand new and sang along to the radio when she did her check - keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding love - in this context, that song is freaky. The dentist injected her gum with anesthetic and sent her out of the surgery room with her face swollen and numb. 10 minutes after, she was called back and the dentist went on extracting the tooth. The hard part was to control her saliva since the suction machine was damaged by lightning. The good news was that she did not feel a thing. The bad news was one of her roots grew to be bent so the tooth broke and a small part of it was left inside. So the woman have to go for a second appointment to get the root out on 30th of December.

*Groans*

I Could Breathe!

Neti Pot.

What is a neti pot?
Well for an explanation, go ahead here. It is an ancient technique believed to relieve sinusitis and headache due to sinus. Of course la, I have sinus and nearly a month watching that particular episode which is last Tuesday, I went to buy a small pot. Well, its a set of creamer pot with 2 sugar containers that cost RM9. I'm doing it every morning and the change that I see is that I finally could breathe with 2 unblocked nostrils in the morning - usually I ended up breathing using 1 and spending my time blowing my nose nearly every morning, not to mention the morning sneeze. My brother, A'an is doing it too and I have to say, breathing using 2 nostrils is a novelty before. I'm loving my nostril pot, wahahaha.

Aging gracefully

How many people around you that you know looks way younger than their real age? Well I know one and he looks young because he got the young genetic. Well, okay, he's my older brother who since I was in secondary school friends kept thinking him as my younger brother :P

All that aside,

I LOVE WATCHING OPRAH!!!

Before this, I did think anyone is turning old when and if they enjoy watching Oprah just proven how ignorant could I be. I learnt lots of thing watching Oprah, other than reading of course. Today, Oprah galore on Hallmark. If Starworld kept having Heroes marathon - which I found kind of tiring due to the outcome of the second season, a dose of Dr. Oz on Oprah opened my eyes.

Of course the show is about health, life, entertainment, information, books and many more. Do you know that you can do something for kids with autism? Or do you know that having a nose bidet using a neti pot could help you with sinus problems? Or doing a 'stamp test' could help in detecting E.D. problems? Or that swimming in the Amazon river could cause a type of fish swim into you and then grow in you and the only way to get it out is by surgery? I wouldn't know that.

Well most of the show today were about ageing. How you live your life would reflect how well you may age. The main reason people does not age gracefully is because of stress (who doesn't have them?), too much sugar in the diet, no exercising, smoking, drinking and lack of sleep. Well those are the points that I managed to catch up on. No problem for me in the smoking and drinking sector since I don't do any of them.

I know everyone wants to age gracefully and look younger than their calendar age. I know I want to be healthy when I am old so... I will try my best to:

1. Manage stress wisely - who says working with kids is easy?
   
2. Keep doing my exercise daily - The Swiss ball workout, weights, crunches (thanks to my fitness instructor cousin who kept on yapping me to do workout).
   
3. Eat healthily - Less red meat in my diet and less oil except olive oil, more vegetables and enough rice.
   
4. Get enough sleep - which is mostly from 9pm to 5am (that's 8 hours)

Since March this year, I'm starting this routine and still doing it, but as my cousin said, it's not getting slender being the goal. From researches that I read in the papers and online, being thin doesn't always mean being healthy and being fat doesn't always mean being unhealthy. The key here is being healthy and that's what I am trying to be.

p.s: Do you know that lifting weights could help you to prevent osteoporosis? More the reason for me to love my dumbbells, hehehe.