Yes, I Decided to Do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Too

And honestly, despite my ribbing of my good friend (even though he roots for the Chicago Blackhawks now;) who nominated me for this challenge, as I said in the video, I was honored to do so.  The video got quite long as we were filming, and with the very capable talents of Ben Schmidt, he was able to edit the video down to almost three minutes.  However, there were still some things that I wanted to mention that I wasn't able to during recording.

Sometimes, I wonder how many people who have participated truly understand what exactly is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and what it can do.  Truthfully, even though I'm familiar with the technical aspects of what comes with this disease, I cannot even imagine what the patient goes through, not physically being able to do anything, even though the mental acuity is as sharp as ever.  If my ability to walk, eat, speak, write, anything was taken away from me, I'd feel trapped, claustrophobic even, inside my own body.  On top of that, knowing that my body was wasting away, that I'd only have a few precious years to live, and how much of a burden I would be on my family, adds insult to injury.  And this can affect anybody no matter how fit one was before being diagnosed, from "Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig, who set the record for most consecutive Major League Baseball games played before retiring due to the effects of ALS, to one of the greatest minds ever in Stephen Hawking (who has a disease related to ALS), to former New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason.  Just one look at any of them after they were diagnosed can show how devastating this disease is.

As such, I shall also be donating to the ALS Association to help fund research into effective treatments, and perhaps even a cure.  My first thought when I saw these Ice Bucket Challenge videos was, "It's great to see spreading awareness of ALS, but what good is dumping a bucket of ice over your head going to do?  It's not going to further research to cure the disease."  But since then, I have also seen many videos that implore people to donate in addition to spreading awareness through the Ice Bucket Challenge, which at last check has helped raise $88.5 million for the ALS Association alone to fight ALS.

Like I said in the video, instead of nominating just three people, I nominated three groups of people with whom I was associated with and happened to be touched by ALS in some way.  The first group I mentioned were my co-workers at the HRV Lab at the Washington University School of Medicine; one of our colleagues, Dr. Adnan Murselovic, was an immigrant from Serbia who had moved to America with his family looking for the American dream.  He would play his Serbian music at his desk and talk to us about soccer, especially when he would stream Euro Cup games on his computer while he was working.  He would come in Thursday through Sunday, spending the rest of the week trying to prepare for licensing exams so that he could continue his career as a physician in the United States.  I remember one afternoon, I had just come back to the HRV Lab after I had been away for a while, and he gathered the entire staff at the conference table to tell us that he had been diagnosed with ALS.  Of course we were all stunned that someone whom we saw everyday, who was always cheerful, kind, and caring, would have to suffer from such a harsh disease.  Unfortunately, as freshman year of college took up my time, I would only see Adnan on a handful occasions thereafter, but I do recall that the last time I saw him, he had asked me to unlock the door of the lab for him.  While I did so, I was shocked that what I thought was such a simple task couldn't be performed by someone who was once such a capable individual.  There were so many people who have been through that lab and who have been forgotten over time, that the fact that every once in a while Adnan's name would come up in conversation was a testament to how great of a colleague and friend he was.

Adnan was also a parent of an alumnus of John Burroughs School, where I first learned about what ALS was.  Jack Orchard, another fellow alumnus, was the captain of the football team in high school, had gone off to Harvard for college and Stanford for graduate school, and had ended up in Moscow and San Francisco as an entrepreneur.  He had returned to St. Louis after his diagnosis, and the first time he appeared in assembly, I remember thinking, "Oh, he doesn't look that bad."  But with each appearance he made, I could see little by little the effects ALS was taking on him.  He had started a new club at Burroughs, Extra Hands for ALS, that would send student volunteers to homes of patients who had been stricken with the disease to help out with whatever was needed.  Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to join, but I do remember many of my classmates did.  Sarah and Julia, if I remembered incorrectly, I apologize, but you're still nominated anyway:)

And in honor of Jack and Adnan, Ben and I wanted to nominate the administration at Burroughs, since that was where we first gained exposure to what ALS was, and we wanted to continue keeping the awareness level raised at Burroughs.  So to Mr. Abbott, Ms. Finley, Ms. LaVigne, and Ms. Tarbouni, I also apologize, but we wanted to do something for the Burroughs community.  Imagine that you just coached the Super Bowl-winning team.  It helps:)

Since I bent the rules and nominated so many people, I'll set the timetable for the end of next week to donate, or both do the challenge and donate.  Hopefully, I'll see a video being recorded from assembly on the John Burroughs Facebook page?

Lastly, I do want to say that ALS is a formidable opponent, and the ALSA is a worthy charity to contribute to.  But there are many, many other deserving organizations fighting for just causes as well.  So I implore everybody who reads this: don't just end your community involvement with a video of a bucket of ice water being dumped over your head.  Donate.  Get involved.  Learn.  And one tiny step at a time, try to make the world better.

Thoughts on Vladimir Putin and the 2014 Winter Olympic Games

Courtesy: theinspirationroom.com

I honestly wish I could spend more time researching this subject, especially because it involves two things that I really enjoy: sports and politics.  But this block is heading into its home stretch, and I don't feel like I'm anywhere near prepared as I should be.  Oh neuro.

But with the Olympics starting, I did want to mention a few thoughts.  The 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia have been named by many as Russian President Vladimir Putin's Olympics, or even "Vladimir's daughter" in Russia itself.  Not Sochi's Olympics or Russia's Olympics.  Putin's Olympics.  London wasn't called Cameron's Olympics.  Vancouver wasn't known as Harper's Olympics.  Even Communist China, which is known for their questionable human rights and party-loving propaganda, didn't hold an event called Hu's Olympics.  And the last time the world's sole superpower, the United States, hosted the Olympic Games, they weren't called Bush's Olympics.  Granted, none of these leaders held the top spots in their respective countries when the Olympics were awarded--usually the International Olympic Committee (IOC) names the host city of that year's games seven years in advance.  Guess who was President of Russia when the IOC awarded the 2014 games to Sochi.

Putin's been in power for a long time.  He's either been President or Prime Minister since 1999.  I'm not going to get into whether he orchestrated the power transfers between him and former President Dmitry Medvedev, how Putin was named Prime Minister after Medvedev was elected President of Russia, and then how they effectively switched jobs four years later.  But obviously, Putin has a hold on Russia.  He wants to bring Russia back to its glory days as a superpower.  It's only sensical that Putin use one of the world's biggest events as a stage to show off Russia.  Thus the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

Putin's been the face of Sochi 2014, having handpicked the city to hold the games and dropping $50 billion on preparing for the event, more than any other Olympics in history (including Summer; I had to double-check to make sure).  There's been a huge security presence to guard against any terrorist attacks or separatist movements.  There have been cries of corruption that Putin spins into other excuses.  Journalists and protesters have been affected.  Obviously, Putin wants to show off how great his Russia can be.

Couple all of this with recent accusations about Russia being homophobic, especially in the wake of its law prohibiting "propaganda of non-traditional sexual practices" among minors, which has been interpreted in many different ways, even in Russia.  Putin has had to say that gay people are safe in Russia if they leave kids alone.  That definitely doesn't sound like a strong message, honestly.  People have been reminded of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Hitler's Games.  We all know what Hitler did, and the awful tragedy that is the Holocaust should never happen again.  Hitler wanted to use his games to promote the ideals of his government, Aryan supremacy, and Germany's power.  Jews were banned from competition (among other hardships they had to endure), and gypsies were rounded up and put into camps.  Putin and Russia are nowhere near that level, especially in terms of what happened in Europe after 1936, but there are similarities between attempting to show power and disparaging against certain types of people.  Bigotry is a slippery slope.  And in the court of public opinion, there has been no separation between the controversial law Putin's country has put into practice and Putin's games.

Of course, most people hope that the Games are successful, and everybody lives happily ever after.  That's not how the world works, unfortunately, and a watchful eye must be kept on what happens to Russia after Sochi, and how Putin chooses to guide the country.

Happy Chinese New Year and Why Dumplings Are Eaten:)

Courtesy: userealbutter.com

So I just broke all that is holy in journalism by adding a smiley in my title.

Friday was the first day of the Chinese New Year.  Honestly, living in America, especially the Midwest, has kept me out of the loop in terms of the lunar calendar and when Chinese festivals fall.  I'm also very hazy on some of the details as well.  For example, I had no idea until a couple years ago that Chinese New Year celebrations lasted fifteen days until the Lantern Festival.

I'd love to go back to Asia sometime, particularly Taiwan and China, to celebrate Chinese New Year.  I feel just as comfortable in a Chinese environment as I do in the United States.  I may not be the stereotypical FOB, drinking bubble tea, singing karaoke, going to dinner parties, only hanging out with Asians all the time, but I do appreciate Chinese culture.  I can speak Chinese fairly fluently (or at least I can make myself understood, even if I don't always think of the most efficient way to say things).  But again, I wish there was more depth to my knowledge of some of these subjects, and I can see how that would lead some people in college to label me "whitewashed" (though I don't know if these people were aware of these nuances as well.  Heck, I can speak Chinese better than a lot of them).

Anyway, in the spirit of Chinese New Year, I wanted to share a story I heard in Chinese history class from when I went to Chinese school way back when.  Traditionally, dumplings are eaten during Chinese New Year.  There are many reasons why, including the fact that dumplings are shaped like gold ingots and symbolize wealth for a prosperous new year.  One of my favorite foods, and even perhaps my most favorite, has been my Dad's dumplings: hand-made dough filled with Lightlife vegetarian ground beef, spinach, vermicelli noodles, shitake mushrooms, baked tofu, ginger, garlic, green onions, soy sauce, and sesame oil, with a dipping sauce of equal parts soy sauce and rice vinegar with a touch of sesame oil.  I miss that.

But I wanted to put down this story  in writing, to share with everybody else, and so that I can remember it too.

**********

A long time ago (because all stories start out that way, don't they, or with "once upon a time"), there was a small village near a huge lake in China.  Everybody knew each other in this town, and they all lived happily and peacefully the whole year round, except for one time each year: Chinese New Year.  Now you would think that this time would be a cause for celebration.  After all, Chinese New Year is called the Spring Festival, signifying the start of spring.  It's a new beginning for everything.  But the residents of this little town could only hope that this was not the ending.

You see, there was a problem that these residents have had to contend with for a long time.  This lake that they have lived next to all their lives contained a being that frightened everybody in their right minds.  This was a monster, if you will, that nobody could describe, because nobody had ever seen it.  In fact, no one would ever dare to meet it, because if you did, the monster would eat you.

There was one time a year that the monster would come out of the lake and into the town, looking for people to feed itself.  That time happened to be Chinese New Year.  So it was at this time, every year, all the residents of this town would flee up into the mountains and hide in a cave, and only after the monster returned back to the lake for the year would the residents feel safe coming back down and resuming their normal lives.

However, one year, not all of the residents could make it up into the mountains.  One old lady had decided to stay back and meet her fate.  "I'm old," she said.  "I can't make it up the mountain anymore.  That journey would be just as bad as staying here and being eaten.  You all go ahead.  I'll stay back."  No matter how much her fellow townspeople tried to change her mind, begging, pleading, she wouldn't budge.  So the townspeople had no choice but to leave her behind as they made the long annual trek up the mountain.

After everybody else had left, the old lady went about her daily routine.  "Yes, I know I made the right decision," she sighed.  "I'm ready.  Even if I did go up the mountain, it would have been torture for me.  At least being eaten would be quick.  No, I'm okay with this."  As she was cleaning her house, she heard a knock on the door.  She walked to the entrance, expecting to see a monster, and preparing herself for the next journey.  So granted she was surprised when she saw a man, weary from his long travels, standing on her stoop.

"Get inside!  Quickly!" she hissed, pulling the traveler in and shutting the door.  "What are you doing here?  You shouldn't be in town right now!"

"I was wondering where everybody was," he replied.  "I've knocked on so many doors, and nobody's answered.  You're the first person I've seen since I've arrived.  What's going on?"

And so the old lady told the traveler the story of what happens each year, of how the monster rises from the lake during Chinese New Year to find people to eat, and because of that how everybody escapes up to a cave in the mountains during this time.

"Well, why aren't you with them?" asked the traveler.

"I'm old.  I can't handle the journey anymore.  So I sent everybody ahead without me."

"I have an idea, but we'll need to act quickly.  First, we're going to need some wood.  What I'm going to do is to build a fire in front of your door.  I can set off some firecrackers and light some lanterns with that as well.  In the meantime, I want you to get some red paper, and I want you to write a New Year's blessing on it.  When you're done, I want you to hang it on the outside of your front door.  I should be done building the fire by then, and we'll move on to the next step."

So as the traveler gathered wood and started to build a fire on the woman's front stoop, the old lady looked around the house, scrounged up a red-colored scroll and her calligraphy set, and wrote a Chinese New Year's blessing on it.  After she hung the scroll on the door and the traveler had built a fire, they went back inside to the kitchen.

"Do you have any meat and vegetables around?" asked the man.

"I have a little bit, just to sustain myself until the monster comes."

"Well, it'll have to do.  The next thing we should do is to chop up your meat and vegetables into fine pieces.  And not just cut them into small pieces.  I want you to mince it quickly, banging your knife with force each time it comes down.  And since we're chopping these things so finely, we might as well make dumplings with the meat and vegetables."

So as the man set around to making the dough, the woman got out her meat and vegetables and her biggest cleaver, and set about to chopping furiously.  They finished their tasks as night fell, and started assembling the dumplings.  A short time later, they sat down to eat their creations.

"Well, this is a nice last meal to have," said the woman.

They didn't talk for a while, concentrating on the delicious dumplings that they had just made, until finally, the woman said: "You should probably get out of here while you still can, before the monster finds you and eats you too."

"I'll be okay.  Do you want to know why we did what we did today?"

"I've been wondering that all day.  Why did we build a fire, hang up scrolls, and make dumplings?  Aren't those just everyday, menial tasks?"

"Well, here's what I was thinking.  Red is a harsh color to look at.  We have the fire, the scrolls, the firecrackers, and the lanterns.  When the monster sees that, he won't want to look at the house anymore.  On top of that, we have the firecrackers, and the loud sound you made with your cleaver when you were preparing the filling for the dumplings.  Those noises should be able to keep the monster away from your house, and thus we get to live another year."

"Ahh, I see," said the woman.  "But why did you have me write on the scrolls?"

"Well, we can't have too much good luck, can we?" said the man, smiling.

They laughed and enjoyed their feast the rest of the night.

The next day, the man left, continuing on with his travels, and a few days after that, the townspeople descended back down from the mountains back into the city.  To their surprise, they found the old lady still piddling around her house.

"What happened?  How were you able to survive?  Shouldn't you be gone, eaten by the monster?" asked the townspeople.

"It was the strangest thing," said the woman.  And she proceeded to tell them what happened, about how she had a fire at her front door, hung scrolls and lanterns, set off firecrackers, and made dumplings.  "Maybe you all should try it next year.  That way you won't have to be scrambling all the way back up to the mountains and hiding in that cold, dank cave."

And so the next year, every single house in the town had their entrances covered in red.  Every stoop had a fire burning, and there were scrolls, lanterns, firecrackers galore.  And from every house you could hear chopping--thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud--as meat and vegetables were being minced for dumpling filling.

The monster came back, rising from the lake as scheduled, to look for its annual meal.  It remembered the year before, seeing the red and hearing the noise from the one house, and how that had made it uncomfortable.  But as it entered the town, it saw so much red to burn its eyes, and heard so much noise to hurt its ears.  One house last year was enough to drive him away, but now the whole town?  The monster ran off, scared, back to the lake, never to rise up again.

**********

And that is why there is so much red and dumplings are eaten during Chinese New Year.  I'm sure there are other stories, but I particularly like this one.  Perhaps because it's the only one I've heard.  But let's not get picky.

Also, for your own reading pleasure, here's the story I remember of how the Chinese zodiac was created (or at least the first three slides and the last one; I'm not sure about the rest of the animals beyond the mouse, the ox, and the cat.  But at least there's an explanation).

So to everybody, 新年快樂 恭喜發財 万事如意 歲歲平安 年年有餘 心想事成 學業進步 馬年吉祥, and whatever other four-character sayings are out there.  Basically, happy Chinese New Year:)

And if any non-Chinese speaker wants to guess what the Chinese phrases mean in the comments section below, please do.  First person to get all eight right might receive something.  Or a hearty congratulations.

Ran a 5K Today. Just Like Getting Back on a Bike. Or on My Feet I Should Say.

Somehow running a 5K has become my workout of choice.  Probably because I've signed up for so many that it's become a habit from training for them.  It's also almost the perfect distance; not too short of a workout but not too long that you're drained.  Plus, a crowded indoor track isn't the most conducive to working on short sprints.

Was supposed to play basketball, but that plan didn't work out (hah), so I thought I'd try to utilize the rec center while I was still there.

I probably haven't been on a decent run since med school started, so I was pleasantly surprised about how I was able to hit my average range in terms of time.  I was even more enthused that I didn't have to stop and walk at any point, especially since there has been a dearth of sleep this week, including two hours last night from trying to finish an objective (I'm not going to get into if it was smart to do anything on such little rest right now, thank you).

This just makes me wonder if I had kept up working out consistently since graduating high school how good I could be or how fast my time could be.  Honestly, probably not that much better (my PR is 24 min), but even now it's still a far cry from where my level once was at least, lacking stamina, barely able to run a mile, and always feeling like puking.

I'll leave y'all with that image for a Friday night.

Got to See My First Patients!

[I normally eschew using exclamation points, so when I actually do utilize them, you know there's something exciting going on (or that I've already used up my smiley allotment).]

I got to see patients.  By myself.  Without a physician.  Not in a shadowing or standardized situation.  I got to ask the questions. And I got to poke and prod them.  And no, no one died.

I wanted to post this on Friday, since it happened on Friday, but a good friend from college came into town, and I hung out with her and her schoolmates.  When it's someone from your freshman floor, with whom you talked a lot, and whom you have known for almost a decade (yes, we calculated...we both feel really old.  We started comparing white hairs too), then of course you want to see her, even if there are other people around, as cool as they are.  Plus, it allowed me to go bar-hopping: to a restaurant/bar, a piano bar, and then a club.  (As an aside, clubs are sweaty, packed, loud, and full of drunk people banging into you.  But then, I guess I wasn't expecting anything else.)

Yesterday, my internet was out for a majority of the day.  At least Mediacom has decent customer service.

Anyway, I was assigned to a family care physician this block for my Ambulatory Care Experience, and my first session with him was Friday.  He mentioned that usually students will just shadow him the first time, but the more gung-ho students may jump in and start seeing patients too, taking histories and performing physical exams.  "Well, perfect," I thought, "what better way to jump right in and practice being confident?  And let's see how much I remember from the first two blocks of Introduction to Patient Care."

Thank goodness for IPC.  At least there seemed to be some semblance of me knowing what I was doing.

Honestly though, going through standardized patient exams, or even simulated practices, was more nerve-wracking than actually seeing patients...by myself...with no physician in the room to shadow.  Perhaps it's because my attending said that this experience was designed to be low-pressure, and if there was a time to make mistakes, it would be then, when I could report back to him and he can catch anything that I missed.  And it's definitely because I wasn't being graded, whether by a proctor or a fellow student.  Regardless, it was less stress and more of a rush.  I sincerely hope that feeling stays with me for a while.  I don't want to get jaded too soon.

I do need to work on my differential diagnosing skills though.  And knowing where equipment is before I go into a room.  Thankfully my patients were patient with me (feel free to commence your groans).

The Difficulty in Asking People for Help

I was soliciting donations at Wal-Mart this afternoon for a medical mission to Guatemala in March (please contact me if you'd like to support me/us:D).  In the two hours I was there asking shoppers to buy items we needed and donate them to us when they came out, I got half a shopping cart filled, and I'm extremely thankful to those who were kind enough to help us out.  The few people who stopped out of the goodness of their hearts were more than I could expect; as a way to temper any potential disappointment, I don't expect anything from anybody, and when someone exceeds that notion, I'm not surprised, but I am grateful that there are good people in this world.


But it is difficult to get people to donate to causes.  Back in St. Louis, I would help my temple fundraise when there were any huge natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Sichuan Earthquake, and Typhoon Morakot.  I used to think that it was more of a Chinese thing, since we would frequent Chinese businesses, that people would pass us by, deliberately ignore us, say "no" with or without a "thank you" (wait, what exactly are you thanking me for?  For asking you and letting you say no to me?), especially because a common Chinese stereotype is that we can be stingy.  I remember one instance in which I was fundraising in front of a Chinese grocery store; one guy completely ignored me and went in, and he was struggling with his groceries when he was coming out.  I helped him with the groceries and the door, and he kept going on without so much as a "thank you".  Eh.  You shrug it off and feel sorry for him that he's so dour.


Today though, I realized that the difficulty in getting people to contribute to causes spans cultures.  As a disclaimer, I'm not berating them at all.  It's within their right to walk past and refuse to help.  It's just a reminder how hard it is to stand outside practically begging for assistance.  It'll make me think the next time I'm walking and I come across another volunteer soliciting donations for one's cause.


That difficulty caused me to be slow in terms of asking people.  There were times when I just let some folks slide by since it looked like they didn't want to be bothered.  It took me a while to warm up, but once I got into a groove, I got people to start taking flyers, and donations started streaming in.  Being bold is challenging; New Year's resolutions are not supposed to be easy.  This is also the same when asking for help under fear of rejection.  But I promised myself not to miss any more chances, and so here we go.  I unknowingly broke a condition that our group had agreed to when soliciting, but oh well.  No harm, no foul.


I've always been slow in asking people for something.  I'm constantly afraid that I'd be annoying.  My PI always had to constantly tell me to come find her when I got stuck on something instead of pounding my brain against a brick wall.  I believe this comes from my perhaps misguided pride and independence and wanting to figure things out by myself, as well as avoiding the potential of being bothersome.  On the other hand, when I would ask a question to the founder of a certain K-Pop website for which I was writing, she would tell me to go figure it out on my own.  There's nothing wrong with that, but then, I think I would trust a PhD with whom I've had almost a decade-long working relationship than a college student for whom running a K-Pop fansite basically fell into her lap (I shall say that I do admire what she's built in the website; I wouldn't have been able to do that).


So in summary (in what has turned out to be almost a stream-of-consciousness post), there are multiple folds in the difficulty of asking for help: personal characteristics, timing, and the willingness of others.  But once again, it's definitely heartwarming when people are eager to do so.


And Mom, I wrote this in half-an-hour during my designated break time.  So no, I'm not wasting time.  You can continue to sleep easily now.