Think Forward.

Learning Hypovolemic Shock in a Hard Way (or so I Thought) 2735

SilverSworntoWrite, 10 mon.
A few days ago, I suddenly felt cold after losing quite an amount of blood in the bathroom. I thought it was nothing unusual, but then I noticed the blood came out like water running down a faucet. I was not sure how much fluids I had lost, but a few seconds long was enough to know how bad it was. Before bed, I decided to search the web to satisfy my curiosity about my condition. Assuming to find common medical issues, I found out about a serious medical condition called "Hypovolemic Shock." The details are shocking and, without a doubt, mortified me. Thankfully my case was not severe (if not unrelated at all). I recovered in about 22 hours, although I had some headaches and numbness that went away by the next night. After recovering from the frightening experience, I was compelled to learn more about the condition, which led me to some surprising discoveries about hypovolemic shock. Disclaimer: This is just an overview of the topic I wrote for fun. If you want validation about your condition, please contact professional medical help. After reading several medical articles through the internet, I learned that hypovolemic shock is a serious condition caused by losing quite amount of blood or fluids within your body, and it is wise to quickly contact medical emergency as the condition poses a life-threatening risk. Hypovolemic shock can be divided to hemorrhagic and non-hemorrhagic type. Hemorrhagic shock happens when you lose fluids through serious blood loss, such as open wounds, internal bleeding, and childbirth. Meanwhile, non-hemorrhagic shock results from losing body fluids through other means, such as dehydration, diarrhea, and vomiting. Regardless of the difference, losing a lot of fluids can prevent the heart from sending blood through your body to function, which can lead to organ failure. Surprisingly, hypovolemic shock is the second most common shock, following distributive shock, and it commonly happens to children in developing countries, often due to diarrhea. Now, losing blood and other fluids is normal in everyday life without causing big side effect. Small losses, like from a small cut, nosebleed, or brief diarrhea, usually resolve on their own without causing bad effects. Generally, a person can lose about 14% of blood with no major side effects except perhaps for slight dizziness. And speaking of which, on average, men have more blood compared to women, while children, who have much less, are more vulnerable to the negative effects of blood loss. Since each individual has different amount of blood in them, it is important to measure the blood loss using percentage of the total blood volume in your body. One of the function of blood is to control body temperature (thermoregulation.) The body regulates the heat distribution by controlling the speed of the blood flow to and within the skin, either by narrowing or widening the blood vessels. When it is hot, the body widens the blood vessel (vasodilation) to cool down and release heat faster from the skin. Meanwhile, when it is cold, the body narrows the blood vessel (vasoconstriction) to keep the heat. When the amount of fluids is low, the body automatically narrows the blood vessels to keep the pressure normal and focus on distributing the blood to vital organs. What will happen when you lose more than 14% of blood? The quick answer is; you will start to experience the effect of blood loss. Depending on how fast you lose the fluids, you may feel tired and weak, with rapid breathing and pale skin, to more serious symptoms such as the decreased amount or no urine output, hypothermia, and unconsciousness. When the blood loss reaches more than 14%, hypovolemic shock will set in. Depending on how much blood percentage you have lost, hypovolemic shock can be separated into 4 stages: - The 1st stage: when you lose about 15% of your blood (around 750 mL.) At this stage, the symptoms have not occurred yet, and your heart rate and blood pressure may stay normal. - The 2nd stage: when you lose about 15% to 30% of your blood (around 750 mL to1,500 mL.) During this stage, the heart rate increases and breathing quickens as the blood vessels narrow to stabilize the pressure. - The 3rd stage: when you lose about 30% to 40% of your blood (around 1,500 mL to 2,000 mL.) At this stage, your blood pressure drops while your heart rate and breathing are getting faster. You begin to produce less to no urine output as the body tries to reserve the remaining fluids. - The 4th stage: when you lose about 40% or more of your blood (around 2,000 mL or more.) At this stage, your condition is at its critical and immediate professional attention provide slight survival chance. Your blood pressure is severely low, heart rate and breathing are high, urine output is absent, and organ failure is likely to happen and can become fatal. Hypovolemic shock is dangerous and needs immediate medical attention. In treating hypovolemic shock, medical help will try to replace the fluids you have lost using one or more IV (intravenous) lines, which is that long tube with a needle injected into your vein, and seal up the source of the fluid loss, such as open wound. Recovery time also takes some time and it is varied for each individual, depending on age, condition, and the severity of the shock. During recovery, you should listen to your health provider, and tell them your recovery progress so that they know your treatment goes to the right way. To sum it up, hypovolemic shock is a dangerous medical condition that we should never ignore, but understanding the signs can make a great difference. When blood or fluids loss persists longer than it should, contacting medical help can prevent unwanted experience to happen. And for my experience, I am grateful that my condition was not that alarming to demand me get out of bed in the middle of the night and call for an ambulance. This event, however, became a warning to keep an eye on my fiber intake more carefully and how important it is to take care of myself. For now, it is safe to say that I have survived my recklessness and ignorance for another day. Cheers. -Silver-
SilverSworntoWrite

SilverSworntoWrite

Hello, I am an aspired writer. I wish to train my creativity (and endurance) here to be a better writer.


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THE ENCHIRIDION - I 1942

Bluwr X Commons: Epictetus, 2 y.
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1 min read.
There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs. Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien. Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature dependent and take what belongs to others for your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you take for your own only that which is your own and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you; you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm. Aiming, therefore, at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself any inclination, however slight, toward the attainment of the others; but that you must entirely quit some of them, and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would have these, and possess power and wealth likewise, you may miss the latter in seeking the former; and you will certainly fail of that by which alone happiness and freedom are procured. Seek at once, therefore, to be able to say to every unpleasing semblance, “You are but a semblance and by no means the real thing.” And then examine it by those rules which you have; and first and chiefly by this: whether it concerns the things which are within our own power or those which are not; and if it concerns anything beyond our power, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER - PREFACE 2043

Bluwr X Commons: Mark Twain, 2 y.
1 min read.
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago. Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in. THE AUTHOR. HARTFORD, 1876.

THE MEDITATIONS - Book I.[1/3] 2086

Bluwr X Commons: Marcus Aurelius, 2 y.
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4 min read.
1. I learned from my grandfather, Verus, to use good manners, and to put restraint on anger. 2. In the famous memory of my father I had a pattern of modesty and manliness. 3. Of my mother I learned to be pious and generous; to keep myself not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and to live with a simplicity which is far from customary among the rich. 4. I owe it to my great-grandfather that I did not attend public lectures and discussions, but had good and able teachers at home; and I owe him also the knowledge that for things of this nature a man should count no expense too great. 5. My tutor taught me not to favour either green or blue at the chariot races, nor, in the contests of gladiators, to be a supporter either of light or heavy armed. He taught me also to endure labour; not to need many things; to serve myself without troubling others; not to intermeddle in the affairs of others, and not easily to listen to slanders against them. 6. Of Diognetus I had the lesson not to busy myself about vain things; not to credit the great professions of such as pretend to work wonders, or of sorcerers about their charms, and their expelling of Demons and the like; not to keep quails (for fighting or divination), nor to run after such things; to suffer freedom of speech in others, and to apply myself heartily to philosophy. Him also I must thank for my hearing first Bacchius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; that I wrote dialogues in my youth, and took a liking to the philosopher’s pallet and skins, and to the other things which, by the Grecian discipline, belong to that profession. 7. To Rusticus I owe my first apprehensions that my nature needed reform and cure; and that I did not fall into the ambition of the common Sophists, either by composing speculative writings or by declaiming harangues of exhortation in public; further, that I never strove to be admired by ostentation of great patience in an ascetic life, or by display of activity and application; that I gave over the study of rhetoric, poetry, and the graces of language; and that I did not pace my house in my senatorial robes, or practise any similar affectation. I observed also the simplicity of style in his letters, particularly in that which he wrote to my mother from Sinuessa. I learned from him to be easily appeased, and to be readily reconciled with those who had displeased me or given cause of offence, so soon as they inclined to make their peace; to read with care; not to rest satisfied with a slight and superficial knowledge; nor quickly to assent to great talkers. I have him to thank that I met with the discourses of Epictetus, which he furnished me from his own library. 8. From Apollonius I learned true liberty, and tenacity of purpose; to regard nothing else, even in the smallest degree, but reason always; and always to remain unaltered in the agonies of pain, in the losses of children, or in long diseases. He afforded me a living example of how the same man can, upon occasion, be most yielding and most inflexible. He was patient in exposition; and, as might well be seen, esteemed his fine skill and ability in teaching others the principles of philosophy as the least of his endowments. It was from him that I learned how to receive from friends what are thought favours without seeming humbled by the giver or insensible to the gift. 9. Sextus was my pattern of a benign temper, and his family the model of a household governed by true paternal affection, and a steadfast purpose of living according to nature. Here I could learn to be grave without affectation, to observe sagaciously the several dispositions and inclinations of my friends, to tolerate the ignorant and those who follow current opinions without examination. His conversation showed how a man may accommodate himself to all men and to all companies; for though companionship with him was sweeter and more pleasing than any sort of flattery, yet he was at the same time highly respected and reverenced. No man was ever more happy than he in comprehending, finding out, and arranging in exact order the great maxims necessary for the conduct of life. His example taught me to suppress even the least appearance of anger or any other passion; but still, with all this perfect tranquillity, to possess the tenderest and most affectionate heart; to be apt to approve others yet without noise; to have much learning and little ostentation. 10. I learned from Alexander the Grammarian to avoid censuring others, to refrain from flouting them for a barbarism, solecism, or any false pronunciation. Rather was I dexterously to pronounce the words rightly in my answer, confining approval or objection to the matter itself, and avoiding discussion of the expression, or to use some other form of courteous suggestion. 11. Fronto made me sensible how much of envy, deceit and hypocrisy surrounds princes; and that generally those whom we account nobly born have somehow less natural affection. 12. I learned from Alexander the Platonist not often nor without great necessity to say, or write to any man in a letter, that I am not at leisure; nor thus, under pretext of urgent affairs, to make a practice of excusing myself from the duties which, according to our various ties, we owe to those with whom we live. 13. Of Catulus I learned not to condemn any friend’s expostulation even though it were unjust, but to try to recall him to his former disposition; to stint no praise in speaking of my masters, as is recounted of Domitius and Athenodorus; and to love my children with true affection. 14. Of Severus, my brother, I learned to love my kinsmen, to love truth, to love justice. Through him I came to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus. He gave me my first conception of a Commonwealth founded upon equitable laws and administered with equality of right; and of a Monarchy whose chief concern is the freedom of its subjects. Of him I learned likewise a constant and harmonious devotion to Philosophy; to be ready to do good, to be generous with all my heart. He taught me to be of good hope and trustful of the affection of my friends. I observed in him candour in declaring what he condemned in the conduct of others; and so frank and open was his behaviour, that his friends might easily see without the trouble of conjecture what he liked or disliked.