A Piece On Health

My Dad had the stone in his urinary bladder removed yesterday. It was a minor operation but I was praying for days that the medicine prescribed to him by his doctor would be enough to shrink this stone. But his ultrasound result showed that the size of this stubborn stone remained the same. So he had it removed.

I was hoping that he doesn’t have to go through another operation. This operation was his seventh in the span of three years. He had to go through a lot of operation because of his illness before.

My father was diagnosed with an End Stage Renal Disease in November 2006. This is actually the complication of his hypertension or what we commonly refer to as “high blood.” Both of my father’s kidneys were already destroyed by the time he had himself checked by a nephrologist (a kidney specialist)

To save his life he had to undergo a dialysis and finally a kidney transplant. To facilitate his dialysis and kidney transplant he had to go through a number of operations, which I don’t want to go into details. It was my younger brother, Paul who donated one of his kidneys for Papa. It has been a year since he had his kidney transplant operation. He is well and perfectly fit except for the stone in his bladder.

But even if I did not get what I’m praying for, I’m still grateful that his operation went well and he will be leaving the hospital late this afternoon or early morning tomorrow. And compared to his end stage renal disease, bladder stone is just a piece of cake for my strong Dad.

So gently remind your parents to have their blood pressure check religiously .My father was unaware before that he was suffering from hypertension. He said that he did not experience the classic symptoms of: pain in the nape area, headache, dizziness or blurring of vision. And if you have a family history of hypertension it would be best even at our age to have our blood pressure taken as well. High blood pressure can lead to heart attack, stroke or end stage renal disease. Hypertension can be easily managed through medicines prescribed by physicians, healthy diet, stress management and exercise. As the cliché goes: prevention is better than cure