Hello from New York
Sun, 12 Apr 1998 06:54:19 -0700

Hello to all, especially to my brother Calix and his family, and to my former classmates Guardson Siao and Carlos Dy. I am not a writer but I am interested in starting a column. I am Class '60 and a physician living in upstate New York. I used to practise in Cebu as an internist hematologist and oncologist. I do not know yet what to write about.  Any suggestions? Congratulations on your publication.

Aurora H. Tansiokhian, M.D. (Batch '60), New York, U.S.A.
atanust65@pol.net

No Takers for Alumni Officers?
Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:19:49 -0600

It's sad to hear that there's no new and young blood among our alumni in Iligan interested in the coming election of alumni officers.  With so many qualified and talented alumni around, no one dares to accept the challenge for the cause of our heritage and for the sake of our next generations?  Hopefully in the next three or four weeks, more alumni with strong conviction will come forward and accept their nominations.  Hip Hip Hooray to the outgoing officers!

Peter C. Dy (Batch '66), Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
pdy@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

(Editors' Note: The situation faced by our alumni association is no different from similiar cases among most voluntary organizations anywhere else.  People generally do not rise to the occasion on their own initiative where personal interests are not at stake. Those who do are the exceptions rather not the rules.  The individualistic attitude among many of us somehow still runs deep.  That being the case, it will help if the outgoing officers, on their part, would also approach the nominees personally and apply some degree of friendly persuasion.   On the part of the nominees, it will help if they are made to realize that being named to serve the association is more an honor than labor, more a privilege than pressure.  Their nominations, by themselves, are positive manifestations of the association's confidence in their competence and talent.--COS)

Keeping the LCHS Spirit Alive
Fri, 17 Apr 1998 21:28:42 +0800

I want to reach you to extend my congratulations and to commend you and the rest of the staff for your efforts to keep that link and bond of LCHS spirits alive.  I couldn't help getting nostalgic as my son helps me surf through the LCHS website.  Although our alma mater got a new name and I understand, a new place too, still that bond remains.  Actually, it took a letter from Gloricita Racines-Kinnan to let me know that LCHS Spectrum exists.  Gloricita is my only contact since I left LCHS. She updates me once in a while. Always, I must admit, I yearn for more.  Again, congratulations!

Emma Yap Matiao (Batch '66), Dumaguete, Philippines
wilkie@mozcom.com
 

Dateline Buffalo

By Ernesto L. Yu, M.D., Batch 1965 Ernstyu49@aol.com

It was as if my heart was left impotently to fibrillate and choke on its sporadic arrhythmic behavior.  Regrettably, that was how the Iligan news item on the banning of stereo music in public transportation muddled my inherently subdued world. Thinking out loud, the legislative bill is a legal turn-off, a senseless ordinance that discriminates against commuters who love (actually, coerced to conform ) to bypass the grim realities of bouncy jeepney adventures with jarring pumps of smooth jazz decibels.

This revives some hazy memories when I was a lowly medical student in Cebu who learned to tag taxicab as a chariot for the moneyed and fatally grandiose minority and as a masked variance of "highway robbery."  Sour graping aside, for peculiar organisms like me who subsisted on strangled resources and wallet-free budget (layman's vernacular: Por doy!), the only inexpensive mode to crosscut remote points without forking over our milk money was by enduring the choiced motorized engine of the masses.  If not for the whirling propulsion of Billboard Top Ten in those pulsating and finger-snapping sound systems, I would have ran amok from the liberal dabbing of secondary smoke from nicotine-puffing passengers; or I would not have preserved my sanity from the suicidal instinct of carbon monoxide-laced drivers who maneuvered their prized vehicles with twist-and-shout enthusiasm along  the screaming rhythm of the Beatles and the Searchers.  The agile, soaring vocal chops of the Cascades and of Cliff Richards were like echoing doses of aspirin.  Moreover, I vividly recall those intermittent poetic exchanges of cooing glances from the opposite sex - the ponytailed lasses who were brainwashed in Maria Clara's school of leg positioning and who traversed the highways with loose change (the Pordays) - that seemed to melt into wishful call-me-up-later yearnings, magnified by the velvety baritone drawl of Matt Monroe.  I’m pretty positive that without the enchanting and soothing magical burst of music, those choppy trips to downtown would have been anguished display of torments by necessity and those brilliant moments of optical sensuous delights would have concluded in lonely deaths in my greying intracranial vault years ago, like any distasteful realities.

That "stereo music disturbs the concentration of the driver and poses a traffic hazard" is a lengthy process to proclaim that auditory lullabies rot the brain, which falls under the category of discovering-snowball-in-hell odds.  It is an after-thought that is ginned up with dubious assumptions.  Pure hog wash!  In reality, the catchy and infectious tunes dazzle the faculties and sharpen the senses, and keep the road warriors well caffeinated, tapping on the wheels and zooming by like oxygen-fortified hyperkinetic squirrels.  Such god-awful governmental restriction will never swim through in American soil without spawning public rancor and a messy verbal brawl.  A politician's tympanic membrane will likely be perforated before he can advocate his initial preachings.  There is just no way that a Caucasian motorist will thump his chest with a litany of mea culpas to a police officer because he saturated (a misdemeanor in first degree?) the ecosystem with amplified Wu Tang’s rap lyrics.

Oh well, I have to refrain from further emotional dissection in order to nurse a cardiac pumper that just flips a double skip beats from entertaining such insane judicial act which distinctly breaks with the past.  Of course, it is a no-brainer for me to freely spin negative remarks as I'm not bound by the law of the land.  But, for Pete's sake, Chief, don't be a snarling bully and spoil the old-world charm of the good old times.   At the height of your own frail limit, be considerate and extend to each and every Dodong and Inday the liberty to waltz their glandular convulsions and bemused gazes in melodic daydream under the serenely passionate orchestration of Celine Dion.  Contaminating the daily ride with rocking aural assault is a sure-fire technique to ditch the lethal heat wave and the inevitable convention of assorted body odors - sweaty, cologne-modified, lightly water-sprinkled and whatever flavor of the day.  Feel the thunder for a day, boss, and I bet, you'll drown in anguished sobs from the weepy goodbyes of your LPs and 8-tracks.
 
 

As I have reported earlier in my series, Maundy Thursday here is a working day. Instead, we have Easter Monday as an added public holiday. And this is a favourite time for city dwellers to escape the concrete jungle and go for the country areas for camping trip with fishing, swimming and other relaxing activities.

The exodus would start on the evening of Maundy Thursday and main arteries such as freeways would soon be a traffic jam. The return trip would be around afternoon of Easter Monday.   And it is around this time that statistics about death on the road are the most high.  The authorities in this state started implementing "double demerit" points on drivers' license who violated any traffic rules during this period.  A driver license here has 12 points and any demerit point will stay for 3 years.

This Easter long weekend, 22,000 drivers were booked for over speeding.  A few hundreds for drunk driving and we had only 3 deaths related to road accident which is the lowest record in the state in 50 years!

Sydney has a population of around 4.5 million people.  About half of these are Roman Catholics.  And for the last 12 months, the greater Sydney area had only ordained one, yes only one as priest!  Nobody wants to be a Catholic priest anymore. Why? It is the celibacy issue.  The most unnatural lifestyle any man had to endure.  This is a very critical issue for the modern church today. No new recruits to replace the aging priests.

Many don't realize why the church imposes this strict rule on its priests.  This started in the 11th century when Pope Gregory VII had to tackle the church problems of simony and nicolaitism.  Because the priests then were married or had concubine, the properties of the church were often claimed by the wives or offspring of the clergy when he passed away. To avoid this problem, celibacy was imposed ever since!

Protestants were in majority in Australia until recently when Roman Catholic overtook their numbers.  This was due to the influx of Irish migrants, plus Vietnamese refugees and the large number of Filipino migrants coming every year.  A western suburb in Sydney where most of the Filipino reside, the activities of the Catholic church are dominated by the Filipinos.
During Good Fridays, the re-enactment of the sufferings of the Son of God played by Filipinos devotees, a la Pampanga style such as the crucifixion, has attracted attention throughout the New South Wales state and has become a tourist attraction.

However, the main show in Sydney around this time is the Royal Easter Show which has been going on for the last 140 years. This is a two weeks giant agricultural extravaganza just like an industrial-agro fair during our fiesta in Iligan only in a much greater scale.  This is where the best products of Australia are exhibited.  This is to promote and reiterate that
Australia is basically an agricultural country.  The show this year is very special in the sense that it has moved to its brand new site after almost a century and a half. The Royal Easter Show, which is run by the Royal Agricultural Society, is now occupying a huge portion of Olympic Park at Homebush which will be the main venue for the Sydney Olympic in 2000.  Two weeks ago, the state of the art train station of Olympic Park was inaugurated and had passed all scrutinies and tests during this Easter Show moving people at the rate of 50,000 per hour which is a dry run for the biggest show on earth come 2000.
 

Sentimental Journey

By Henry L. Yu, M.D., Batch 1969

Thank you, Lord, for the greatest gift of my life, an M.D. after my name.  At last!

... for helping me get into residency training in the field of my choice; for the memories of those years as a resident physician: the joy of seeing a morbid patient live again; the heartbreaking drama of seeing a cancer patient suffer; the experience of signing a certificate of live birth, or a death certificate; for the first paycheck, a portion of which I offered to Your altar, and a part of which I used to buy a gift for mama and papa.

... for the thrills and anxieties of finishing my residency training; for the ambivalent feelings of being a private practitioner who will be left all by own thereafter.

... for Your knowledge and wisdom; for reminding me to be humble and charitable at all times; for reminding me that I am but a passing visitor who, like the rest, will be gone at a time You know.

... for the family you have created in my midst, where You are most important; where you make us feel Your presence each time we kneel in prayer.

... for giving me the chance to experience how it is to be a husband; for giving me a wife who accepts me for what I am.

... for giving me the chance to experience being a father, for giving me two lovely daughters who will, someday, be thanking you too for allowing me and their mommy to meet.

And now, here I am, Lord, Your son, Your instrument in Your Healing Ministry.  I know I am nothing without You.  I live in the assurance that You will not grant me something which we cannot handle together.  Thank you, Lord, for being there always during the good times and carrying me during the bad times.

Looking back to the forty six summers of my life, I cannot thank You enough, Lord, for the abundant graces and blessings You gave and continue to give to me.  For the miracles and mercies You give to my life.  For Your faithfulness.

For the cycle of life and all ... thank You, Lord.
 

Dear Dr. Do Little:

What is the difference between Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease? Is it possible for a person to be afflicted with Alzheimer's at an early age of 40?--A Spectrum reader, Cebu, Philippines

Dear Spectrum Reader,

Here is the answer to your questions about Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases.  They are both demyelinating and degenerative Central Nervous System diseases. The main difference is that the primary manifestation in Parkinson's Disease is the Motor System which means locomotor while in Alzheimer's, it is the memory.

Parkinson's disease or Paralysis agitans affects the dopaminergic fibers of the substantia nigra and the striatum of the basal ganglia thus involves the brain's neurotransmitter. This is a slowly progressive disorder of unknown cause usually affects elderly males, causing intentional tremors (tremors gets worse with purposeful movements), rigidity, and slow labored muscular activity. This condition is common among elderly boxers which has something to do with trauma to the basal ganglia during jarring of the head resulting to gradual degeneration and loss of the nerve cells with gliosis (scarring) especially in the basal ganglia. MENTAL PROCESSES ARE NORMAL.

Alzheimer's, on the other hand, is a progressive dementing disorder that begins between the ages of 45 & 60. The cause is unknown but has a high genetic predisposition. Other causes may include slow virus infection, toxins & trauma. This condition affects more women than men. There is a widespread atrophy of the gyri (brain tissues) which is usually intense at the frontal lobes.  The characteristic form of nerve cell degeneration is neurofibrillary tangles wherein neurofibrils are thickened. This debilitating disease is usually manifested as forgetfulness of the recent events and later on the past events. For example, you introduce yourself to the patient or give her a simple instruction, she cannot recall anything that you told her.  She will have poor attention with gradual loss of functionality of the day to day normal  physiological tasks. MOTOR FUNCTIONS ARE INTACT.

Thank  you for your interest in Central Nervous System Diseases. Hope I am able to enlighten your inquisitive knowledge.

Sincerely,
Dr. Do Little
 

Hats off to the man down under,
No end of talents, a man full of wonder.
In Spectrum he called his parcel briefs,
Not underwears, just articles not to miss.

Please don't skip your column again next time,
Or we will spank you at your behind.
Now that we are caught under your spell,
Will you please weekly ring your bell!