Beating Dengue

I am publishing this on behalf of Mr. Alailima since i felt that this is very useful for SriLankans at this moment.

By       Talavou Alailima
Founder and Chairman of Power World Gyms

In the early hours of the 19th April 2012, the doctors of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) Medical Intensive care (MICU) were fighting to save the life of my 5 month baby son Jason, after having been diagnosed with a severe attack of dengue. It was the first time LRH-MICU had dealt with such a badly managed dengue case of a baby in its history, and the job of not only dealing with this severe dengue attack, but also undoing the damage done due to the bad management of Jason’s dengue, fell into the hands of a brilliant young pediatrician Dr. Daham de silva who was a senior registrar at the hospital. If not for his out of the box, bold and aggressive treatment of Jason, with the support of Dr. Srilal de silva and Dr. Nalin Kithulwaththa the head consultants of the MICU, and God’s direct intervention of making the impossible, possible, Jason my son would have been lost.
Such a disaster deserves reflection on where I failed as a father and what I could have done better as a parent to have protected my 5 month baby from this dreadful disease. This write up is about sharing with you the lessons I learnt and what all of us should know and understand about what can and must be done, to beat dengue!

1. If your child is under the age of one year and gets fever, show the child to a board certified pediatrician immediately. Ideally, one who is also linked to a government hospital. Board certified means that their credentials are in order. The fact that they are also linked with a government hospital further confirms their qualification and also, if the situation goes terribly wrong, the government’s emergency setup is the best way to deal with life and death situations.
2. If your child has fever and you are concerned that it could be dengue, get a blood test called “Dengue Antigen”, as it tells you whether you have dengue or not even after one day of fever, unlike the standard “Dengue Antibody” blood test that needs several days of having fever before you can get a positive test for dengue. This delay in time of knowing whether your child has dengue or not, gives the virus more time to succeed in weakening your child’s ability to fight it.

3. Beating dengue is about knowing as early as possible whether you or your child has it, because at such an early stage you or your child’s platelet count may even be within the normal range and you can win the fight with ease from that position of strength.
This was the case with my 3 year old second son Jonathan who got fever just a day after my 5 month baby Jason, and was warded in the hospital for dengue as well. The Dengue Antigen blood test showed he was positive for dengue but the platelet count was at 160,000 just above the lower end of the normal range. Because we were able to react early with this information, the lowest the platelet count was able to go was 80,000 before it turned around.

4. Even though it is said that there is no treatment for dengue, the indirect treatment for dengue does save lives. Balancing the intake and outflow of fluids is critical and at the heart of the solution. Roughly 50% of deaths are due to the mismanagement of dengue and 50% is due to a delay in providing treatment for dengue. Many hospitals and doctors are getting this balancing act wrong, more times than we are willing to believe. So, please don’t take your eyes off the ball, believing that the doctor or hospital will not get it wrong and everything will be fine.

5. The dengue virus' goal is to create a deficiency of vital nutrients to other life sustaining cells while it attacks important organs. The virus however, has only a maximum of a 6 day window to do this, from the day that the fever first appears. If it fails to overcome us within that window of time, we win! The proper management of dengue is to keep supplying the vital nutrients etc., to the body to support its ability to fight. The Full Blood Count test and a few others taken every 6 to 12 hours help us to know the direction of the attack, so that we can counter attack it by knowing how to support the body. This kind of support and management of dengue is the only way to beat it. Therefore, who the doctor is and where this support is provided is absolutely critical and central to the battle.

6. When you have fever, only take Panadol as a principle! Do not take any other fever reducing medicine such as Dolor, Brufen etc. If you do, and you or your child has dengue, and the fight goes down to the wire, this will tip the balance against you. The simple reason being that most other fever reducing medication has the ability to increase the leaking of blood from vessels and organs which begins to take place in dengue patients when the platelet counts go below 100,000.

7. What drove me to cycle in a fever medication, in between the 6 hourly Panadol dose when my second son Jonathan of three got fever, was the fear of him getting a fit if the fever rose too high which, I feared could lead to brain damage or so I thought. I believe I am not alone in this line of thinking and that is why I am addressing this issue as well.

I am told that such fear is misplaced and that brain damage does not take place if your child gets a fit as a result of high fever. If a fit does take place, turn the child on to his/her left and within 5 minutes the fit will end. However, if the fit extends beyond 10 minutes, show the child to a doctor to confirm that all is fine.

If the fever rises between Panadol doses, tepid sponge the child to bring comfort. Tepid sponging also does not guarantee that a fit will not take place in a child that may have a history of having fits because of fever or has a family history of such fits taking place.

If we follow the above instructions diligently, beating the dengue virus will be a walk in the park!

Ten Inspirational quotes to brighten your day

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” – Albert Ellis

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” – Bill Copeland

“If what you’re doing is not your passion, you have nothing to lose.” - Unknown author

“The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” - Unknown author

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

“All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

“What the mind can conceive, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.” – Seneca

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Porn & addiction...sex out of context

On a cold, dark night, there's nothing better than a blazing fire in the fireplace. You can pile on the wood and let it burn nice and warm. It's safe, warm, relaxing and romantic. Now take that same fire out of the fireplace (which was built for it) and drop it in the middle of the living room. Suddenly it becomes destructive. It can burn down the whole house and kill everyone inside. Sex is like that fire. As long as it's expressed in the protective commitment of a marriage relationship, it's wonderful, warm and romantic. But porn takes sex outside that context.

It's a big business that makes a lot of money and doesn't care how. They'll show you whatever they think will make you come back and buy more. "There were 11,000 porn video titles last year versus 400 movie releases from Hollywood last year...[and] 70,000 pornographic web sites."1

What Fuels Porn Addiction
One of the most vital parts of mental environment is a healthy idea of who we are sexually. If these ideas are polluted, a critical part of who we are becomes twisted. The porn culture tells you that sex, love and intimacy are all the same thing. In porn, people have sex with total strangers -- people they just met. All that matters is my satisfaction. It doesn't matter whose body I'm using, as long as I get it. Porn gets you to think that sex is something you can have anytime, anywhere, with anyone, with no consequences.

The problem with porn's shallow perspective is that relationships are not built on sex, but on commitment, caring and mutual trust. In that context, like fire in the fireplace, sex is wonderful. Being with someone who loves and accepts you, someone who is committed to you for your whole lives together, someone you can give yourself completely to, that is what makes sex really great.

To Find Freedom from Porn Addiction: Recognize the Lies
You can't learn the truth about sex from pornography. It doesn't deal in truth. Pornography is not made to educate, but to sell. So, pornography will tell whatever lies attract and hold the audience. Porn thrives on lies -- lies about sex, women, marriage and a lot of other things. Let's look at some of those lies and see just how badly they can mess up your life and attitudes.

Lie #1 - Women are less than human
The women in Playboy magazine are called "bunnies," making them cute little animals or "playmates," making them a toy. Penthouse magazine calls them "pets." Porn often refers to women as animals, playthings, or body parts. Some pornography shows only the body or the genitals and doesn't show the face at all. The idea that women are real human beings with thoughts and emotions is played down.

Lie #2 - Women are a "sport"
Some sports magazines have a "swimsuit" issue. This suggests that women are just some kind of sport. Porn views sex as a game and in a game, you have to "win," "conquer," or "score." Men who buy into this view like to talk about "scoring" with women. They start judging their manhood by how many "conquests" they can make. Each woman I "score" with is another trophy on my shelf, another "notch" in my belt to validate my masculinity.

Lie #3 - Women are property
We've all seen the pictures of the slick car with the sexy girl draped over it. The unspoken message, "Buy one, and you get them both." Hard-core porn carries this even further. It displays women like merchandise in a catalog, exposing them as openly as possible for the customer to look at. It's not surprising that many young men think that if they have spent some money taking a girl out, they have a right to have sex with her. Porn tells us that women can be bought.

Lie #4 - A woman's value depends on the attractiveness of her body
Less attractive women are ridiculed in porn. They are called dogs, whales, pigs or worse, simply because they don't fit into porn's criteria of the "perfect" woman. Porn doesn't care about a woman's mind or personality, only her body.

Lie #5 - Women like rape
"When she says no, she means yes" is a typical porn scenario. Women are shown being raped, fighting and kicking at first, and then starting to like it. Porn teaches men to enjoying hurting and abusing women for entertainment.

Lie #6 - Women should be degraded
Porn is often full of hate speech against women. Women are shown being tortured and humiliated in hundreds of sick ways and begging for more. Does this kind of treatment show any respect for women? Any love? Or is it hatred and contempt that porn is promoting toward women?

Lie #7 - Little kids should have sex
One of the biggest sellers in pornography is imitation "child" porn. The women are "made-up" to look like little girls by wearing pony tails, little girl shoes, holding a teddy bear. The message of the pictures and cartoons is that adults having sex with kids is normal. This sets the porn user up to see children in a sexual way.

Lie #8 - Illegal sex is fun
Porn often has illegal or dangerous elements thrown in to make sex more "interesting." It suggests that you can't enjoy sex if it isn't weird, illegal or dangerous.

Lie #9 - Prostitution is glamorous
Porn paints an exciting picture of prostitution. In reality, many of the women portrayed in pornographic material are runaway girls trapped in a life of slavery. Many having been sexually abused. Some of them are infected with incurable sexually transmitted diseases that are highly contagious and often die very young. Many take drugs just to cope.
Bottom Line of Porn Addiction
Pornography makes a profit from the ruined lives of young women and entraps men who will spend lots of time AND money succumbing to their product.

We might think that the things we see and hear don't affect us. Yet we all admit that good music, good movies and good books add a lot to our lives. They can relax us, educate us, move us or inspire us. Just as uplifting media can benefit us, pornographic images can negatively affect us.

Images are not always neutral. They can persuade us. Businesses know that if they can get a persuasive image of their product in front of you during a highly emotional moment, it will sink into your subconscious mind. The advertising scientists are so good at what they do, they can predict just how much more of their product you will buy if you see their ad. Sometimes, viewers don't even see the name of the product. Reese's Pieces paid a huge price just to have their candy shown for a few seconds in the movie "ET," and sales of Reese's Pieces skyrocketed. Why? Because the emotions connected with watching that small boy reaching out to the alien were transferred to the visual image of the candy. If a split second view of a product -- even when it's not the center of attention -- can affect people's behavior, imagine the effect of a movie that keeps your attention glued to the screen for an hour and a half with sexually explicit images.

What are the effects of pornography on a man?
What kinds of ideas is porn putting into our heads? If the wrong things keep getting dumped in, your mental environment can get so polluted that your life is going to have problems. One of the most vital parts of mental environment is a healthy idea of who we are sexually. If these ideas are polluted, a critical part of who we are becomes twisted.

Porn Addiction: The Pull of Pornography
Not everyone who sees porn will become addicted. Some will just come away with toxic ideas about women, sex, marriage, and children. However, some will have some kind of emotional opening that allows the addiction to really grab hold. The porn companies don't mind at all if you become completely addicted to their product. It's great for business. Dr. Victor Cline has divided the progress of addiction into several stages; addiction, escalation, desensitization, and acting out. For porn addicts, I've found that there is another stage that comes first -- early exposure. Let's look at these stages:

EARLY EXPOSURE
Most guys who get addicted to porn start early. They see porn when they are very young and it gets its foot in the door.

PORN ADDICTION
You keep coming back to porn. It becomes a regular part of your life. You're hooked and can't quit.

ESCALATION
You start to look for more graphic pornography. You start using porn that disgusted you earlier. Now, it excites you.

DESENSITIZATION
You start to become numb to the images you see. Even the most graphic porn doesn't excite you any more. You become desperate to feel the same thrill again, but you can't find it.

ACTING OUT SEXUALLY
This is the point where men make a crucial jump and start acting out the images they have seen. Some move from the paper and plastic images of porn into the real world, with real people, in destructive ways.

Porn Addiction: Am I Addicted?
If you see any of these patterns in your life, you need to put the brakes on right now. Is porn becoming more and more in control of your life? Do you have trouble putting it down? Do you keep going back for more?

Porn Addiction: What Can I Do?
The first thing you've got to do is admit that you struggle with pornography. Believe me, you are not strange or unusual if you do. Millions of men are at various stages in the struggle with porn. It's really not surprising. The porn industry has spent billions of dollars trying to snare you. Is it really shocking that they have succeeded? For some of you there may also be issues in your past, such as abuse or sexual exposure, that makes porn addiction even harder to shake. There is only so much you can do in fighting addiction without help.

You need someone to help you break this addiction. Overcoming the secrecy is absolutely vital. You probably can't escape addiction without it. That doesn't mean everyone has to know you're struggling. Pick someone you can trust who counsels men who are having problems with addiction -- a pastor, youth group leader or counselor. Someone you can completely trust, feel safe with and has experience in the area of addiction isn't going to be surprised.

Is There Any Freedom from Porn Addiction?
Pornography entraps you with lies. In contrast, God can lead us into truth. Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."2 Those who heard Jesus say this were offended and countered, "We have never been slaves of anyone, how can you say that we shall be set free?"3 And Jesus explained that people are enslaved to sin, but that He can set you free.4

Sin not only enslaves us, but it distances us from God. And no one is perfect. No one is righteous in God's eyes. Instead we're told that "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way."5 We all deserve God's judgment and punishment. Yet God, who is holy and loving, provided a solution for our sin, so that we would not have to be justly condemned. He personally took the punishment for our sin on Himself. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was tortured and died on the cross for our sin so that we could be forgiven. Three days later Jesus rose from the dead, just as He said He would. And He now offers you a relationship with Him. One of the most amazing statements in the Bible is this one, "If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."6

The Most Important Relationship
In your search for intimacy and love, pornography is an empty substitute for real love. We have been created by God to have our intimacy needs met most deeply by God Himself. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."7 In contrast to the darkness and destruction that pornography can bring to people's lives, Jesus said, "I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly."8 God offers you his forgiveness through a relationship with Him. Do you want to ask Him to forgive you and come into your life? You can tell Him right now. If you need help putting this into words, here is prayer that might help:

"Lord Jesus, I am aware of my sin, and I know that you are also. I ask you to forgive me and cleanse me. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I ask you to come into my life right now and begin to work in my life. Direct my life as you see fit. Thank you for your forgiveness and for coming into my life right now."

This article is taken from this website.
http://www.everystudent.com/wires/toxic.html

ජනතා අපේක්ෂා සහ සරත් ෆොන්සේකා ගේ නිදහස

දිනෙන් දිනම ජිවන බරින් තෙරපෙමින් සිටි ජනතාවට තමන් මුහුණ දෙමින් සිටින ප්‍රශ්න අමතක කරවීමට මේ ආණ්ඩුව විටින් විට නොයෙකුත් ප්‍රයෝග ක්‍රියාත්මක කරනු දැක ගත හැකි විය. මෙම ක්‍රියාදාමයේ නවතම විකාශය වන්නේ සරත් ෆොන්සේකා මහතා නිදහස් කිරීමය.

එතුමා ගේ නිදහස් වීම මගින් ආණ්ඩුව එක ගලෙන් කුරුල්ලන් දෙදෙනෙකු මරා ගැනීමට සමත් වී ඇති බවක් පෙනෙන්නට ඇත. ඉන් පළමු කරුණ ඉහත විස්තර කල කරුණය. දෙවැන්න නම් දිනෙන් දින ඉහල යමින් තිබු ෆොන්සේකා මහතා ගේ ජනප්‍රියත්වය එතුමා හරහා ම බින්දුවට බැස්සිමය. සිර ගෙදරින් නිදහස් වූ ෆොන්සේකා මහතා ගෙන් ජනතාව අපේක්ෂා කලේ යුධ අපරාධ හෝ හමුදා බැරැක්ක ඉවත් කිරීම ගැන ප්‍රකාශ නිකුත් කිරීම නොවන බව එතුමා තේරුම් ගෙන නැත.ඇත්ත නම් එතුමාට ඒවා තේරුම් ගැනීමට අවශ්‍ය තාවයක් නැති බවය.

මන්ද යත් එතුමා තමන් තනිවම යුද්ධය දිනවූ බව ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමට නිතර උත්සුක වීමෙන් පෙනී යන්නේ එතුමා තම පෞද්ගලික දේශපාලන උවමනාවන් වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටිනව මිස එතුමාට ජනතාව ගැන කැක්කුමක් නැති බවය. සරත් ෆොන්සේකා මහතා ගේ නිදහස් වීම පිලිබඳ වැඩිම බලාපොරොත්තු තබාගෙන සිටියේ එතුමාට චන්දය දුන් මෙරට යමක් කමක් තේරුම් ගත හැකි බුද්ධිමත් ජනතාව බව අප ට පෙනෙන්නට තිබුණි. නමුත් එතුමා නිදහස් වී සති දෙකක් ගතවෙන්නටත් පළමුව එතුමා ගේ ප්‍රකාශ මගින් අපට පෙනී යන්නේ එතුමා සහ මෙරට පාලක පන්තිය අතර වෙනසක් නැති බවය. එසේ නම් ජනතාව නැවතත් අපේක්ෂා භංගත්වයට  පත්වී ඇත.

Difference between TCP and UDP internet protocols

TCP	UDP
Reliability: TCP is connection-oriented protocol. When a file or message send it will get delivered unless connections fails. If connection lost, the server will request the lost part. There is no corruption while transferring a message.	Reliability: UDP is connectionless protocol. When you a send a data or message, you don't know if it'll get there, it could get lost on the way. There may be corruption while transferring a message.
Ordered: If you send two messages along a connection, one after the other, you know the first message will get there first. You don't have to worry about data arriving in the wrong order.	Ordered: If you send two messages out, you don't know what order they'll arrive in i.e. no ordered
Heavyweight: - when the low level parts of the TCP "stream" arrive in the wrong order, resend requests have to be sent, and all the out of sequence parts have to be put back together, so requires a bit of work to piece together.	Lightweight: No ordering of messages, no tracking connections, etc. It's just fire and forget! This means it's a lot quicker, and the network card / OS have to do very little work to translate the data back from the packets.
Streaming: Data is read as a "stream," with nothing distinguishing where one packet ends and another begins. There may be multiple packets per read call.	Datagrams: Packets are sent individually and are guaranteed to be whole if they arrive. One packet per one read call.
Examples: World Wide Web (Apache TCP port 80), e-mail (SMTP TCP port 25 Postfix MTA), File Transfer Protocol (FTP port 21) and Secure Shell (OpenSSH port 22) etc.	Examples: Domain Name System (DNS UDP port 53), streaming media applications such as IPTV or movies, Voice over IP (VoIP), Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) and online multiplayer games etc

4 steps for dropping into peaceful meditation – at your desk

Whether you have a strong practice or are just starting out, here are some building blocks for creating mindfulness at work. A note of caution: If you receive lots of interruptions, consider closing your door, putting up a sign, or going someplace where you can be alone for five to 10 minutes.

1. Perk up your posture.

Sitting at desks, we spend most of the day slouching forward. Do your spine a favor and sit up tall in the middle of the chair, without the chair back's support. Place both feet flat on the ground. Rest your palms on your thighs and gently drop your shoulders away from your ears and your shoulder blades together on your back. Tuck your chin down just slightly and pull your belly in and up. Take a nice, deep breath and close your eyes.

2. Tune in to your breath.

Spend a minute or so simply breathing. Follow the breath as it moves up and down the spine, and be aware that the breath is not just in the front body ­– it's a 360-degree effort. Notice how the side bodies expand and how the back body responds. A great technique that Burdulis shared is noticing the temperature of the breath above the upper lip and how it changes on the inhale and exhale.

3.  Relax the whole body.

As you continue to breathe slow, deep breaths, begin to relax your body. I like to start either with the feet and work to the crown of the head, or vice versa. Bring your awareness to each portion of your body and mentally give it permission to relax. Don't skip your jaw, your eyes and your forehead, common tension-holders in addition to our shoulders and hips.

4. Truly listen – first, without and then within.

Now that you're relaxed, bring your awareness to what's outside of you. Listen as if through earmuffs, allowing the sounds to exist but not becoming attached to them. Now, shift your focus completely internal, listening to the sounds within your body such as your breath and heart beat. If you can't hear yourself, simply strive to hear. Sit in this way for five to 10 minutes. As thoughts arise, simply bring your focus back to the breath.

You might find it hard at first to concentrate or detach yourself from the day's stress, but don't judge or second-guess yourself. There is no right way to meditate, and there is no failure. Any quiet moment of reflection will do, if only a nanosecond. As Burdulis said: "I don't know anybody who won't benefit from this."

The key is to keep at it. Schedule yourself mindfulness appointments and stick to them. The more you practice, the "easier" it will be to drop inward and find your center amidst a busy workday.

Abraham Lincoln’s letter to his son’s Head Master

Abraham Lincoln’s letter to his son’s Head Master

Respected Teacher,

• My son will have to learn I know that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for ever scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend.

• It will take time, I know; but teach him, if you can, that a dollar earned is far more valuable than five found.

• Teach him to learn to lose and also to enjoy winning.

• Steer him away from envy, if you can.

• Teach him the secret of quite laughter. Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to tick.

• Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books.. but also give him quiet time to ponder over the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and flowers on a green hill –side.

• In school teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat.

• Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if every one tells him they are wrong.

• Teach him to be gentle with gentle people and tough with the tough.

• Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when every one is getting on the bandwagon.

• Teach him to listen to all men but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

• Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad. Teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness.

• Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders; but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul.

• Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob… and to stand and fight if he thinks he’s right.

• Treat him gently; but do not cuddle him because only the test of fire makes fine steel.

• Let him have the courage to be impatient, let him have the patience to be brave. Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind.

This is a big order; but see what you can do. He is such a fine little fellow, my son.


Abraham Lincoln.