I just returned from visiting a friend and colleague who is recovering from surgery to treat a subdural hematoma. He was operated upon last morning and is well on way to recovery, thanks to advances in medical science. The hospital where he is undergoing treatment is one that I know and has an excellent history of making a patient feel comfortable, the Crosslay Pushpanjali Hospital. I wish him a speedy recovery. That said, I have always maintained that tolerance is the first line of treatment for most diseases, except perhaps metabolic diseases and orthopedic injuries because, the body has a way of healing itself. The word homeostasis was introduced to me by Dr. Anurag Agrawal. It means the general tendency of a system like the human body to come back to its natural state if disturbed slightly and then left alone. All systems from a garden swing to a bereaved family exhibit this. This concept assumes a zero or neutral value to which disturbed systems eventually revert back. Going further, Enantiostasis is another mechanism which can adjust this zero or neutral value to counter the change in external circumstances. As a trivial example, a shy person who has learnt to keep himself out of the limelight by homeostasis, can if thrust under the limelight, perform satisfactorily, if not magnificently. Physiological examples abound, and can be read in abundance in the Net. Together, these innate strengths, belief and faith in some power that is higher than you (which remedy is unfortunately lost to us atheists), and placebos, blessings of elders, love, a desire to be healthy and productive, the negative emotion of fatalism etc. can often treat or at worst ameliorate most illnesses, and indeed doctors themselves say so. It is therefore that I reiterate that the first line of treatment except in emergencies should be tolerance (and prayer for believers in god) Greek is an interesting language. It is therefore that I, who had for long believed, that heama meaning blood and tomos meaning cut (I have been teaching tomos meaning cut for decades to my students in the context of an atom) together constitute a blood cut (sounds meaningless doesnt it? - thats what I thought), learnt that in Greek, like in Malayalam, where the consonant th can become l in a compounded word (Tat+samayam becomes talsamayam), in hematoma, toma is actually soma or body. A body of blood. Such transformations of sound and hence meaning exist in French and other languages too. A hematoma is a body of blood. Where? Many amateur carpenters have hit a hammer on their thumbnails rather than on the iron nail head, and have developed a red-blue-black nail for some time. That is a hematoma. People with uneven teeth bite their cheeks and develop a black wart on the inside of their cheeks, and that is hematoma. My wife slaps me hard on my cheeks and I develop a bluish tinge under my eyes and that is hematoma. Beating someone black and blue is giving him hematoma. Eventually these heal. Subdural hematomas heal too. But if they do not then it is dangerous because they have occurred in the vicinity of a very crucial and delicate organ, the brain. But everything said and done, tolerate. Your problems will vanish. Narasimha Rao taught us that. But if it is close to your head or heart, act. Narendra Modi taught us that.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 15:17:46 +0000
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