3 posts from January 2008

        

               I can never forget his face, his smile, his eyes, and his cute little dimple.  It's been days since I have been dreaming about the past love that I have lost.  And I kept thinking and trying to remember what happened between us that made us fall apart.

             I was reminiscing the time we had and it was quite a past.  We had a lot of fun memories together, although we also shared some bad times.  But that is always a part of a relationship.  I

was wondering why we never talked about why we lost each other.  We were too young, I guess.  We were so in love and I thought it was forever, but I was wrong.  I still have love for him but it's not as strong as before.  I can only love him as my friend now.  I loved him with all my heart.  Now that I remember, it was just a petty little thing that we never got to resolve until we just lost it.  We didn't talk it out like we used to, what if that didn't happen?  Would we still be together?  Are we happy together by now?  Some thoughts and questions circled my mind for quite sometime now.  I may not know the answer to that, but what I know right now is I have the new love of my life and I am not going to let go of this one just because of a little petty thing.

            You'll never know when it's going to attack.  Loose Bowel Movement or what we call diarrhea, is the passage of a watery or loose stool occurring more frequently than your usual bowel movement.  This sometimes occurs due to a simple irritation of the bowel.  But there are times that these happen because of an infection.  It is better to be aware of the symptoms and be able to know how to deal with it.  This actually leads to a serious kind of complications.

             The major concern in a child with diarrhea is the risk of being dehydrated, the loss of fluid and electrolytes, and the development of metabolic acidosis that may even lead to death.  It is dangerous because it can cause undernutrition because nutrients can be lost from the body during the frequent passage of stool and sometimes the parents may contribute to the undernutrition due to the lack of knowledge about it.  What the parents don't know is that they should allow the child to eat as much as they want mostly when they have diarrhea.  In that way, the excreted nutrition can be

replaced.

             Here are some pointers that you may observe and can be helpful during the diagnosis of the disease:

·        Character of the stool

      You should observe whether the stool is watery or just plain loose.  You can also check for the color of the stool, odor, and the consistency.

·        Pain and abdominal cramping

      Observe for the frequency of pain, what kind of pain whether it is cramping or twisting.

·        Dehydration

      This occurs when too much nutrients and fluid is lost.  And the main goal is to rehydrate the patient or the child.  The patient can be assessed by pinching the skin, this is for checking the skin turgor, whether the skins elasticity is lost.  Check for drying of the skin, and then this means that the patient has been severely dehydrated.  Other things that can be helpful to check for dehydration is the presence of a sunken eyeball, decreased urine output, cold clammy skin, weight loss, frequent thirst, and absence of tears during crying.

·        Fluid and electrolyte imbalance

      This may result due to too much fluid loss.  It can cause the child to have manifestations of weakness, confusion, and decrease response to stimuli.

·        Metabolic acidosis

      This occurs due to severe dehydration and malnutrition.  It may lead to drowsiness, stupor and even coma.

             The person with diarrhea can lose essential water and salts, so what we do is to prevent the

occurrence of dehydration.  There are 2 phases that can help:

      1.  Rehydration Phase

      This is the replacement of the fluid due to fluid and salt lost in stools and vomitus.

2.   Maintenance Phase

      It is the replacement of lost fluid during the ongoing diarrhea and vomiting.

 Some tips on how to deal with dehydration:

·        Treatment Plan A:  To prevent dehydration

            Explain to the mother on how to treat diarrhea at home.  By just simply following these 3 rules, your child can be prevented from getting dehydrated:

 

1.      Give your child a lot of fluids than the usual.  Give rice water, fruit juices, weak tea, soup, or salt and sugar solutions (ORS).  ORS stands for Oral Rehydrating Salts, you can actually make this at home by mixing 1 tsp of salt to a 8 tsp pf sugar and then add 1 liter of clean drinking water.

2.      Give your child food.  Don't scold the child from eating, at least the lost nutrients and fluids can be replenished, but give those foods that are easy to digest and contains potassium like banana, apple, and coconut juice.

3.      Watch for the signs of dehydration.  Bring your child if you suspect of dehydration, so the child can be treated by the experts.

·        Treatment Plan B:  To treat dehydration with ORS Solutions

            ORS is the standard recommended formula by WHO/UNICEF.  This has 4 constituents and should be discarded within 24 hours.

·        Treatment Plan C:  To treat severe dehydration quickly

            For infants, the mother should be advised to breastfeed or give milk formula in between ORS.

The most important thing to remember to prevent diarrhea is to wash your hands often.

As we all know there are several theories that might have influenced ones development and this sometimes explain of what we have become or what we will be in the future.  The development of human depends upon how we were raised or what has influenced as during the process of growing.  And this all boils down to the beginning of our developmental stages.  As the Psychosocial development theory of Erik Erickson describes the human as a series of eight ego developmental stages from birth to death.  Each stage represents a psychosocial crisis, of which the goal is to integrate physical, maturation, and societal demands.  Erickson says that Ego development is influenced by family, social, and other developmental factors.  In the Psychosocial development, there is a lifelong series of conflicts that is affected by the social and cultural factors.  By which each conflict must be resolved so that the child or adult can progress emotionally.  Unsuccessful resolution of these conflicts may leave the individual emotionally handicapped.

Erik Erickson Stages of development

• Trust vs. Mistrust stage - develops during infant stage; the infant develops the attachment to the mother.  And this will help an individual to have more trust in people, more faith and hope about the environment and the future.  But if this crisis never resolves, there can be general difficulties of the individual relating to people effectively, there will always be suspicions, trust-fear conflict, and fear of the future.  This depends upon the love and care that the mother shows her child.   If she neglects her child during the time of need like for example, when an infant cries and ignores it, of course the child will feel that she is not loved or wanted.  So mistrust develops, resulting to depression, withdrawal and even paranoia. 
• Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt stage - here the child develops some basic control over self and environment.  This explains how an individual develops a sense of self-control and adequacies giving the child the will power that will help us accomplish and build self-esteem during childhood and adolescence.  The parents must guide the child gradually and firmly but letting the child build their own independence, then the child develops ones autonomy.  Independence-fear conflict and severe feelings of self-doubt develops if this stage did not resolve.  Like if the parents are too permissive, harsh or demanding, the child may feel defeated and thus experience shame and doubt.  Since the independence is never developed, the child will embark upon neurotic attempts to regain feelings of control, power, and competency during growing up.  And this can cause the child to have obsessive behaviors.  But if the parents is too loose or the child was not given any limits or guidance then the child now gains to shame and doubt, and causes the child to be impulsive.
• Initiative vs. Guilt stage - develops during the late childhood.  The child here becomes purposeful and directive; there will abilities to initiate one's own activities, developing the sense of purpose.  The parents must be supportive and understanding of the child's efforts to show initiative, to help the child develop the sense of purpose, and sets goals and acts that they may reach it.  But if the child is being punished for showing initiative, leads to the development of guilt and may cause inhibition if done in excess.  The child may then feel the sense of inadequacy or guilt, and aggression-fear conflict may appear.  But of course if the parent allows the child to have too much purpose and no guilt even if the purpose is bad, then this may lead to ruthlessness, as such may achieve their goals without thinking or caring of those people that they may step on or hurt during the process. 
• Industry vs. inferiority stage - occurs during the school age.  This stage develops social, physical and school skills, developing competence and ability to learn and work on the process.  Not only the parents must support the child's effort to develop the sense of competence but also all the adults around him/her such as the teacher.  The child here tames their imagination and impulses, and tries to please others.  If the adults' supervising the child shows no support then the child develops inferiority, then inertia or helplessness occurs, driving the child to be an underachiever.  But too much competency, and the child advances too fast to be an adult, then this can now cause the child to be shallow or histrionic person.
• Identity vs. role confusion stage - develops during the adolescence stage.  The task here now is to develop the sense of identity.  The young adults now try on different identities, this we call identity crisis, using their friends to reflect back to them.  If they are able to resolve this crisis, then they develop fidelity, by which their abilities to gain different kind of friends.  But if an individual fails to resolve, identity diffusion sets in.  Their sense of self will be unstable and threatened.  Too little identity may lead them to join cults or hate groups, but too much of it may show fanaticism. 
• Intimacy vs. Isolation stage - the ability to love deeply and commit oneself now develops during the early adulthood enters.  Intimacy is developed by establishing intimate bonds of love and friendship, the ability to be close, loving, and the vulnerability to romance.  But the failure to develop intimacy brings on emotional isolation, egocentricity, and even promiscuity. 
• Generativity vs. Stagnation stage - middle adulthood, the stage of fulfilling life goals that involves family, career, and society.  This is as simple as the ability to give and care for others, and by having a strong sense of creativity and becoming successful develops generativity.  Stagnation develops if one is self-absorbed, feeling of little connection to others, and offers little to the society.  This may lead to rejectivity and a frustration to feel any sense of meaning or the inability to grow as a person such as those who are having the unresolved mid-life crisis.  But too much generativity may now lead to overextension, such as those people having no time for themselves because of being too busy. 
• Integrity vs. Despair stage -  this is when an individual looks back over one's life and accepting its meaning.  This entails the sense of integrity and fulfillment.  The individual must accept that their life is coming in an end, accepting all the successes and failures, ageing, and loss.  Unresolved crisis may follow dissatisfaction with life.  An individual may gain ego integrity and accept their lives if they succeed and establish a sense of wisdom by accepting death as it come.  But for those who do not feel despair may dread their death.  On the other hand, too much wisdom may lead to presumption, and too much despair leads to detest for life.

This is only one of the Developmental Theories that I used to explain what molds a person to become as such.