Happy New Year 2014 !!

I wish all of you a very very happy and prosperous new year 2014 !! May all your dreams come true this year.

This the new year Rangoli by my 6 year old daughter :)

My daughter's School Annual day celebration...

It was Annual day celebration in my daughter's school that day. My daughter was participating in 2 performances that day and we have been asked to dress them up for the performances. I started to collect all the accessories for her for both the dresses, one a party wear and the other, traditional wear.

As the D-day came, i got excited to see my daughter and all other children on stage. I made her sleep for couple of hours during the morning session, as i thought she would be OK in the afternoon session during the function...Then i started packing all the items for her and we started to the hotel around 2:45. We reached the place by 3:15. My daughter got excited to see her school mates there and she started running towards them. We both got equally excited :)

The welcome board at the entrance looked very good. They collected the invitation cards and let us inside. There was hand painting going on for kids at one corner and she preferred to have roses in her left hand. We roamed around for sometime and found place in the first row thinking we would be able to see the performances clearly :)

It was time for the program to start and me and my hubby went to the dressing room to dress up my daughter. She was very happy to wear the dress, its accessories and all the new things.

First was the apple kids prayer which was performed by the Pre-KG children. Then came a another performance by pre-kg kids on "Good habits". Third is the apple kids song by playgroup children, in which my daughter participated. That was a beautiful performance by them and on seeing the others everybody started performing :) Then was a magic show followed by few performances by Pre-KG children again. At the end is the performance for the song "Mile Sur Mera thumara" by children from both playgroup and Pre-KG.

Then is the certificate and the prize distribution for the kids. That was a wonderful moment for all the parents. Be it playgroup or Engineering or what ever it is, when the kids get a chance to enter the stage, thats the best moment for the parents. My daughter gave us the pride 5 times, when she received her certificate, 2 medals for coming up first in 2 sports events, a prize for coming up second in fancy dress competition and a cup for star performance for the year !!

That was a wonderful day for my parents too, as they enjoyed a lot seeing my daughter getting recognised.

We took photographs of our daughter with all her teachers and aunties and then had a high tea and left for the day. We completed the excitement by having dinner in a restaurant. :)

As a token of appreciation, her dad got a phonetics story book from Crossword for her.

Plateletapheresis

It was last friday night when i was busy preparing dinner, my husband got a call from one of the society that arranges for blood donation in case of need. They asked for B+ve platelets to be donated for a patient who is in serious condition. We have no idea on what this platelet donation is all about and so i called my family doctor and got it confirmed that its safe to proceed.

We had our dinner and rushed to the hospital at around 9 in the night. Preliminary test is done and they confirmed that my hubby can go ahead for donation. Meantime we went to see the patient for whom we had been asked for the platelets. We understood from his relatives that his platelet count has come down to 8000 while the normal range is 1.5 Lakh - 4.5 Lakh. We spoke to him for few mins and left to another hospital where Plateletapheresis is done.

When we reached there it was 1130 pm where some formalities had to completed before the process actually started. It started around 1200 am and got completed by 1. The process continued for 4 times which had resulted in 210 ml in which we were told there will be around lakh platelets. During the process my hubby felt numbness around his lips and they immediately gave calcium tablets. During the third round, they provided a cup of hot tea which also helped him warm up his body. After the process is over, they advised my hubby to walk around for 15 mins and not to drive any vehicle immediately. We took rest for nearly 20 mins and started back. It was 140 when we reached the hospital, where we dropped the patient's relatives and handed over the platelets. We then drove back to home and it was 230 in the night when we reached home.

Morning we got a call from the patient's brother that his platelet count has increased to 90000 from 8000 and he is quite stable. We both felt very happy and that was the most satisfying week end that we had.

People who are interested can please register in http://www.indianblooddonors.com/

Some information on Platelets: (Thanks to Manju for sharing this information)

What are platelets?

To tell in a simple way there are present in our blood like RBC, WBC atc. They help in blood clotting (ratham uraithaluku udhavi seiyum)

Why are they important?

When there is a cut in your body and when u bleed these platelets stop that beeding and help your blood to clot.

What will happen when the platelets count go down?

The main danger is that it can cause internal bleeding, like bleeding in your brain or very delicate internal organ. The patient can bleed to death.

How long the platelets live?

The platelets are continually renewed in our body. They live for 10-12 days. Once when u donate platelets they are replenished within 72h.

Where are platelets produced?

In our bone marrow (elumbu majainu solluvangala athula)

Who needs platelet donation?
Cancer patients, bone marrow transplant patients, patients who receive chemotherapy, dengue patients etc. For blood cancer patients they give chemotherapy which can kill all blood cells in his body. So the platelet count also goes down. That is the reason they need platelet donation.

Is platelet donation safe?
YES

How are platelets collected?

The process of seperation of platelets from other blood components is called apheresis. Now there are sophisticated machines which seperate platelets from other blood components

Valentines day............

I start getting up excited after new year for this day....Its another day that screws up my mind for starting to think about what to do to make the day remembered....This year, after so much thoughts i ended up planning for a handmade greeting card for my husband and to get some cute little gift for my angel.....I picked up the idea of doing some simple embroidery pattern on a chart paper and painting it with red in the outside.......the embroidery didn't come well since the chart paper i chose was not so thick....somehow managed to complete it and i made it ready by eve of Feb 13th. Both of us had to sit and complete some of our official duty during the night and so i got a chance to present him the card exactly at 12 in the night....our celebrations started nicely then...:)

Feb 14th, we started out to Big bazaar as my hubby wanted to have the audio CD of "Vinnai thandi varuvaya" as a Valentines day gift. Same place i purchased a cute piggy bank for my daughter. We started to Forum mall from there....The mall was nicely decorated full of red hearts with cute teddy bear on it. We roamed around to almost all the shops....My daughter had a nice time in Crossword as she got excited on seeing so much of books....Archie's had a very nice collection of gift items and greeting cards...It was lunch time then when we entered the food court....after seeing almost all the shops, we finally decided to go for Pizza as it was very long time since we ate Pizza....The pizzas at the 'Pizza Corner' cannot be compared with any other shops....we had a veg pizza with couple of garlic breads....then decided to have ice cream for which we entered mamamia.....The ice cream that we got had excellent taste.....

Some more fun was waiting for us at the ground floor, where it was decorated with a big heart with a bunch of beautiful red roses in the front...We took couple of photos in front of that. There was some children ride there which my daughter enjoyed a lot...Then it was time for the movie "Tamizh Padam". We both enjoyed the movie from the beginning till the end as we were just laughing during the whole movie time. It was 6 in the eve now and it was time to return back to our sweet home....

2010 Valentines day went by so nicely with lots of fun and remembrance....:) hope to have much more fun and joy in the all the remaining years....