HISTORY AND PHYSICAL EXAMINATION

CHIEF COMPLAINT:  Headache for 6 days.

HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS:  The patient is a 31-year-old, gravida 3 para 3 with complaint of headache and fever to 103° over the last 6 days.  She complains of a headache being bandlike in nature and different than her usual migraine headaches which are left-sided in nature.  The patient had been feeling better yesterday without headache or fever and things got worse again today.   She reports nausea without vomiting but has had photophobia.  She denies history of drug abuse, foreign travel, or meningitis exposure.

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION:

GENERAL:  The patient is a well-nourished, well-developed, pale, slightly toxic-appearing white female with photophobia.

VITAL SIGNS:  Temperature 100.2°, repeat 98.5.  Blood pressure 98/60, pulse 72, respirations 16.

HEENT:  Head:  Normocephalic, atraumatic.  Eyes:  Pupils equal, round, react to light.  Extraocular movements intact.  Funduscopic reveals normal vasculature and sharp disc margins.  TMs normal.  Nose and throat:  Clear.

NECK:  Without masses.  There is no nuchal rigidity.  There is slight tenderness on extreme anterior flexion.

CORONARY:  Regular rate and rhythm without murmur, gallop or rub.

LUNGS:  Clear.

BREASTS:  Without masses.

ABDOMEN:  Nontender without organomegaly or masses.  There is a right upper quadrant surgical scar and a hypogastric surgical scar noted.

PELVIC:  Exam not done.

RECTAL:   Exam not done.

EXTREMITIES:  Without clubbing, cyanosis or edema.  There are no skin lesions noted.

NEUROLOGIC:  Cranial nerves II through XII intact.  The patient is alert and oriented and moving all extremities.

LABORATORY:  CBC:  White blood count 13,000 with 54 polys, 5 bands, 35 lymphs, 3 monos, 3 eos.  Hematocrit 43.4.  Urinalysis:  Specific gravity 1.010.  No white cells or red cells.  Electrolytes:  Sodium 134, potassium 3.7, chloride 102, CO2 of 28.  CSF:  Protein 44, glucose 59, serum glucose 99.  Gram stain of CSF:  Without organisms seen.  Cell count:  53 white cells with 65% lymphs, 35% polys.  RBCs are 10 in number.

IMPRESSION:

1.  Meningitis – probably viral.  If not viral, most likely meningococcal or pneumococcal.

2.  History of migraine headache.

PLAN:  The patient will be admitted to the medical floor.  She will be placed in respiratory isolation for at least 24 hours.  She will be given IV penicillin G 3 million units, IV piggyback q.3 h.  Blood culture is pending as well as culture of the CSF.

Hello everyone! it's been too long since I last posted about anything. I have been busy with a million and one things for the last couple of months and one of them was trying to set-up my business. In my last post, i introduced my new business "Honey Hiccups!" And, it took me a while to get the ball rolling... and i seem to be pushing it forward still. My dad says i need proper advertisement so i can show the world what i can do! I guess you can say, that by writing in my blog, it's hitting two birds with one stone. I can continue running the biz and write at the same time! And so, without further ado, let me introduce to you my Valentine Series!

These are samples of what I've made for my Valentine Series. These are Chocolate covered cakes. Right now it comes in FOUR colors! Red, Green, Yellow and Violet. The cakes on the other hand comes in Two different flavors, Double Chocolate and French Vanilla Valentine Surprise. And, each rose comes in their own special packaging.

The cake inside is super moist, i swear! Plus the moist-ness lasts longer because the chocolate locks it in.
Anyways, that's all i have for now. But, I'm pretty excited for next month. I'll be making a new series good for birthdays, baby showers and whatever...  Can't wait!!!

Well, sorry for the slow update everyone...

I have decided to push through with my idea of selling my cakes... People have been approaching me for a while, asking if they can order my cakes, and I usually end up saying "I don't know..." Well, now I know what i can tell them...


you can now LIKE! :) us on Facebook

            

Sorry for the long absence... I encountered a very common occupational hazard for people who love to cook. I got burnt by boiling oil. But, now that every thing is back to the way it was (plus the ugly scar)... I'm back to cooking.

It was my grandmother's 83rd birthday, and the family was so excited. We wanted to make it extra special so we devised a plan. My aunt would be handling the main dish, my mom would be for appetizer, and I can handle the dessert section. So, after hours and hours of deliberation, we finally decided on the menu except for my part, which they told me to make whatever.

Now, whatever is a good plan, the downside being that it's too vague. So, i took out my handy dandy notebook, checked through all the recipes i've jotted down through out the years, and determined which ones i've never made before... Which was a bad idea, since it consisted about 3/4 of the pages. So, just to make it more fun, I picked out 3 of my favorite desserts (which i've never made), wrote it down on a piece of paper, rolled it, and whichever one i picked is the one I'm making which ended up being: HONG KONG STYLE EGG TARTS.

Now basically, egg tarts are flans in a tart shell. So, it really wasn't such a big deal, the only problem i had was i didn't have a blow torch or a salamander to give it that brûlée finish. So, I decided to make the egg tarts anyways and worry about the blow torch after.

I surmised that I should probably make around 50-60 egg tarts since we would have guests around that number. So, the night before, I started making the dough for the tart shells and blind bake it so I wouldn't have too many things to do the next day.

raw tart shells

Which by the way was a very very bad idea. The dough actually expands a lot even with the baking beans, and doesn't leave a lot of room for the custard. So, you end up having a lot of left over custard. Thank God I only tried blind baking 6 tart shells.

So, even if it means more work, I decided to just do everything on B-day. Which, started off fine, until the guests started arriving. Because, there were already too many people in the kitchen helping out with the other dishes, the guests actually wanted to watch us cook.

right out of the oven

Dessert Table

I ended up staying in the kitchen from 8 in the morning, to around 4 in the afternoon. Making 4 dozen Hong Kong Style Egg Tarts, and another 2 1/2 dozen Banana Cupcakes (because my aunt wanted it soo bad, and I just couldn't say no)

a closer look

HAPPY 83RD BIRTHDAY AMA! :)

DAY 3 - Fin!

Day 3 is finally here. Somehow, I wanted to do something productive. So, I asked the little poppet what she wanted to bake (cookies or cake), and she answered, I want the brown thing with the nuts... No idea what she meant, but after a thorough investigation of what she actually meant, we decided that it was "Brownies" she wanted to make. So, we then agreed that we'll make it after breakfast since her dad is picking her up after lunch. After another eventful breakfast of indecision, I finally made French Toast, it's easy, yummy and the fastest thing I could make, I also forgot to take a picture of it. But anyways, after breakfast, I cleared out the table and started gathering the ingredients. And like always, I couldn't find my usual chocolate bars that I use for making my brownies, so I cheated... Again. I found some Pillsbury brownie mix, where you just add an egg, water and some oil. I figured, it'll do! All she wanted to do was actually do the mixing and tell everyone she made it. And so, the baking begins...

she wanted a picture for her Facebook!

And so she mixes and mixes while I preheated the oven. And as I kept reminding her not to over mix the batter, she keeps telling me that there is no such thing as "over mixing" and she then kept mixing and mixing until I finally brought out the mini muffin tin so she can fill it up, which she then said that the mixing is quite enough.

"I wanna do it!"

Tada!

Well, it ended happily enough. At least the brownies turned out quite yummy... When her dad arrived, she then pulled him through the kitchen and told him she baked some brownies to bring home to her cousins. And kept repeating the line "Ako'y ga luto ani pa!" (I baked this dad) with emphasis on the AKO (which means I) She just kept insisting it was she who made it and no one helped, which of course I supported 100%...

And so, the end has finally arrived and all I could say was, I don't think I'm ready for a kid just yet. The occasional baby-sitting I can put up with, but not just yet with forever. I wouldn't really know where to start. And so, The Mommy Diaries end, Finally!

DAY 2 - Another Day of Spongebob Squarepants

After a very tiring day, I ended up sleeping like a baby...But woke up like an adult. With my little girl's jumping on the bed and shaking me awake, asking for her breakfast. So, like yesterday, I opened up the TV, made her watch some cartoons while I prepared breakfast. I'm not sure what was wrong with me last week, but for some reason I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to cook for breakfast (As I rarely eat breakfast). So, on to the pantry and the fridge still looking for something to cook when the little moppet appeared out of no where demanding her breakfast. She said she was so hungry she could eat a cow. Well, too bad, we didn't have one or I would've pointed in the direction of said cow. I then told her that I didn't know what to cook for her, and she goes, "Whatever is available!" So, I opened up the freezer and there in front of me was the answer to my prayers... Eggo! Thank God for Instant Breakfast! So I cheated... sue me! Hahaha.. So, we had instant waffles and some egg (again, as requested by the little girl who cannot live without eggs).

Yummy!

"can't eat breakfast without eggs"

After Breakfast, we then had a morning of peace...for about 10 seconds, and then my niece requested to use my MacBook so she could play her games in Facebook, I then listened to some music from my iTunes which my niece kept changing because she doesn't like Beyonce's 1+1, which led to her horrible rendition to 1+1. When lunchtime came, we went out and bought some of the home-made goodies from the store in the corner, so that I didn't exactly worry about that. After lunch, we then went back up to my room (I wouldn't let her play anywhere else, or I'll end up cleaning again!) and went to upload some pictures of my Mom's birthday. She then begged to upload pictures in her Facebook account as well because she didn't have much. So, we ended up doing this:

Smile? 

The next few hours went by quite fast. We just spent most of the day taking pictures everywhere in the house. I did her nails, which she wanted done and painted red (cherry blossom), put some make-up on and did our hair. She then started putting on some of my clothes and tried on my shoes. It was fun! Definitely fun... So, when my mom got home from work, she brought some Fried Chicken (as requested again by the clever little girl) which we ate like people who have not seen food for months. Then, I made her wash up, brush her teeth and hair, and she finally went to bed after hours and hours of telling her to do so. She ended up sleeping at 11:30 anyways. At least this wasn't as tiring as yesterday. So, I ended picking up a book and started reading myself to sleep. Day 2 - Finished! 

Being a mom is not easy! Last week, I actually got to experience being a mom as I got stuck baby sitting for 3 days. My niece, Kira {7 years old} who happens to be my eldest cousin's only daughter was packed, sealed and delivered right at my doorstep. Now, don't get me wrong, I was very excited, I love my nieces very much (not to mention this very one) and I actually started planning some activities for duration of her stay, not to mention the menu. And so, the day came. We started off with some snacks, I made some Kimbop which mysteriously disappeared after a couple of minutes. And, after hours and hours of talking, it was finally time to say goodbye with an exception to Kai-kai (which is what she prefers to be called). It was around 6:00 P.M. When they left, and so I had to think about what I'd feed the moppet for dinner. While I was looking through my pantry and trying to figure out what exactly I was trying to make, A blessing came with the sound of the phone ringing, my mother was coming home from work and will be bringing home some delish fried chicken! Thank God! And, after dinner, I made her wash up, brush her teeth and hair and finally got her to sleep. 

DAY 1 - A Change of Schedule

My day usually ends when the sun rises (around 5 AM), which means, I usually sleep late (or sleep early...in the morning that is, it depends how you see it). I wanted to sleep early but my insomnia usually kicks in and I just end up watching the ceiling from the time I lie down till the sun rises and then I end up asleep. And would wake up at around noon. This time, I would say, that I ended up with no sleep for a whole week. My dearest little niece wakes up at 8:30 in the morning, while my mom leaves for work at 8:00. Which means, I'm assigned for breakfast and lunch duties. (I cheated during lunch time and bought it in the store in the corner).

After reading my book (which is what I usually do before going to bed) which was around 5:30 AM, I finally end up closing my eyes, with the Sand Man practically dumping a sack of sand on me. I was just about to start dreaming of my latest EYE CANDY when I got startled by a heavy pillow that was dumped on me. I peaked a bit, and saw the toothless pillow smiling at me (5 more minutes please!). And then the pillow's stomach started grumbling and I knew I had to wake up. I opened up the TV, made her watch... SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! while I made breakfast.

Kai-kai watching Spongebob Squarepants!

And so, my kitchen battle begins. I had to figure out exactly what I need to cook... and fast. My little girl is hungry and I have to pick out something that she'd actually like eating and something I can cook really fast. I then had to remember what my dad used to cook for me and my sister when my mom was not around... And ended up making, mini buttermilk pancakes, bacon and eggs (Sunny Side UP as requested by the clever little girl).

Mini buttermilk pancakes

Breakfast!

Kira enjoying her breakfast!

After breakfast, we ended up watching more Spongebob Squarepants, some of Barbie Mermaidia and Fairytopia, Rapunzel, Cinderella and more Spongebob Squarepants... When lunch came, like I said before, I cheated and bought some yummy home-cooked meals from the corner store. A "Manang" (translated to ajhumma in Korean / a middle-aged lady) cooks home-cooked viands and sells them cheap for people who don't want to cook or can't cook (Great huh?). And then, after lunch, we played some kind of game involving a very reluctant Patrick Star being tossed over the banister. And, when that bored the wits out of her, she ended up watching more and more of Spongebob Squarepants (DVD player overheating) until I could start saying the lines if you put the whole cartoons to mute.

Dinner came and my dear mama, brought home pizza! :) Thank God for experienced mothers. Then, after dinner, Kai-kai washed up, brushed her teeth and hair and went to bed. Day 1-finally over... for her that is...

I ended up cleaning her mess in the upstairs family room, the kitchen, my room and the computer room. Did laundry, with the ice cream stains on her white shirt and shorts. I ended DAY 1 exhausted. When I was done cleaning, I took a long long bath, brushed my teeth and hair. When I lied down after picking a book to read that night, I started reading 10 pages, and I fell asleep at 10 PM! Insomnia? What Insomnia? I couldn't open my eyes long enough to turn off my lamp. And so, DAY 1 is finally done and over... DAY 2 is yet another adventure...