Risk

I’ve been on this antiretroviral for the past several days. How? Why?

It happened two wo weeks ago. My work day started as normal. About mid-day I took two clients to the minor theatre in the hospital where I work, to suture multiple lacerations they had sustained from a road traffic accident. Halfway into the first procedure, piam! Sharp prick on my left index finger.

I dropped my equipment immediately as my colleagues took over. I washed my hands thoroughly, reported at the PEP office. That day, I started the post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) protocol. A part of that protocol is this medicine I’m currently using: Tenofovir Lamivudine Dolutegravir.

The beginning part of the whole process required that I and the client I was working on got tested for HIV. We both showed negative. On account of this, I was counseled I may opt not to take the antiretroviral. I decided I would.

HIV/AIDS isn’t as scary a topic as it used to be. I’ve seen patients living with the virus for decades who remain healthy and strong – thanks to the advancements made towards finding a cure for the disease. You see, we don’t even call them HIV patients anymore. They are more politically correctly called People Living With HIV/AIDS – PLWHA. All I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t really alarmed about getting infected with HIV when I got that prick – even if the client’s status turned out positive. I was also not very worried about Hep B. Ive been fully vaccinated.

The above scenario nonetheless represents an important theme that weaves intricately with every aspect of our daily lives: Risk.

Every activity (and inactivity) we partake in carries a risk. Sometimes this risk is measurable, sometimes not. Risk assessment can also be very subjective. What one person regards as a very negative outcome may only be mildly negative or even neutral to someone else.

If you’re waiting for that part in the article where I start to advice you on how or how not to handle or manage or take risks, you’re wrong. I only came here today to rant. Besides, there is no holy grail approach to taking or managing risk. Just do your thing.

Bye bye.

 

Sh[r]ed it!

Weight loss is a journey, and people embark on it for different reasons. These days, there’s more and more awareness around the subject, and several businesses (legit and non-legit) thrive off it. I first made the decision to keep light after I learnt that the physiologic male weight for an adult male is 70kg. Female, 55. You know as well as I do that it’s always easy to make decisions. Remember how you’ve made new year resolutions over and over. Each year you tell yourself this is it! But next year comes, and you’re back to square one.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Deciding to keep a healthy weight can be a struggle. Sometimes, your genetics is the problem. Sometimes, it’s the constant abundance of yummy foods that surround you. The real problem, in my opinion, is Discipline… or the lack thereof. I know this because I’ve been down that road. Indeed I still am. Discipline means finding a plan that works and sticking to it like it’s a religion.

Discipline aside, people embark on a weight loss journey not even having any understanding how the whole thing works. You need to understand the basic concept of Calorie Balance to lose (or add) weight. For males, every day your body uses about 2500 calories to keep you alive – all your body systems functioning right. When your calorie intake exceeds 2500 calories, your body stores the extra energy as fat. That’s how you gain weight. To lose weight you “simply” take in fewer calories than your body uses. When you up your calorie expenditure by exercising and being more physically active, you lose weight even faster. You also need to be realistic with your goals. Understand that to lose 1kg of body fat, you need to burn about 9000 calories. That means a calorie deficit of 500 calories daily will help you lose just 1kg in about 3 weeks.

Keeping a healthy weight is not only good for your looks. It’s important for your health. You reduce your risk of Diabetes, Hypertension and other chronic illnesses. If your weight is above normal for your age, losing weight is a journey you should consider. I’m on mine. The Body Mass Index (BMI) gives you an idea how OK you are for weight. To have a rough idea if your current weight is ideal, you can calculate your BMI here.

 

 

Any awesome technology from Africa?

I’ve had this conversation a few times with different people. The last time was a few weeks ago when I was in an Uber. A friendly young guy was my driver. I sat right in the front passenger’s seat like I normally do. Not long into our trip, a Yango cab passed. Me: “That’s your new competition.” “I’m on all of them” he replied. Yango is a new cab-hailing service in Ghana. There’s the almighty Uber. There’s Bolt. Stiff stiff competition.

Our conversation soon went in the direction of how “these whites” make a lot of money by simply being innovative. Every Uber driver periodically pays 25% of their income to Uber. Seeing Uber operates in over 60 countries, you don’t need plenty of mathematics to realize Uber makes crazy money just from letting you use your own car (that you bought with your own money o) as a cab. You see, it’s about creating a solution (easy transportation) that people need and creating a robust platform for anyone who can drive a car to use. They pay a percentage, you generate revenue. Another example is Airbnb.

I’m always quick to wonder if any significant number of this kind of revolutionary solutions ever originate from Africa. I mean, an invention, a technology, a discovery in any field of human endeavour, from Africa that has been adopted all over the world as a solution to any of humanity’s problems.

If you consider yourself a modern African, all the things you depend on to run your modern day-to-day life, right from when you get up from bed in the morning, till you go back to sleep at night.. Think about them. Equipment and tools that serve your entertainment, mobility, cooking and catering, fashion, housing, etc. Which of them were invented or developed in Africa?

Africans are net consumers of solutions. We love tech and gadgets, the most sophisticated cars, all the stuff that makes a man “modern” but we haven’t decided we also should be making solutions that we, and the rest of the world can use.

PS: I’m sure there are solutions that are proudly from Africa. But we consume waaaaayy more than we dare to produce.

 

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

It’s about Nigeria’s next year elections.

Buhari. Atiku. These two, mmhh. These two fall in a category that houses the many recycled politicians that run Nigeria’s politics. They’ve been around for at least a while and like most of the other politicians in their category, neither their persons nor their policies have proven to be what Nigeria needs.

Four years ago, Buhari made many campaign promises one of which was, he would make the Naira as valuable as 1 Naira to 1 US Dollar. 4 years after, the Naira has lost almost half it’s value. He promised to tackle corruption. We cant say he has made any meaningful progress in that direction. Boko Haram was declared “technically defeated” at some point in Buhari’s current tenure. There’s no evidence to suggest Boko Haram has waned in vigour. Chibok girls, epileptic power supply, bad roads, terrible infrastructure, Labour Union strikes, etc etc. Buhari certainly hasn’t made Nigeria any better.

Bearing all the above in mind, I’m nothing less than perplexed at the idea that Buhari is running for a second term against 2019. If Buhari could boldly offer to help Ghana tackle corruption knowing very well that the country he presides over is corruption’s Capital Centrale, it helps me understand the delusion behind his drive to run. What’s more interesting is that he well might win. Why? This is Nigeria. Atiku’s track record isn’t that great either. Buhari and Atiku are the major competitors for the presidential seat because their parties are the biggest and most powerful. They are the biggest because they have the most resources. They have the most influence. Both parties have held power in Nigeria for the last few decades and neither has made Nigeria any better. Can we then hope for a better Nigeria if we still let Nigeria be run by any of these two political parties?

Shall we not try out other candidates and see what they have to offer? Fela Durotoye, Sowore, etc.?

 

Imposed niceness

The people of Glasgow have a tradition of opening the door and holding it open for anyone else who might be coming behind. This is a courteous thing of anyone to do. Very simple gesture it is, but, be a recipient of the gesture and then decide if it makes you feel special or not. This tradition practically achieves one thing: Showing love and kindness to other people, and you’d agree that makes our world a better place.

Soon after I first observed this, I found myself opening the door, and upon seeing other people coming behind me, smiled at them and held the door open. Whether or not they had asked for the niceness, I made sure I gave it to them. Intention is what really matters right? Right. Sometimes the niceness recipient was several steps away. To accept my niceness and be ‘considerate’, they would double up to get in the door in time. It made me smile inside of me. Did they really need me asking them to run up – that’s what I just did. I’ve been on the receiving end myself and I have had to jog up a number of times. For me, myself and I, there was no advantage I gained having someone hold the door open and smile at me. It only made me stress no matter how small.

So you see both sides of the equation and wonder if it is necessary to keep this niceness on. If I remember well, I did this niceness imposition on an elderly woman this morning. I made her jog when she may not have required it. But, regardless, I maintain that intention is what matters more. It makes the earth cosier to live in. If you’re in the habit of showing niceness this way and other ways, keep doing it.

 

Faith

In secular contexts, the word has found regular usage.

I’m reading Hebrews 11 and the first verse tells of faith as being sure of  what we hope for and being certain of what we believe. in other words, what you want is not there yet, but you know it will come.

Can it then be likened to wishful thinking? plainly, could we say someone who has faith simply wishes. I would  think not. there is a “certainty” aspect to faith which could defy logic – human logic. Radical faith most times, if not all the time, defies common sense. it could make you look stupid, until your results arrive.

People who excersice such crazy faith seem out of their sense. They have motivations based on elements real only to them. and even though every one around them thinks them nuts, they know what they know and are sure.

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God

See? That doesn’t  even make sense even to most people reading this, but that’s what faith is. It mostly defies common sense. For instance where is the sense in believing you will conceive and have a child when you’re past menopause?

To people who have integrated themselves into the faith domain, there’s no turning back. They get results.

 

“The greatest stories are never told”

#np The greatest stories are never told.

That’s the title of a song I love so much.. Bobby McFerrin et. al. It’s perhaps true in some contexts. Listening to all of the song, I understand a bit why they feel sure about that statement. But, are the greatest stories really never told?

I’ve chosen to take that title literally and analyse it as such. If taken literally, it might just be a lie. But again, it might be true depending on what the greatest stories are from – your viewpoint.

See, that song came in with some African thing. I don’t even know what the guy was saying. Then came some English.

In different countries across the globe
the greatest stories are never told
it goes just around and round again

The greatest stories are never told
it goes just around and round again

That’s the opening lines. Being reasonable, I know they make sense. I’ve chosen to differ just to drive a point – a very important one. I consider the greatest story to be the story of God’s love. The love he had so much of for us that made Him reach out to man in his fallen state and offer man salvation. That’s the greatest story ever told. It has been told time and time again in different countries across the globe. It’s still being told today, and it will keep being told for a long time to come. See the context in which that song title is wrong? Yea, easy.

The greatest stories are always told. They are just not always accepted.

 

Disaster at George Square

This morning I saw police had cordoned off most of the area. BBC vans and police cars were on this side of the road. A reporter was on camera doing his thing. I wondered what was happening. I saw all that this morning.

Passing by the area this evening, the Christmas lights at the square were all turned off. The square wasn’t packed with revellers. Still, I couldn’t make any sense of it. Later I got to know an accident happened yesterday. A truck veered off the road and took six lives.

Six lives. Complete with their dreams and aspirations, they died. Plans for Christmas and the new year? Gone. That’s one more thing about death. Nobody knows when the time will come to go.

 

Make do – a reflection in retrospect.

Two weeks ago today was a poster presentation I was so nervous about. There were going to be three assessors. Dr. B handled the lecturing of that aspect of the module and he had told us beforehand how some of us would be “unfortunate” to have him assess their presentation. There and then I decided he would not be one of my assessors (like I could decide who my assessor would be). I knew I had on control over who would assess me, but I resolved Dr. B wouldn’t be one of them. But you never know, so I made sure I knew my stuff in and out, just in case. Anyways, whoever I would be presenting to, I still had to know my stuff well.

Two of my friends were already at the venue for the presentation when I arrived. In a few minutes all three assessors were around. Soon they would be selecting random posters for presentations. My poster was on the wall, and I reminded myself that Dr. B was never going to come to me. I sat facing the wall. Everything was calm, then Dr. B happened. Since everyone would be assessed by two out of three of the assessors, I actually had always known my chances of evading Dr. B were slim. Now, he’s with me – no call-a-friend. One on one. It was in a sense funny and I laughed a bit.He engaged me for like 5, 7 minutes thereabout and that was all. Then I wondered why I was ever sentimental about presenting to Dr. B to start with. Immediately I loved Dr. B for five minutes. He was probably the best I could present to. Even though it was somewhere on the backside of my mind, I had not thought well enough about the possibility of an excellent presentation with Dr. B. I have not gotten any feedback yet, but I feel certain the presentation was excellent. Sometimes, sentiments just toy with our psychology. In that moment when I was alone with my assessor, I made do with all the resources in that microenvironment. I quickly reminded myself Dr. B was my friend. I had met him a few times when I had issues about his modules. He had nicely paid attention and helped. Now he was here standing in front of me. I reminded myself that he wasn’t looking to destroy. It worked.

 

So ironical..

Sometimes you need sleep so badly and it wouldn’t come.
Then you’re at an important function and the sleep wouldn’t leave you.

I’ve been in this situation a number of times. At such times you desperately want your senses as sharp as they can be but it just doesn’t happen. Once in a class, I dozed off and on, off and on. I thought it was just me until the professor mentioned that everyone looked so languid. It seemed something hung in the air that made everybody sleepy. As soon as it was time for break, my alertness returned. Class resumed, alertness fled.

This is so funny and so not funny at the same time. You need money to execute an urgent project, but the money is just not there. You have all projects done, then you have excess money in your bank. What’s the use of that?