Victorine - Diary of Life

A 13 years old girl, Jenna, made one wish on her birthday, “to be grown up”. Her wish came true, just as what she had always wanted to be, she became a 30 years old woman when she opened her eyes.

Anyway, that was one of the movie (Suddenly 30) that I watched in 2004. Is anyone of you going to make the same wish??

One of my collegue asked me this quest: ” How old are you?” “In which year were you born?” I grinned and answered her quest. She then said like this “Don’t laugh wor, time pass really fast, in a blink of time you will be 30’s soon.” And asked me “It’s scary to hear this ‘3′ number, rite?” I said “Nope, I am not scared” That is my spontanious answer without thinking too much ;p So……, guess what am I thinking now, hehehe.

There were few times when we chatted together, they would say that “So nice huh, you are still young”. And I would answer them “You were all young once, rite” ;).

Back to the quest. Is it scary or not?? Now, I asked myself that quest, after thinking for a while, here is my answer “Of course, it is scary, I am going to turn 30?? Isn’t that too fast? I am not ready yet!” Anyway, none of us will ever be ready to get old However, I have never regretted what had I go through, I just wondering whether I have done my best at my age now.

Actually it’s not the matter you scare or not, it’s a cycle that you have go through. It is scary but you have to recall those times that you have passed. There are lots of worthy moment along you path, those things can courage you to walk forward to find and create more and more worthy moments for you and for all the people that you care. Walking forward means we still have the chances to feel more and more valuable things.

It will even more scary if you just let those ‘times’ fly away without doing useful things. So, don’t be scared, just do ur best, girlz!

It’s something that I have always want to write about, ‘Roaccutane’ (Isotretinoin).

I didn’t have the pic of roaccutane that I bought, so I googled and pasted it here.

Not all people know what it is, it is a kind of medicine that u take to solve ur acne skin problems. Me, myself took it for about 2 times in a different year, each times took about 2 to 3 months. I took it based on prescription from two different dermatologists. The first time I took it was when I was still in university, at that time I didn’t know what it was for. But it did well on my skin, it became dryer and not much pimples anymore (Actually my skin is not that bad, only too oily and few pimples, but my skin is very sensitive, easy to get red so I always go for doctor to solve my skin problem before it get worse).

The second time I took it was about 3 years ago, it was prescribed by a doctor in North Jakarta. At first I rejected to use the same medicine, I told the doctor that last time I used roaccutane, my skin got very dry and my lips skin also peeled a lot. I asked whether this medicine had side effect and whether it was a right choice to use it again. And you know what’s the answer I got, she said in an annoying voice,  like this ” So, u want to cure ur skin or not, or u want to to use contraceptive pills?” Me and my mom were shocked by the answer but comment nothing coz we thought she’s a professional so she must know what she’s doing.

So once again, I took the medicine for about 3 months (this roaccutane was surely not cheap and costed me a lot), but then I felt something’s not right with me. It was once again worked on my skin but I started to complain the other things. Then after some time, I started to doubt whether it was caused by roaccutane that I was taking.

Then I googled around and search for the side effect of taking Roaccutane (pasted from here), and here is the summary of the side effect:

• Dry skin (causing inflammation, scaling, itching, increased skin fragility)
  
• Dryness of the mucous membranes, eg lips, eyes (causing irritation, conjunctivitis), nose (causing nosebleeds) and throat (causing hoarseness)
• Headache
  
• Increased liver enzymes
• Disturbances in the composition of the blood (eg increased cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar; decreased red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets)
• Pain in the muscles and joints
  
• Mood changes, strange or abnormal thoughts, anxiety, depression, suicidal feelings
• Hair loss (alopecia)
• Visual disturbances (eg blurred vision, cataracts, colour blindness, decreased night vision)
• Inflammation of the surface of the eye (keratitis)
• Breathing difficulties due to a narrowing of the airways (bronchospasm)
• Nausea
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis)
• Abnormal reaction of the skin to light, usually a rash (photosensitivity)
• Bone disorders

Text in blue color was what I really had and felt at that time, at least those were the effects that can be felt physically. Just hope it didn’t take any side effects inside me. I often got headache and my vision often got blurred, especially in the evening (I am a programmer, that’s why it was really annoying).

I was so angry to know that, I was sure my skin condition was not considered severe at all, I only wanted to prevent it from getting worse, I just didn’t understand why the doctors just gave me that prescription without explaining what it was for and what were the side effects. I think as a patient, we need to know what are we dealing with. And the worse was the doctor didn’t even try to know their patient’s condition before giving me the prescription. How if I was pregnant at that time? (this medicine is strictly forbidden during pregnancy, please refer to here to know who can use it) How if I was having mental illness? (Hey, it can also cause depression and suicidal feeling).

Roaccutane really did well to treat severe acne but the point is not every people really need it. Tips before u started to take a medicine: “Googling  and re-think whether you really need it”. At least, u have to know and learn what’s the side effect first before u decide to take it. Just remember, take it at ur own risk!

I might not reveal which doctors that I went to, they should have their own ethic code. Just beware and think twice if the treatment is using oral treatment. Now, I don’t use any medicine anymore and use facial treatment instead. And I do feel it is more reliable than taking pills that ‘might’ take ur life too.

Anyway, this is based on my own experience and I only want to share it with u all

Hello World! Classic words for the 1st time blogger :p

I was supposed to start writing 2 weeks ago, but lazy me, kept making excuses :”no mood, no inspiration, no time”, hahaha..

O yes, haven’t introduced this blog yet, same story with the one at my sister’s blog, www.colleen.lovca.com, LOVCA stands for Lauw Oscar Victorine Colleen Ascor accordingly. We are 4 siblings from Lauw family. Lovca was not actually our main choice for the domain but at least this name still uniquely combine our names together (please refer to www.lovca.com for the complete history).

Once again thanks to Mr. Jim2 (www.jimmyauw.com) for sponsoring the domain :D. He had no choice other than creating me one, I urged him to create the domain asap, but once it’s created, I wasted my time by choosing the theme, until now I haven’t made up my mind which theme will I stick with :p. And this is also one of my smart excuse for not starting to write. Once I said to Jim2 “Haiya, why don’t you give me a dead line, so I can be more motivated to write”. So, he gave me time until last saturday (12 July 2008). Ding dong, Still, I end up writing nothing, and spent my weekend googling almost all available themes (no lar, not that kin ciong ;p). So, that’s it, another week passed and my blog is still as empty as before.

Urgghhh… still very lazy to write, sometimes inspirations keep buzzing around my mind, but just dont know how to pour it out. Need more time to adjust to this new activity, lvh picks an old man words, 習慣成自然 (xi guan cheng zi ran), from habits to natural….

With Love,

Victorine