Guillain-Barre syndrome

My FIL was suffering from Guillain-Barre syndrome which is an uncommon inflammatory disorder in which your body's immune system attacks your nerves, typically causing severe weakness and numbness that usually starts in your extremities and quickly worsens. Eventually your whole body can become paralyzed, even the muscles used for breathing.
There's no cure for Guillain-Barre syndrome. But two treatments have been shown to speed the recovery from and reduce the severity of the disorder:

 Plasmapheresis. This treatment — also known as plasma exchange — is a type of "blood cleansing" in which damaging antibodies are removed from your blood. Plasmapheresis consists of removing the liquid portion of your blood (plasma) and separating it from the actual blood cells. The blood cells are then put back into your body, which manufactures more plasma to make up for what was removed. It's not clear why this treatment works, but scientists believe that plasmapheresis rids plasma of certain antibodies that contribute to the immune system attack on the peripheral nerves.

 Intravenous immunoglobulin. Immunoglobulin contains healthy antibodies from blood donors. High doses of immunoglobulin can block the damaging antibodies that may contribute to Guillain-Barre syndrome.

FIL was given the second one and it brought back the use of his hands and the sensation to his legs. He was discharged on 1st December and by God’s grace was able to greet the new year from his home. Hubby and his brother took turns to look after him but his brother had to leave early. A wheel chair, a walker etc has been purchased and we were lucky to get a good home nurse too.

Pray that his recovery is complete by the physiotherapy.

Wombs..... outsourced.....

It was my friend Maddy who first mentioned it while he wrote on outsourcing.. and yes we are seeing one more outsourcing industry in action.. the wombs...

I am not sure about the moral implications on this one. But it is bringing happiness to the surrogate mothers and the future parents of the surrogate baby. To be childless is not easy in our society. It is every woman’s dream to hold her child in her hands if God deems. So now we have a whole queue of willing women signing up to keep the baby in her womb for 9 months and then give it up to a happy couple.

As the article states, it will have its ups and downs. When this industry catches up with all and sundry, then it has a chance to become dirty. And there is also this chance of couples who cannot be bothered with pregnancy to opt for surrogate mothers. It may be similar to some mothers opting for the caesarean although a normal delivery is possible so that she can escape from the great pain, the tales of which has been passed on from generation to generation.

But even before all this happened, the Malayalam movie industry had a film on this same topic. Dasharatham (1989) directed by the great Sibi Malayil himself. Mohanlal plays the role of a wealthy but lonely guy who feels the need to love someone, yet is not ready to marry. He chances upon Rekha who agrees to be the surrogate mother so that she can pay for her husband Murali’s treatment. Rekha is looked after well but when the time comes to give up the child she goes back on her word. It was a very touching movie.