Playing With Electric

This post is written on 18th April 2016.

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

No Monday Blues for me as I slept early on the night before, as usual haha. Woke up and got ready early this morning as I thought the practical session for my group was at 8, until Fatin told us in the WhatsApp group that the timetable in IMU portal states 8.30am. Today's practical was about nerve (urat saraf) conduction. Sanaa and I arrived quite late this morning (bangun awal pun sampai still tak awal haha) and we made our own group of 2. Later, Bryan joined us. 

First part, we had to draw the median nerve using a stick of green coloured wax-like-crayon. Here's a picture showing the median nerve. As you can see, the median nerve supplies the first three fingers (from the thumb). So, basically everything about the movement, pain etc is related to the median nerve. (Boring nya Dylla ni tunjuk pasal urat saraf pula . . .)

Haha wait a second, the interesting part is yet to come. 

Here comes the exciting one. During the second part of the session, we had to pick a subject and Bryan was okay to become the 'lucky' person (hehe) to undergo the Nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) test. Sanaa set up the wires, connecting them to Bryan's forearm and power generator, while I handled the computer software. 

In this test, we had to stimulate the nerve by giving a low voltage of electric current to the subject's forearm. 2 pads that were put on the thenar muscle (area below the thumb) will pick up the signal and from the result that will be shown on the screen together with a certain length, we have to find the velocity or in other word, the speed of how fast the conduction. 

Dylla, can you skip the fact part? Okay, fine I'll cut it here haha. 

Some of our friends who became the subjects screamed a bit the first time they were being introduced with the electric current. Sanaa and I were curious, so we tried to do it on ourselves. It wasn't painful, but the first one was always like a jerky-shock-kind of feeling. Sanaa and Bryan were playful, teasing me - Sanaa told Bryan to increase the electrical charge to the maximum voltage that was available, while Bryan moved the cursor to the 'stimulate' button and clicked it a few times. Haha kurang asam betul.

Although the test isn't really accurate and reliable, it is good enough to have the general idea of how fast your nerve conducts the electrical signal and at the same time, having fun discovering something while 'playing' with the electric. These videos below are recorded by Sanaa during the practical session. Look at how they increased the electrical voltage and teased me, cis haha. Anyway, I had so much fun learning about the nerve conductivity with them :)

At the end of the session, all subjects from each group had to write the speed / velocity of their own NCV test on the whiteboard and it turned out the normal range is about 50m/sec. Subhanallah, look at how fast one's nerve can conduct the signal. That's why the delay between when you think of something and the response is negligible, You don't even realise it. One nerve gets injured can cause a lot of problems, whether in sensing or moving or might be both. The little things like these are part of the blessings that we get.

After 4-week of learning the musculoskeletal system, I came to a sense, where I realised there are a lot of things and blessing that I have, but I overlooked before and craved for things that I don't have and wish to own. It's not that we can't wish for things we don't have, but to belittle certain blessings, and compare ourselves with others are a no no when there are people out there who wish they can write without having to bear the stiffness on their fingers like us, walk without having pain on their big toes, unbutton the shirt by themselves and climb the stairs as normal people do.

The world is not a wish-granting factory because if it was as easy as ABC, what is the meaning of heaven then? Whenever you feel sad about something you don't have, just remind yourself for all the blessings that you have. You'll feel much better, InshaaAllah.

Be happy to be in your own skin :)