Ben -- Blogmeister

Good old fifth grade, I’m going to miss you. In school I improved on learning how to work with a team better and I improved on my resourcefulness. I improved on teamwork because I worked with teams a lot this year. I really improved because I learned not to just take charge but to listen to other peoples ideas and I learned to use my resources more. Like I will find things in the class that we need and bring things in from home that we need at school.

Something that I’m going to do this summer is I’m going to stay at home and take care of my Aunt Denise because she got breast cancer and just got her surgery done. We are going to go over to her house a lot and keep her company and take care of her. I’m also going to play travel baseball. Our team is going all over the country playing baseball and having a good time. The last thing that I’m going to do is go to some camps at martial arts like tricking camps and others.

I think that we should start stepping up to save the turtles.They are at great risk right now. They are at risk right now because hunters are hunting them for their shells and skins and many other things. Pollution is another big way that turtles die and are at risk. Turtles think that plastic bags are food and end up eating them and choking on them. Also they are at risk because people walking on the beach can step on turtle eggs (turtles lay their eggs on a beach) and kill the baby turtles. The people don't know that there are baby turtles under the sand because they are buried super deep underground.

When people heard about how turtles are dying off super fast, people stepped up and started inventing things that would make less turtles die. For example, one person invented TED. TED is a net that lets fishers get fish and shrimp but it allows turtles to escape the net and live. But unfortunately many people say that TED costs a lot of money and is hard to set up so they don't use it. Also people donate money to help save the turtles. People also volunteer their time to help dig up eggs and save the eggs from getting stepped on. Bridges that you walk on over the beach and into the water so you don't step on turtle eggs. Scientists dig up turtle eggs and take them to the lab so people don't step on the eggs. I think that this is people working together to save turtles and it is kind because people are stepping up to save endangered turtles.

I think that turtles have a soul because turtles have a soul and heart and they are not just things for people to kill and to treat very badly. Just think that if you were a turtle and you kept choking on plastic bags and everything.

Diversity is big with turtles. Land turtles can put their head inside their shell, they have claws on their feet, walks on land and eats land animals. Water turtles have flippers, swims good in water, and eats food under water. Also the tree huggers verses the hunters. Both have totally different opinions toward turtles causing diversity.

The time I had to face a new situation was when I had to switch karate schools. I had to leave all of my buddies from my old karate school and find new friends at the new karate school. Now the thing that made it super hard was learning the new curriculum. I was one year away from testing for my black belt and I had to find a new partner and learn all the new things in less than one year. Your probably thinking that would be easy to find a new partner and learn all the curriculum in one year. Well, it wasn’t. I was at the karate school twenty-four seven learning the new curriculum and finding a new partner. Luckily I had found a new partner fast, had private lessons every day and had to go to every single class practicing with my partner. I had learned all of my curriculum right before the test. So when my black belt test came I was prepared. After six months of candidate train I took my test and I passed. They thought that I did so good they made me new face of their school. That is the time when I had to deal with a new situation like Kit had to deal with a new situation in the Witch of Black Bird Pond.

I had a super fun Christmas break. Our family and my cousins, Luke, Sawyer, and Conner went up to our ranch. Up at the ranch on New Year’s Eve we played Fear Factor. My mom and sister made all of these disgusting foods. Let me tell you about the foods.The first task was we had to dunk our heads into this bowl that had a really bad smelling milkshake (the milkshake had water, milk, a lot of cheese, and liver.) and in the bowl it had these Oreo balls. The object was to have your hands behind your back and dunk your head into the bowl, grab the Oreo balls, then eat the Oreo balls. So as we are grabbing the Oreo balls some milkshake is getting into our mouth and the milkshake tasted so bad. Also we had to eat Jello that had a bunch of liver in it. The object was to eat all the jello you had on your plate. I was the only one who ate all of the jello on my plate so I won.The last challenge was you had to eat one pigs foot in order to win the whole thing. So everyone did it but after they ate the pigs feet they puked, I was the only that wasn’t puking because I enjoyed the pigs feet. So while everyone was puking from the pigs feet, I was eating more of them the rest of the night. That night was super fun and it was the best New Year’s Eve ever.

My topic is on amputations and prosthetics. I think it would be a good topic because my 2 year old cousin had to get his leg amputated when he was just born and I wanted to learn more about how the surgeons did it. Also on these topics I am going to talk about how they have improved over time.

Amputations in the 1800’s

Amputation means to cut off a limb from the body. They amputate legs, arms and other things because it is either not getting the blood flow into the limb, it could have an infection, or last you could have a hardening in your arteries. Also if you are obese you could not get the blood flow to your limbs because the fat is cutting the blood flow off. The way they amputated legs back then was first they would hit the patient and knock them out or they would soak a rag with chloroform and stick it on their nose. Once they knocked them out the surgeons would either take a saw and just saw their leg straight off or they would take a knife and chop the leg off.
Right after they sawed the leg off they would immediately take some bandages, hold it on the bleeding part while the surgeon took a wire and thread it through the patient’s leg to help the patient from bleeding to death. Another way they would close up the wound was they would take some hot metal, stick the hot metal on the amputated part, drag the metal around the edges of the amputated part, and the edge will close the wound up because it has been burned and when a wound is burned it closes up.
After these surgeries many people died from bleeding to death or getting an infection from the operation. They would get an infection from the operation because the tools wouldn’t be clean or for having the amputated part getting infected.
The positive side is that you would live through the surgery and every thing would be okay.
Also after the surgery to help with the pain they would give them alcohol (they did not have a lot of medicine back then to help with the pain.) During the surgery if they didn’t knock them out they would give them something to bite on like wood.

Amputations Now

Surgeons and technology have improved greatly since the 1800’s. Before the surgery, surgeons will ask patients not to eat or drink 2-6 hours before the surgery. Right before the surgery surgeons will ask patients if they would like to stay awake during the surgery and the doctors just numb your leg or surgeons will give you a medicine that will make you sleep during the surgery but they still numb your leg.
Now during the surgery they will shape your muscle so that it will fit into the prosthetic that you would like. Also during the surgery surgeons take a lot better care of you. For example they take a tube and drain any fluid that builds up during the surgery. Also if anything goes wrong they have a person that his job is to watch over you and if anything goes wrong he will tell the surgeon what is wrong and to fix it immediately. This person’s job is called an anesthesiologist.
Some positive things about today’s amputations are during the surgery clamps are supplied to minimize bleeding. After the surgery the clamps are removed once the surgeon has stitched up the vessels. This prevents bleeding to death.
Some negative things are after the surgery you might have a stroke or a chest infection. This all happens because your mobility is restricted. Also the amputated part will fail to heal as a result of a fall, infection or a poor blood supply. This might mean you have to remove more of the limb or revise the amputation. If you’re an adult or teenager you will deal with phantom limb pain. That is where you feel that your limb is still there but it is not and it really hurts. Medicine can help with this pain.
Some positive things about amputations today is that you have less chance of dying because now we have the proper tools to keep you alive and everything is a lot more sanitary. Even if you are a baby and have to get a limb amputated you have a great chance of living through the surgeries because surgeons have better tools now and that helps a lot! Also surgeons give us medicine to help with the pain.

Prosthetics from 1529 to 2011

First let me tell you what prosthetics are. It means that it is an artificial devise that replaces a missing body part. It all started with an artificial limb made by Ambroise Pare. It was made out of wood, metal, and leather and was operated by catches and springs to make the artificial limb move. Since then people have only made improvements off of Ambroise Pare’s prosthetic.
The first improvement was in 1863 and it was done by Dubois L Parmelee. The improvement was he fastened a body socket to the artificial limb with an atmospheric pressure. Dubois was not the first one to do this but he was the first person to do so with satisfactory results.
The next improvement was in 1898 and it was done by Dr. Vanghetti. He was the very first person to make an artificial limb that could move by muscle contraction.
In 1946 a major advancement was made by the University of California. It had a suction sock that could hold the prosthetic on better. This was made for above the knee surgery.
One of the last improvements was in 1975. Ysidro M. Martinez did not attempt to replicate a natural limb with articulated joints. What Ysidro M. Martinez did was he made the prosthetic light weight to facilitate acceleration and deceleration and reduce the friction. The foot is a little bit shorter so that it can control acceleration and that reduces friction.
The prosthetics we have today are the battery powered prosthetic, the muscle powered prosthetic, and the motor powered prosthetic. The battery powered prosthetic allows a person to walk up and down the stairs a lot easier and it makes the disabled person easier to bend the knee. Battery powered is the best in joints.
The muscle powered prosthetic is super light weight and has a lot of gross body movement. Physical therapy is required because of how much gross body movement there is.
Lastly, motor powered prosthetics have a tiny motor at the bottom of the artificial limb. This motor makes walking easier than a person with an actual leg. Also this motor allows you to climb the stairs, and sit down without hurting any other body parts. These prosthetics allow many people to become great athletes. Those three prosthetics are what we use today.
Resources

www.BioMedSearch.com
www.personal.psu.edu/mef5089/blogs/final.../Prosthetics%20Today
About.com
Science.jrank.org/pages/313/Amputation-History.html
science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/humanbiology/ampuations2.com
www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-amputation.htm

This report was done by Ben.

I remember when I was 8 and it was Christmas Eve and my sister and I were begging to open up one Christmas present. For many years my sister and I have tried this but my mom has always said no. But that year my mom finally gave in. She let us open one present. So first my sister opened up her present and her present was a Barbie doll with a Barbie doll plane. She was so excited she didn’t even think about me. She ran upstairs and started playing with it. Now it was my turn to open my present. I ripped that wrapping paper up like there was no tomorrow. And guess what the present was? It was a teddy bear with a purple peace sign on it. My mom was laughing so hard. I said to my mom, “Is this the wrong present?” While she was laughing she said “Yes, yes it is.” Then she explained to me the whole story. She had wrapped all the Christmas presents and didn’t have any name tags (that night she had to go and buy name tags.) By accident my mom got two presents mixed up. My mom told me that the present she sent away to my cousin was my brand-new iTouch. That meant that on Christmas day my little cousin was getting an iTouch. My mom didn’t want to ask for the present back so my mom had to go out and buy me a new one. Once I got my iTouch I was the happiest person would have ever seen.

The main topic that I’m going to write about is the time I misunderstood something like the time Tyler thought she was going to flunk 6th grade. I remember when I was 5 I really wanted to be an artist. (My drawings were not very good when I was 5!!). So my mom she always supported me and one day my mom said “Ben you are so good why don’t you draw me a picture and we will hang it up on the wall.” She meant to draw it on a sheet of paper and we will hang it up in the wall but I thought that she meant to draw a picture on the wall not on a piece of paper.
So when my mom hopped in the bath and started reading her book, I went into my room and grabbed all of the crayons and markers I could find. Then I went back out into the hallway I started to work my magic. I grabbed my blue marker and drew a big blue smiley face. Then I grabbed five crayons in one hand and five markers in the other and I scribbled all over the wall! To finish off my drawing I wrote “I love you Mommy,” at the bottom of the wall.
When my mom finished reading her book in the bath she got out and went to check on how I was doing. She found me in her bedroom watching Barney. She asked where my picture was and so I walked out to the hall and showed her. She was crying because she had to clean all of this off the wall. But she couldn’t really yell at me because I was so proud of myself. She sent me to my room until she finished cleaning off the drawings. That is when I misunderstood something like Tyler.

I chose medical research for my year long project. I think that it would be easy to do it because I could choose a story about a kid who has cancer and I could show what they are doing to try and help this kid and all of the medicines and everything. Also I really want to learn more about it because I’m really interested in all of the medicines that they use and everything. Also I want to see how far they have come from back then. My last reason why I chose medical research is because I want to see what they are trying to do to cure cancer and other bad diseases. Also my aunt had cancer and I want to see what they did to help her get better. Medical research is awesome, (for all nerds like me.)

I chose pencils or mechanical pencils. I think that I would choose mechanical pencils because I think that you don’t have to waste time to get up and go sharpen your pencil. Then while you are sharpening your pencil you get put on a 1 by Mrs. Crosby and you have to go back into your seat and you probably haven’t even finish sharpening. Another reason is if your lead breaks you don’t have to sharpen your pencil, you can click the button on your mechanical pencil to bring out more lead. The last reason why I chose mechanical pencils was because every time you sharpen your pencil it gets smaller and smaller until it is down to the point where it is so small you can’t write with it. So you have to go and buy another pencil. But with mechanical pencils you can have lead in your pocket and pull some lead out, stick it into your mechanical pencil and now you are ready to write.