Buddhist Master Hsing Yun (星雲), the founder of Fo Guang Shan (佛光山) Monastery, suffered an acute stroke last weekend, but is in a stable condition after surgery on Monday, the Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital said yesterday.
Hsing Yun experienced vomiting, fatigue and weakness in his limbs on Saturday before being hospitalized on Sunday, when doctors determined that he had suffered a stroke in the left side of his brain and arranged for him to undergo surgery.
The 90-year-old Buddhist monk has a history of “the three highs” — high blood sugar, high blood pressure and high blood lipid — as well as heart disease and diabetes, and was hospitalized at the same hospital twice in 2011 for an ischemic stroke.
“There was a blood clot about the size of a fist, and fortunately it was mainly in the intraventricular, so it does less damage to brain cells,” Chang Gung Memorial Hospital honorary superintendent Chen Chao-long (陳肇隆) said yesterday.
He said doctors detected a blood clot during an examination and suggested that immediate surgery be performed on Monday. After a three-hour surgery to remove the blood clot, Hsing Yun was moved into an intensive care unit for observation.
“We were able to remove his inserted tubes about 65 minutes after the surgery,” Chen said. “The whole surgery went very successfully.”
The hospital said that after Hsing Yun regained consciousness, he asked if he could return to Fo Guang Shan to preach, but his medical team said it was better for him to stay in the intensive care unit for further observation, adding that his condition yesterday was relatively stable.
Chen said people with the “three highs” should pay special attention to their daily diet, exercise regularly and get regular follow-up examinations at a hospital to control their medical conditions.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS