Learning to Dream

I am home.

I am at work.

It feels ‘strange’ to sit on my chair to work. I have almost forgotten what it feels like to work 

nine to six.

The computer screen looks familiar, everything I have known are all in the right place.  I fumbled at the keyboard. Woosh, I was typing with my nails!! Where is “A’, “Z’,” R”, I have to look at the keyboard closely to type. 

My mind recalled how to open a word document, and how to access my email, but the computer did not do what I wanted it to do. It took me half a day to figure out the computer before I could get any real work done.

I clicked on the ‘IN box’ in my email. Holy cow, almost 600 email came in! It will take me at least a week to deal with all of them. Meanwhile I struggled to type on the keyboard. Many spelling mistakes. And where to insert this, and underline that?

Where are my things?  

    I have been
forgetting to bring my handphone...........

I was frustrated, even more frustrated is my daughter who has to come over constantly to show me how to use the computer again.

“You can’t give up,” Lucy saw the tension between my daughter and me over the computer. One wants to do things fast, one has other things to do in the office besides teaching computer. Turning to my daughter, she insisted, “If she learns faster, her mind will be calmer because she will worry less, and it will be good for her.”

Besides computer usage problem, I can’t remember where some of my files are! So when I need to work on something, it takes me quite some time to search for my folders in my email and also in my hard drive. I got worried. How is the ED of eHomemakers able to bring things back up to pace again if she can’t remember her files and many things?

“The only way is to be patient, work hard to get better, and pray to God" Lucy’s advice. “But don’t work too hard that you fall sick again. Remember, you are on steroid now, so you feel that you can do anything and everything. The truth is, you can’t. Your mind is running but your body is not.”

“And try to use different things to help you to remember.”

Color coding things help me

 to remember which is for which purpose.

I get tired easily. After every hour on the computer, I have to lay down on the couch in the living room of the office. Sometimes I am so frustrated that I feel like giving up. Times like this, Lucy advices again, “Then think about all the good blessings around you, and dream about good things. When you feel better, start again.”

Dreams? Pong has dreams to travel around the world to meet other disabled who do unusual things and to be a motivational speaker. What is my dream?

I wish a strong team with a strong leader with same vision as me take over eHomemakers so I can write, make documentary and travel around the world.

Going to the US to do my PHD, back to the academic circle to debate over nice dinners and wine.

Being a motivational speaker, travel widely and speak.

Being a sought- after mentor for institutions which have social entrepreneurship programs.

Become a totally changed person.  When I walk, flowers open for me; my light shine onto others. The world is mine. And life is fabulous.

Many good friends around with good conversations, wine and good foods, and lots of travels to see the world with them.

Both Lucy and Pong told me 
that the best thing to forget is the past.

My good friend Jabu told me to write down my dreams. It will actualize when you write them down and feel the success of the dreams.

So here they are in this blog.

By Ching Ching

Wesak Day

This Day is a day I don’t know if I should be sad or be happy. My father passed away last year at 8 am on Wesak Day. The monks told the family he is a high being as he left the world on Wesak Day and an hour before all the celebrations started in temples. On the other hand, I miss him- my mentor and an example of how life should be lived – with great forgiveness and all the love you can give.

A day to cleanse one's being and search for spiritual ascendance.

Let the lights shine onto you. Light the candles to take out the darkness.

My brother’s family drove from JB to a special Buddhist temple. They only came in for a few minutes to check on me, they wanted to prayer for me at the temple. My wish to have the whole family together, talking and eating, was dashed. Oh well!

 So I spent my Wesak Day reading a book……and being calm.

Lucy came to see me in the afternoon and brought me bananas. I told her about my reservations about the steroid medication,”My tummy is still big!”

“You have to trust that it will work, maybe it takes longer time. But have Faith. If God sends you here, he must know that it will work! Give it time!” She is forever so reassuring.

Lucy has become my live or die councilor.  All my woes and misgivings about being an ascites patient are resolved by her. All my doubts and questions about the hospital were answered and clarified by her. And all my inner thoughts about living and dying are shared with her. Only she understands because she has been a patient.

Thank God I have a councilor, a friend, and an undying flame with a strong hand to support me.

So for the rest of the day, I envisioned myself joining in the Wesak Day celebration,searching for inner peace and inner strength.

By Ching Ching

Visualizing and Feeling Good

So after re-reading the book, “The Secret”, I started to think about good things especially when nurses are taking blood from my veins…..

One day, after an excruciating painful blood taking, I lay down and jotted down something that I’ve never dreamt of before – what do I do when I win a lottery of Rm1 million. Money has never been in my mind, so it took me a while to think about what I could do with money!

This is what I want to do:
a. Give 10% to Pong and Lucy.
b. Build a special solar energy system in my house and grow vegetables on the wall and rooftops, generate electricity and sell it back to Tenaga.
c. Replace furniture, piping in the 30 year old house with better lighting, energy efficient piping.
d. Go to travel China and Europe with my daughter, it has been my dream.
e. Give the rest of the money to daughter to go to university.

If I win a lottery worth 10 million:
a. Give Rm1 million each to Lucy and Pong, takes care of Ng Kar Cheng’s living.
b. Do a+ b+ c+ d +e above
c. Buy a condo so I can stay in a smaller place when daughter goes to university.
d. Invest in eHome myself without having to beg people for money.
e. Visit daughter yearly when she is in university.
f. Invest my money for retirement and health care!

I smiled and felt good.

Now let see if the Secret works…..

By Ching Ching

Learning to be Humourous

“We are prescribing you steroid,” a doctor told me. “We will start with eight pills, then gradually reduces the number of pills. But you must remember to take them daily.”

The medication nurse will give me my pills in the ward, it is when I am home that I must remember.

Grilled chicken on a stick!

I am beginning to feel better. 

“Be careful of your ayam panggang ( grilled chicken on a stick)”.  I told the nurses when they rolled me over to wipe my body.” They laughed. 

“I used to be very beautiful,” I told the trainee nurse who came to take my blood pressures. “I don’t know what has happened!” She too laughed.

When the doctor’s team rolled me over to check, I said to them, ”I feel like a leg of lamb, ready to be grilled any time by you guys? So may I have some mint sauce please?” I heard a few chuckles.

A doctor tapped my big belly to listen to the sound of water. “Do you hear a whale or a dorphin?” I asked. He humoured me back, “You sure have whales and dorphins inside that big belly of yours.  People pay a lot to see whales and dorphins. Do you still want us to get rid of them?”

When a doctor was trapping my belly to decide on where to open a new surgery hole to drain the fluid, I asked him if he needed a GPS to find out the best spot on the tummy.

I am learning to crack jokes in three languages, it gets my mind working.

Also, I am learning medical terms so that I can crack jokes on myself.

Because I‘ve become more cheerful, other people seem to have become more cheerful towards me.

A neighbor came to visit me and asked me if I was satisfied with the hospital. I am with the doctors, I have no complains, and I will not be going to a private hospital again. I like doctors who care instead of thinking about how much more money and how quick they can make the money from a patient.

I guess I will stay with the medical teams till I am fully recovered.

By Ching Ching

More Learnings

I have now a clearer head to work on my adjustment to the hospital.

If a patient wants to be happy in the ward, she must build community relations with the doctors and the nurses. Give something thoughtful to a grouchy nurse, she might treat you better next time.

I am learning more about my body so that I can help myself in times of crisis. For eg, the human albumin drips got to be about 25 drips per minute, otherwise my vein hurts. Knowing which vein gets hurt easily and letting nurses know that they shouldn’t be poking on those veins is another way to avoid more unnecessary pains.

Sometimes I sneaked out to have lunches outside. The 24 hour food court on the ground floor opposite Menara Utama was the place to go but you must know which stall to go to. The Rm7.90 assam laksa was a rip off  at one of the stands. Don’t try the dishes at Home Food, I paid Rm8 for five spoon of rice, one tiny fried fish, three teaspoon of kangkung and three miserable pieces of tofu.  I asked them to throw their egg sauce away as it was bubbling with bacteria under the heat.

The stall SE Care is much cheaper and the foods are fresher. There are more varieties of vegetables and curried meats. 

I also figure out where the cleaner public toilets are. They are at the payment counter! Don’t try the public toilets in the ward. The new building also has cleaner toilets!!

My daughter said to me, ”You look much better now! Am I getting my mommy back?”

YES!!!!!!

I noticed that her boy friend, GG, has been a reliable carer to her. He has been bringing her to see me at night because she can’t drive. And he waits patiently by the wall as my daughter and I hug and talk. Sometimes, he got sent to get me cold drinks or some snacks for night time. He always obliged. And he checks on her daily, brings her out for dinner every Thursday and stay in the house to keep her company till 10 am. 

And, according to my daughter, he never takes advantage of her…….!! Halelujah!!

By Ching Ching

Things to Bring

A new patient came into the ward. She forgot to bring many essential things for her stay. Her family did what my home carers did when I first came, “We will bring you these the next time we come.”

But they didn’t make a list, I wonder if they could remember all the things they should bring.

Watching her fumbling around and later crying.  She didn’t bring her handphone and was unable to call home. I suddenly got an idea – let me list down things that patients should bring when they are admitted. This will help many people!

So below are my checklists which I compiled when laying on my bed, looking around me.

Things to bring from home:

1. Colored bags – This is to help you to be admitted without stress. For eg, the purple bag is for clothes to change like underwear; the green bag for relaxation such as books, or other things; the black bag is stuff for work, the pink bag contains toiletries.

2. Something that smell good --  The ward could sometimes smell very awful- vomit, shit, urine from your bedmates, or oily foods that their families eat by the beds. Bring baby powder to give yourself nice feeling after you wipe your body, may be even perfume during days when you are depressed. Or sanitizing sprays.

3. Bring black pants – The pants won’t show even if it is dirty and unwashed because your home carers have forgotten about bring laundry home for you.

4. A sweater – The ward can get very cold and you need a sweater when you are waiting for your turn at examination rooms.

5. A neck pillow for reading for browsing internet with your Ipad.

6.Books to read. Books that can take your mind somewhere for a few hours.

7. A bath towel and a face towel.

8. Cash not more than Rm250 and credit card ( if you rather do all the discharge procedures yourself to spare your family from waiting for hours for the discharge.)

9. Body lotion.

10. Toilet paper (One roll at a time because there is not much space).

11. Your favorite teas/coffees/drinks in powder form.

12. Handphone –a must!!

Things you need to buy or buy from the shop on the ground floor:

1. Adult diapers

2. Wet tissue for wiping your body

3. Soap for handwashing

4. Tissue paper ( small packets because you don’t have much space)

5. Snacks – low salt, or low fat low low sugar, whatever you are allowed to eat – For night time when you can’t sleep and in between when you can’t eat the hospital foods.

6. Mint or something to make your mouth smell good.

7. A small bottle of dettol or bacteria-ciadal sanitizer to clean up things around you to protect yourself from bacteria infection. Keep a small bottle in your handbag so you can disinfect someone’s car when you travel in case your fluid wet car seats.  You can clean it up with tissue paper and dettol.

8. Menstrual pads – to use as towels for the drain hole when you travel.

9. Minyak angin  or ‘fung yau’ (Chinese medicated oil for tummy pains).

The most common ‘fung yau’ in Malaysia.

10. Lip gloss for dry lips due to the air-conditioning.

For the mind and telework:

1. An Ipad with internet access

Medical Expert Jotting Down
Case Sheet Notes Stock Photo

2. Books to read

3. Writing pads

4. A clip board with papers so you can jot down notes. 

Things your family should try to bring to you every time they visit:

1. Banana to get your electrolyte balance.

2. Your favorite foods if you don’t have appetite, but make sure the foods follow your diet requirements.

3. Nice notes and greeting cards from friends to cheer you up.

4. Freshly cut fruits to help your bowel movements.

Things your family and friends shouldn’t bring:

1. Flowers – The pollen can give allergy to other patients and you have no space to put them.

2. Very sweet and high fat desserts － Foods with very high sugar and fat don’t help any one especially ascites patients.

By Ching Ching

Ascites Fashion

There are six issues you are immediately faced with at home and at work if you are an ascites patient:

1.The water retention grows daily as you eat and drink, so your clothes size changes. They get bigger and bigger till you are being drained, or in medical terms, ‘tapped’.

2.Draining – How is it done? They can also give you a urine bag to ‘drain’ you besides the ascites draining. This urinary bag will receive the flow from the urinary catheter and you have to carry this bag around too.  But you know it is always ‘down there’. And when you sit or sleep, you sit or sleep ON the urinary draining tube.

It is less ’risky’ than the ascites tapping bag. The ascites tapping bag has two blue hooks that allow you to clip the bag onto railings in the toilet and on your bed.   Since the ‘drain hole’ is on one side of the tummy, you fumble around with the tube when you eat, sit, go to toilet or walk around. (See the video I show about where to clip the blue hooks when you are in the toilet in the UM public ward. The railing in each room is different, some are on the right, some are on the left, so you have to remember which hand to hold the hook and which hand to do what.)

3.The unsightly bag – pedestrians will walk away from you in the mall, restaurant patrons in the next tables will ask to be seated elsewhere, proprietors of shops will follow  you thinking that you will accidentally trap the goods displayed with your tube!

One way to be fashionable and not grossing people out: Get an ecobasket from eHomemakers ( see www.justmarketing.info) and put the bag inside the artistic handbag! 

Eco-handbags are perfect
to rest your ascites tapping bag.

4.Punjabi clothes come in handy if you have access to this. The pants are in rubber bands or can be tied with strings, so the waist line is flexible to accommodate your shrinking or expanding tummy. But the colors can be too bright for Chinese patients such as orange, yellow, and purple. So make sure you have many Punjabi friends who are willing to lend you their clothes, otherwise you have to buy these and you might not be wearing them after you get well. Some neighbors may think that you are into Hare Krishnan or a Hindu! 

If the Punjabi top is too small for your tummy or the chest is too tight, then you can only use the pants. Beware of wearing different colored tops with the colorful pants, you can look like a clown when you don’t have enough clothes to wear.  I did look like a clown with my flowering peach background Punjabi pants with small red and orange flowers. The pants are so comfortable that wear them weekly. Several times, my big white blouses or peach blouses didn’t dry in time in the rainy days, so I had to wear colorful tops with the Punjabi pants as my wardrobe was very limited.

Punjabi pants come with elastic top for your
 ever-changing tummy sizes, and the pant legs are baggy.

5.Being discharged with the ‘drain hole’ means ‘managing the water’.  When my tummy was still quite ‘big’, full of water, the peritoneal fluid ( and it smells….) flew constantly out of the tapping hole even though there were stitches. The nurses removed them only seven days after the stitching. So I had to put a towel around my tummy ( that meant I needed Size L T-shirt or Punjabi top), strapped it with a strong under my big blouse or T-shirt, and kept changing the smelly towel when it gets too wet.

When I slept, a big towel had to be placed underneath the body part where the tapping hole was, and I had to wrap a big towel around my tummy so that the water seeped into the towel and not my bed.

And the fluid also drips out of the towel when I sit on the bowl to do my small and big business. So imagine the fumbling around when the string on the towel was too loose and the towel falls. Then I had to hold the towel with one hand while the other one does the right thing!

Once I was waiting in line in a neighborhood shop to pay for a loaf of organic bread, the towel fell off onto the floor. I picked it up and stuff it near the drain hole, but I didn’t do a good job, the fluid started to flow down my thighs onto my feet, forming a small pool of water.  And of course the smell from the fluid is not something an organic shop wants.  I fumbled around trying to find my cash in my handbag while one hand was stuffing the towel under the blouse. 

Luckily, a neighbor was there and she paid for the bread and took me home in her car. The fluid dripped onto the car seat as I was strapping the seat belt. Urrrrrgh, those rushing fluid, they seemed to want to spill out as fast as they could.

6.Creative water prevention – It took my carers and I more than one month at home before we figured out another way to for me to travel and walk around without a bulging towel underneath my blouse. Use highly absorbent night menstrual pads! We taped the wings onto my tummy and use the underwear as a ‘holder’ to keep it in place. 

It kind of worked well with me. I bought many bags of menstrual pads, since I am nearing menopause, there is not much use of them.  Using them for my ascites problem seem right! 

SO what kind of ascites fashion can one derive out of necessity without having to buy a whole new wardrobe? 

You have to have new fashion for:

1. For office

2. Going out in the day time

3. Night functions where every woman wears gowns

4. At home – Big t-shirt 

Having friends who are willing to lend you big t-shirts that match your Punjabi friends’ pants will help a lot. Make sure your friends don’t lend you their teenage boys’ t-shirts with prints of skulls and devils. It can get depressing when you don’t have enough t-shirts to go around. Pregnant friends who had delivered can also lend you some roomy fashionable clothes for night functions especially.

Like me, you may also have to consider borrowing big underwear from your elderly mother, and swear to yourself that you will never laugh at her home made underwear again!

Oh, get used to being naked in your own bed room. With all these hassles of fluid dripping, towels dropping, you can feel quite tired. Spend your weekend in your bedroom, naked, so you don’t have to deal with clothes. Just lay there with the towel or the menstrual pads and enjoy a good book or surf the net. 

By Ching Ching 

Pain Management

One of the key things that a patient must learn to cope with is pain management. Some pains that you have to bear with, almost daily -- the needle when they take lots of blood from your arms, the anesthetic needles before a surgery. 

I squirmed every time I see a needle－that was before I got sick. Then with this peritoneal fluid retention, more jabs come.  In March, my arms were so bruised that there was no way to find a functioning vein but to poke my toes or thighs. My veins collapsed from inexperienced nurses in Damansara Specialist Hospital jabbing me to draw blood.

Then in the emergency room in University Hospital, five doctors tried to take blood from me the first time I was admitted. ‘What happened to your veins?” they asked. After one hour, one of them managed to insert the triangular thing onto my right thumb. I was exhausted and spent by then.

God where are you? So much pains in life? Give me a break, please?

Eventually, I figured out that being humorous take my mind off the pains. So during surgeries, I cracked jokes with the nurses and the surgeons. I felt good to hear laughter in the operating theatre.And when I go back to my ward, I try to look at the surgery wounds as ‘windows to a better future’, and I assured myself that these wounds are temporary.

Chinese characters: Pains

“The pains are only today, and it will go away tomorrow!” I told myself repeatedly.

And I learn to take deep breaths and make myself calm. Enduring pains is stressful. But if I change my attitude and look at the needle pains at the moment of pain as ‘This is good for me’, “Just a prick and it will go away”, “Good medication to get you well, just breathe deeply and you will be alright, ” then the pains are more bearable.

With real pains and feared pains, my appetite has gone down. Since the tapping take away my blood protein, the doctor’s team has prescribed protein powder in the form of ‘Ensure’ so that I don’t lose more weight. I could get the powder in can form, in the form of a drink or in powder form. I chose the can form.

Attitude makes all the difference. 

All that can protect me

 The book “Living in the Now’, a Christmas present from my best friend five years ago has been in my current reading list. So for three days at the hospital, I slowly digested part of the content and learn to live in the NOW.

Just like Pong. The Pong who didn’t want morphine even when in deep pains because she wanted to talk to me.

Breathe deeply, think of all the good things around me. And be calm.

Think of my dreams, and the good feelings that come with achieving my dreams. Visualize success to get rid of the feeling of pains in the body.

 And also prayer for divine intervention.

And when I need human encouragement, I look for Lucy. She has been a lupus patient for almost three decades.  Ten years ago, she recovered from a one year Lupus flare-up and she almost died. When she got over it, she swore to God that she would devote her life to help Lupus patients. So since she has been with Salaam Wanita project for so long, she has become a trusted friend, and the only one I would listen to when I feel like giving up.

Her counseling consisted of advice to accept the illness and then move on with gusto. Some of the patients she counseled refuse to accept Lupus as the illness that had come onto them, therefore they refused to take steroid and the proper care needed. They choose to neglect. “You must forget the old you, and become a new person!”

I thank God that Lucy is the Angel Gabriel in human form.

By Ching Ching

Sitting in the Mess

One of the medications given to me is a laxative, this means I had to go do big business every two hours or so. It is that effective.

But when you are in the hospital ward and you are not allowed to go to the toilet, it is inhuman to be subjected to long hours of ‘sitting in the shit’!

The laxative gave me a good movement in the morning after breakfast. My mother came to see me. She asked the nurses to change my diapers.  “Tolong-lah,” she appealed nicely.  Two young ones finally came, drew the curtain and took off my diapers.

“Where are your wet tissues?” We have to buy disposable wet tissues for nurses to clean us up. These tissues are not cheap especially if you have a few runs in the day.

  Adult diapers, something I loaf to wear…………….

 

(I found a site for people who wear adult diapers, http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Wear-Adult-Diapers/139333)

Then, after lunch in the afternoon, a big wet one came.  I tried to restrain myself but failed. 

The rush was all the way URGENT.

“Sorry, mother, I know it stinks.” I was embarrassed.

My mother went to find the nurses but they were all buzy. The first year trainee nurses just smiled and walked away when they heard it was ‘berak’ (big business). We have to wait for the nurses on duty to do something. All the nurses said they were buzy, obviously. No one liked to change brown diapers.

These pictures depict the real life in the hospital ward. Unflushable toilet bowls, brown mess on the toilet floor.

That afternoon, I sat in the messy diapers for more than three hours.  When I sat up to drink, I felt like I mashed up something round and soft!  It felt so uncomfortable.  When I lay down, I felt like the mash was further meshed! I tried tol let my mind go somewhere by reading a book, but the mush was down there, and I could feel it then and there. It was uncomfortable to know that bacteria are brewing down there, feasting on my discharge! Yak!

I complained that it took me three hours to have my diapers changed. The nurse was irritated, “We got a lot of work to do. You are not the only patient here!”

That afternoon, I decided that independence is the way to go if I were to heal in this ward. No way, will I let myself be subject to this inhuman condition any more. I must get the order of ‘cannot go to toilet on own’ overturned as fast as possible.

When doctor P came at 5 pm to give me one more check, I told him about the messy mess. “I’ve little dignity left!” I told him, “please let me go to toilet by myself, I promise I will not fall and I will ask my mother to wait at the door.”

My mother helped me to argue my case too. “Very bad, she had to sit on her diapers for a long time. Bad wind goes into body if she does this every day.”

The doctor finally relented, “Ok, I will give instructions but you must make sure you don’t faint in the toilets.”

“I will ask my ward mates to also help out if my mother is not here,” I gave more solution to the situation, desperate to be independent.

That day, I learnt that the freedom to clean your own shit is not a born right!!

By Ching Ching

A Burden Lifted

Today is my sister’s birthday. I waited on the yellow chairs at Menara Utama in front of Secret Recipe.  People-watching is great for the soul, I concluded.

For two hours, I saw wheelchair-bound persons carrying their own bags to go up to the wards. A few were on crutches, but they carried their bags and walked with much dignity.

My home carers came to pick me up for lunch. We went to a Western restaurant in Section 17, PJ. I had a ‘duck l’orange’ that tasted like heaven….and chocolate cream pie that melted in the mouth. My sister enjoyed her pasta and my daughter enjoyed hers. My mother got her soft lasangne for her teeth. Every one was happy.

As I looked around the table, I realized that the past few months since I got sick had really changed our relationship with each other. Not only that they are supportive with what I do in eHomemakers, my sister and my mother have been paying for meals!  And we actually talk and laugh without me being criticized. The support I envision whenever I pray to Goddess of Mercy is working!

 

Remove the blockades and let good energy flow freely in me and around me!

Buoyant by the new bondings, I decided to follow the advice given my energy people. Forgive people so that the energy can move, so that the universe can channel the good energy into and onto you. Forgiveness removes blockades. So I must forgive my home carers for everything－ for their skepticism of my non-profit work, their unsupportive past and all the misgivings I have as a patient needing their care and understanding.

In the car, I said to my mother, “I forgive you!” And I hugged her.Taken aback at first, she finally said, “I gave birth to you, how can I not support you.”

Then I said to my sister, “I forgive you!” And I hugged her. She said, “Ok-lah!”

And then to my daughter, “I also forgive you for yelling at your mommy!” And I hugged her tightly.

They dropped me back to the hospital and I slept at 1 am instead of 4 am.

By Ching Ching

Slowly Adjusting

By now, I was slowly getting used to the military kind of schedule. My stomach and eyes have been trained to respond to certain timings of the day.

Handphone has become very important to me. Before the hospitalization, I was known for not carrying my handphone for several days. Now, this is the only way for outside communication. I asked my family and friends not to come to visit me, warning them about possibility of infection due to TB patients.  

One of my aunts, ABC, has been bringing me bananas and stir-fried greens with only garlic and chilli with no salt. A few times, she brought me some Malay cakes ( kuih) for breakfast because she also had to bring her 92 year old mother for check-up. Grandmother also has ascites like me.

One of the Christian neighbors is a lawyer. When he heard that I had no will, he drew one up for me and also brought another neighbor to be the witness. He didn’t want to charge me a single cent. Kind gestures like these are what warm my heart towards Christ, not long sermons.

The neuro team came today to check on me. They did some physical tests and studied the pet scan. “There is no blood clot, so we are very happy for you. But you are still under observation,” said the Head of the team.

Under observation means that a nurse is supposed to tend to me and checked on me regularly. I don’t have to beg to be helped. A new nurse was assigned to me.  She was nice, no scolding. I was happy. It really made all the difference if you have a nice nurse to help you or a sour face one whom you have to beg to get her help.

Dreaming about this sour soup
makes my mouth waters

The foods were getting to me by now – two boiled vegetables,  one the veg is always a melon with turmeric and fennel seeds, and another vege will be cabbage or very dead bean sprouts. My high protein diet low salt diet consisted of one big chunk of chicken sitting in a soup or a watery curry. As a Chinese, I am unused to eating a big chunk of chicken. If it is diced or sliced into smaller pieces, it would be more appetizing for me.  The fish was too smelly so I ended up with chicken. No beef because it is costly.   Sometimes I choose vegetarian meals, but the tofu tong fun soap was tasteless. Only the curried lentils and beans were more savory.

By now, I started to dream about foods I love.  Curry laksa, assam laksa, bak kut the, yong tau fu, chee cheong fun, Penang fried kewo teow, sea food tomyam, mango kerabu, Thai green curry, Thai style fried fish with mango sauce,  claypot tofu with spicy minced meat, and anything cooked with hot chillies!

Another of my favorite sour salad.
It has chopped peanuts with
sliced green papaya in lemon juice. Full of vitamin C!

My sister brought a few pieces of yong tau fu when she visited at night. I wolfed them down. “Don’t come every day, go rest.” I thanked her but I didn’t want her to rush over with foods daily after work.

The African doctor was on call at night. He came to check on me and asked me I had been treated right by the nurse assistant. I told him the repercussion I got from the Bell Palsy episode. 

“It is not supposed to be this way, but what else can I do?” He sighed. “I am only a trainee doctor.  I care for my patients but I can’t help them when others don’t treat them right.” .” 

So far, today was the only good day that gave me some peace of mind. 

By Ching Ching