Sunday, December 5, 2010

Life's Throwing Lemons

Life's really unpredictable. A month ago, we were joyfully celebrating big bro's wedding and I thought I would have ample time to work on my blog after the wedding coz I was quite free. However, something totally unexpected and unfortunate happened and I was busy in and out of the hospital for the last 2 weeks. I still remember we were having a great time celebrating mom's birthday but 2 days after that, dad had a stroke. =( Everything came so sudden and fast...never  would I have imagined that this would happen so soon...haiz! 

Mom woke me up about 4.30am that morning saying that dad's leg was numb and she was gonna send him to the hospital. Good thing was that I was home so was able to help drive and rush to the hospital. Went to the Lam Wah Ee hospital first but the A&E officer said there's not neurologist there so asked us to go to another hospital. At that time, dad's situation was still not that bad coz he was still able to move his hands. Then we quickly rushed to Island hospital, the neurologist was there early but couldn't do much coz he said that 'golden hour' was over so had to do MRI scan. Quite unlucky coz dad was asleep before feeling the numbness, so it was hard to determine what time exactly the stroke started. If it was within 2 hours, the doc could have done something to prevent the situation from worsening. =.=

According to the doc, what happened was dad's right brain was bleeding and formed a blood clot...affecting the entire left part of his body...so they had to inject some med to dissolve the blood clot and put dad in the ICU...sucks. If you want me to describe how serious dad's condition was...all I could say is it's serious enough to be in the ICU for 3 days. :( No one wants all these to happen but there's no point guessing why and how this happened to someone healthy like dad. Things are gonna be different from now on but I'm sure our family will stay strong together and help dad go through this tough time. It's gonna be a long recovery road but I have faith in dad that dad will be able to stand up again. 

This was the 'cold camping place' that I was talking about in my earlier post. This ICU waiting room sort of became our room coz we were sleeping, eating, watching TV, hanging out there for almost 3 days when dad was in the ICU. We were really making ourselves at home. :p

Took care of dad in the hospital after he was transferred out to normal ward. Sometimes, it feels like god has planned all these in advanced...at least all these happened after bro's wedding was over and I am still free while waiting to start work in Jan. I'm the free-iest person in the family so spent the most time in the hospital accompanying dad. :p Haha...see how I make myself comfortable in the hospital with my netbook, deck chair, hoodie, etc.

Bro also came back during the weekends to help out. It's always good to see dad smiling. :) Dad had some physiotherapy session in the hospital...I'm the unqualified assistant trainer...hehe!! :p

Sincere thanks to all friends and relatives who dropped by to visit dad in the hospital and brought lotsa laughters.

At first, dad had 2 doctors...one neurologist and another neuro surgeon. Then after bros spent one night in the hospital...one more doc was added...this time is for the heart coz dad's stomach was aching the night before. Dad's definitely topping the list with the most doctors. :p Dad had 4 different neighbors throughout his stay...2 changed room coz we were too noisy...especially when there were visitors around...haha!! Another angmoh was discharged before we could chase him out. :p 

Flowers and gifts from dad's colleagues and some relatives.

Just like the title of this post...life is giving us lemons right now and this hardship is definitely a challenge for all of us in the family. It's difficult for us to understand what dad's going through right now...what we need to give him is patience and motivation. What happened has happened and there's no point making ourselves miserable over something that we cannot change. Everything's gonna change from now on...but I'm hoping that it'll change for the better. Looking on the bright side, at least this illness is not terminal and there are still chances of recovery. This has also brought our family closer together as we got to spend more time doing things together. =) It's also a good reminder for us to cherish everything that we have now especially our family and be contented. Never ever take things for granted. 

Quote to share: "Life is not about how hard you can hit. Life is about how much you can get hit and keep moving forward!"

Friday, December 3, 2010

Happy Birthday Mommy!!

Nov 17 (Wed): Mom's Birthday at Tao's
Big bro wanted to celebrate mom's birthday and all he could think of was eat, and only eat so 5 of us went for buffet dinner at Tao's. How I wished good times with family could last longer.

I'm still unemployed & poor so could only afford to give mom a tulip that I bought from Amsterdam. :p 

Love these pics. :)

Yummy!! The kiasu way of eating...haha!! I always rugi when it comes to buffet coz my stomach is too small for all these food!

Cherating Weekend

Nov 13-14 (Sat & Sun): Alumni Community Weekend at Legend Hotel, Cherating
Actually, it was our college's convocation that weekend but I didn't plan to attend so was quite free especially since bro's wedding was over. So made this last minute decision to attend this event organized by the Malaysian-American Alumni Partnership. Basically, I was just busy traveling and tumpang-ing others' car everywhere all weekend. :p Rae was scolding me for not attending the convo with her so I decided to make a detour to KL to meet up with the gang and also drop by for a convo pic. =) Btw, I almost lost all these pics coz my netbook's hard disc decided to die before I managed to backup...luckily bro helped me to recover...phew!

Reunion of the 'Super' gang. =)

Glad that I made it there early to take this pic with the 3 of them before the ceremony  then quickly rushed all the way to Taman Bahagia to tumpang Alan's car to Cherating. =) 

Finally arrived Legend Hotel together with the UGRADers after 4 hours journey.

The event was a good opportunity to meet up and network with alumni from other exchange programs.

Time for alumni to meet the Click Camp participants. Had a good chat with Jim and some Fulbrighters during tea break...Jim's 'monkey vs laser' story was hilarious!

Cherating is famous for its beach and we were supposed to have an activity on the beach...but look at the weather...you could see the rain coming. =.=

Thanks to the rain...all the alumni met up with our community activities group in the ballroom instead.

Networking session and dinner for the alumni. US Ambassador Jones was also there for the event.

All the students and alumni members were split to several groups to go for different community activities. I chose to teach English at a nearby pre-school...ooo...it wasn't an easy task. These kids come from kampungs so didn't really get much chance to learn English...plus I had one hearing and speech impaired girl in my group so it was quite a good learning experience for me. Another good reminder of how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to learn so many things since young. 'Appreciate what you have coz there are people out there without it.'