Hope your Chinese New Year is good so far. Our celebration this year is the most quiet and uneventful one. We fetched the father home from the hospital last Saturday. Tried our best to make him feel at home and more comfortable.

We had our last minute CNY shopping on Sunday. Grabbed boxes of Mandarin oranges as gifts to neighbors and family.

We spent the first day of CNY mostly at home. Watched some DVDs and played some card games.

Of course, being married, the one thing that we cannot run away from is preparing the red packets.

Luckily, we usually don’t get many visitors so I didn’t prepare many.

It’s very quiet CNY for us because we seriously have no mood for festive seeing the father’s still not fully recovered. Anyway, I hope your CNY celebration is much livelier than us. Hehe!

For a year plus, his mistress has been beautified with nice accessories and is well taken care of. Unfortunately, his mistress was in an accident one day, where her condition totally broke my darling’s heart. After being ‘hospitalized’ for nearly a month at the Toyota workshop, she’s finally ready to go home.

Taken on the day we fetched her. Shining, right?

Yet, my darling was not very happy with the repair. There will be more stories about it later. Once she’s home, she’s being beautified again the next few days. My darling is someone who does not procrastinate (unlike myself) and he takes care of his mistress very seriously. He is a dedicated husband who also takes care of his wife (a.k.a. me), if I might say so. Hehe!

Just think about health issue. If we ignore a symptom or a problem with our health, it doesn’t mean the problem will just go away. For worst case scenario, the problem will even get worse without proper treatment and over time it’s causing major problem.  But just by knowing you have a problem, it’s a troubling thought. You start to think more and more about it. You start wishing you don’t even want to know at the first place. On the other hand, you know you just can’t ignore the truth and there’s no running away from it. It’s a common dilemma in life.

I wish life is simpler. I wish I know all the answers to all problems. I wish things will be better and everything will turn out to be good. But the truth is…nothing is going according to plan or wish. As a matter of fact, nothing works for me so far…

When he first being hospitalized, his right leg and hand couldn’t move. He couldn’t even speak as if he lost his voice. He’s bedridden and movement was difficult. After 2 weeks of acupuncture treatment and some Chinese medicine, he could lift his right leg, higher over time. His voice comes back but his speech is still unclear. Probably still hard to control the tongue. He can sit up right and eat on his own with his left hand.

Just starting last week, we helped him get down from the bed and we wheeled him to the garden. The next few days, he spent time training his legs by standing while holding the barrier. He still has difficulty moving his right hand and occasionally pain in stomach and leg. But considering it’s great progress to all of us. We are now very hopeful for his recovery and the possibility of discharge from hospital before CNY.

I thank you for your support by visiting this blog often. Much gratitude to those who took time to leave some comments. Thank you for becoming my friends through this blog. I really appreciate our friendship though we may not have met personally.

For 2012 I wish you have a great year ahead with better opportunity and health.

Happy New Year!

(Postaweek2011 #52)

Michi, our dog of more than 11 years has been diagnosed with heart problem. The vet said it’s common problem for most old dog. Her heart doesn’t function normally which causes fluid retention and stomach bloating. Her chance to get heart attack increases.

Her stomach is getting bigger every day. We originally thought she’s pregnant but we did suspect otherwise. We know she’s old but we never thought it’s her heart. The vet did an x-ray yesterday and showed us her rather enlarged heart. Her lung has a lot of changes and probably has fluid that causes her to cough. We should have gone to the vet earlier if only we knew. She’s still very active and has great appetite. We didn’t suspect much earlier. We just wish we are not too late in saving her.

She’s been given heart tablets for strengthening her heart muscle and diuretic tablets for minimizing her water retention. The vet was rather concern about the more expensive heart tablets that cost RM7 per tablet and she has to take one a day. I was not so concern about the cost. It’s not like we cannot afford it (though we are not very rich) and I’m more than willing to spend on her if she can live longer.

Chance of survival is very hard to say. All we can do is trying to prolong her life and minimize her pain. She didn’t show much pain except for her big belly, cough and slightly hard movement. She’s still the same responsible house dog, always on alert on intruders such as cats. Hehe! Now we are worried about her being too stress. It’s just not good for her heart. We wish she can act like an old lady and ignore the activities outside the house. If only she can…

Although she’s not the pure breed that most people love, she’s still our adorable ‘daughter’ even though we don’t know where she came from and what’s her breed. She came to us one day when she’s a puppy and has been staying with us for the longest time. My darling loves her to bits. Her round watery eyes are the greatest asset that attracts everyone. We will do whatever it takes to give her more years. Just stay strong and stay with us…

The mistress car is at the ‘hospital’ for about 2 weeks  now. My darling’s heart was totally crushed looking at his mistress car. I, myself, felt his pain. It was badly damaged and the cost of repair is around RM10k. Of course we claimed from insurance, the one who hit us. We paid a visit to see the mistress car last Friday. Still in progress.  One of the good thing about going back to Toyota for insurance claim is that we are guaranteed of genuine parts and the warranty of those parts is for 1 year. We were initially approached by some agent in the police station, recommending us to go for certain workshops for repair work. I guess we made the right decision not to. For sure it takes longer time for Toyota to process the claim and repair work but I guess it’s all worth it.

So, I just want to say we definitely learned something out of these bad days. If your car is still under warranty from its manufacturer, make sure you go back to it for any insurance claim and repair. Don’t be fooled by others who say the warranty is void once you were in an accident. That’s not true. If you have been constantly going for service maintenance at the approved service center, your warranty is still intact even after an accident. The only thing is to go back to the approved center for repair. Once you go to non-authorized workshop for repair, your warranty is definitely void even before its 100,000 km or 3 years.

Now I just wish our bad days had ended and good days will come this new year. *crossed my fingers*

I’m a bit guilty that for his birthday I didn’t do much due to so much happening in the family and our recent bad luck. I did treat him for his favorite food last Saturday. He had his Taiwan noodle and pancake while I enjoyed my Korean kimchi. Hehe! Then I got him his favorite hot Vanilla with skimmed milk for free. Just because I bought the Starbucks card and once I registered I entitled for a free grande drink. I’m smart enough to register under his name and during his birthday month, he got a free piece of cake too. Hehe!

I didn’t get him any present and he kept reminding me not to do so. We just have too much in hands right now that birthday celebration seems pointless. All he really wishes for are getting back his good luck and his father’s well being. I pray for that every day.

Anyway, he still got a present from his younger sister. Despite all of us busy going in and out of the hospital, she still thought of his brother. Hehe!

To my dear hubby, may you be wiser and healthier this coming year and believe me that when bad luck passes, good ones will be abundant.

(Postaweek2011 #51)

 Eveready, the brand.

He’s so black in color, that’s why I named him that.

This was when he was a few months old. I took this photo with the intention to give him up for adoption because we just had too many cats in the house. I guess fate had it that no one wanted to adopt and we ended up taking him.

He’s super adorable when young and super small size too that’s why he’s called “underweight”. The reason why he’s so small was that his mother was hiding the birth so deep underneath the staircase that even after his birth, we couldn’t get him out. His mother didn’t leave his babies for weeks but there were just quite many to feed. I guess he didn’t get much milk from his mother then. Nearly a month, we finally got him out but he looked so fragile and we thought we were going to lose him. We fed him milk ourselves and soon he got slightly better and bigger.

He’s unique, one of its kind, the one and only. For a cat, he’s the least picky of his food (he ate basically everything, no kidding!) and the least frequent going out of the house (one would think a male cat would love to go out and court some females but not him). He basically stayed home with the family most of the time. Maybe he knew he was starved before, so he knew if he stayed around, many of us would just give him food whenever we were in the kitchen. He’s super smart, I tell you. He waited at the gate every day without fail for the aunt who loved him most (and of course fed him most too). He just knew when to wait and for what reason. I was always amazed at his act.

He’s dog friendly too. He’s best friend of my Blacky and they sometimes slept together side by side at the porch. Amazing scene but unfortunately I didn’t catch any photo of them together and now it’s just too late. He passed away early last week. He was barely a year old. His sudden death was not natural cause and we suspected that he’s poisoned. A sad story and we mourn his passing deeply. He’s missing for a few days before that which was a rare case. When he finally came back, he looked very sick, not moving much and eating (which was super weird as he loved to eat). In his final days, he’s just lying there, not moving at all. We knew it’s too late. We were all helpless seeing his condition. I did pray for him and wished he would be at better place now.

We all miss him so much. I will always remember him as the special one, my Eveready.

(Postaweek2011 #50)

My darling were away on business from last Wednesday until Saturday, so I went to visit with the other family members every night after work. When he came back, we spent nearly the whole Sunday with his father in the hospital. Spending time in hospital gave me a lot of time to observe my surrounding, especially the people. Most of the patients are stroke patients and mostly are middle age and very old age. Some have family members who are always there to take care, yet there are some very old people alone taking care of themselves. When we see they need help, we will help as much as we can too. Hoping that others will offer the same to the father if we are not around.

His condition is still not as good as we wish to be. I guess this really takes time and his determination. And everyone’s patience and encouragement. After a week of staying overnight on rotation, no one can afford to take leave anymore. We had to make the most difficult decision for leaving him alone at night in the hospital. We all have to plan a new schedule that works for everyone. During the day, his aunt has volunteered to spend time from Monday to Friday from afternoon until evening. The siblings will take turn to go every day after work and weekends.

Tonight is our turn. We are taking this Sunday as well. All of us are trying hard to make everything works but I know it’s really hard. It’s very difficult to see the father who used to be talkative and active but now can’t even tell us what he wants. It’s frustrating to him and we can see it from his face. It pains me to see. Sometimes helplessness is the worst kind of feeling.

(Postaweek2011 #49)