Here's My Story

I foot out for my own medical bills since I'm not working for a company. Hence, I try not to visit doctor if I can, especially for common illnesses such as runny/blocked nose, sorethroat, headache, diarrhea, fever etc. I'll self-medicate instead. Sometimes I'm tempted to do so for bad sorethroat: it's so discomforting. However, there is one particular consequential symptom of I'm scared of: sleep disturbance due to cough and/or phelgm accumulation. It is torturous not having enough sleep. Besides feeling exhausted, I generally feel bad not being able to do my routine, what more additional tasks like working on projects and meeting up with family and friends. By now, I can sort of identify the symptoms that will soon lead to sleep disturbance and I will then visit doctor as soon as possible. Even with that, I can't avoid this phase but at least I'll get a few hours of sleep from the second night onward. Sleeplessness on the first night is unavoidable, ...

Tiffany accidentally heard them discussing it after she had gone to bed that night. It's quite easy to accidentally overhear people talking downstairs if you hold an upturned glass to the floorboards and accidentally put your ear to it. - "A Hat Full of Sky" by Terry Pratchett Lol. Sounds like something my 6-year old nephew would say.

So after three weeks , my dad commenced the last cycle of the chemotherapy treatment. To my surprise, his blood test prior to Day 1 session showed elevation in ALT to 42+ , from the usual 20+. I was puzzled until he told me that he stopped taking the liver supplement. Haiz, both my parents sometimes think they're doctors by changing doctors' order. After chastisement and reminder that the doctor did ask him to finish it, he started the supplement again. Fortunately, the oncologist allowed him to undergo treatment that day. Blood test prior to Day 8 session (the last session) showed ALT back to normal range of 20+. Phew. Kidney function was borderline and that was ok. There was a surprise during the consultation with the oncologist: she disputed her colleague's suggestion of experimenting with the gap between morphine intakes to find out whether my dad still needed it or not. She claimed that there must be sufficient opiate in the body to manage potential pain inflicted...

During the second appointment , Dr N asked more questions: current mood happy or sad childhood? spent more? latest depression As a result, there was further cut to Luvox (anti-depressant) and an increase (as planned) in Olanzapine (anti-psychotic). Xanax (anti-anxiety) was maintained in the meantime. At the start of the session, my mum told Dr N that my dad and I could answer for her so to minimise her "long story" (she can't hear well and/or sometimes doesn't understand the question properly). I couldn't tell whether she was spending more or not but later, my sister affirmed it (to me personally). It seems that (because I cannot recall) my dad hinted to Dr N about this by saying that the fridge was already so full and yet my mum bought more food. I told him that he should tell the truth directly, rather than giving hints. There were other incidents that recently came to my attention that indicated that she was spending more too e.g. giving strangers re...

I have now stayed at Butterworth for just over 3 weeks and I will be here for another 2 weeks due to my dad's chemotherapy sessions and my mum's appointments with psychiatrists. I'm feeling miserable. It's like I spent and spent my energy here but can't recharge. I miss my life and routine back in PJ so much. To make matters worse, I had a few days of bad sinus. Ban couldn't come with me because he was helping his family taking care of his grandpa who was in PJ for a visit. He still couldn't drive here because he has been experiencing leg cramp recently (the foot that's used to press the pedals). Haiz.

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.  - Haruki Murakami

Dr N jokingly said that my mum would curse her after taking the prescribed medicine because it would make her lethargic (instead of the current energising mood). However, except for the first night, it made little difference in that aspect: 1st night: likely slept for 10 hours 2nd night: didn't sleep at all but lied to different member of the household in varying degree. Took at most a 1.5-hr nap 3rd night: at most 4.5 hours. Didn't take nap 4th night: 2 hours 5th night: at most 2.5 hours 6th night: about 4 hours 7th night: about 6 hours Despite this lack of sleep (her "usual" sleeping hours was 8-10 hours), she was still in the hyper energetic mode, interfered in as many things as possible to "help". She felt stressful when people didn't listen to her but, clearly, she didn't realise that her "help" was stressing everyone else. It was like she was out to complicate things in a bad way. Haiz. An initial improvement was that she...

After a morning gym session (I managed to go for the morning yoga class haha), I scouted around for possible places to eat at reasonable price while waiting for Ban. Our default plan was to lunch around our area. So after looking through its menu, we agreed to try Hyo Sun. The set looked like good value for money. So I decided to try the Honey Chicken set. The wait was longer than expected and so I suspected that the chicken was deep fried from scratch, which turned out to be true. Although its flour was crispy, the amount of honey was insufficient unfortunately. Evidently, the salad was paltry. They did give kimchi but I was never a fan and this one was no different. Soup was ok. The jelly was really nice: softer than normal and not sickly sweet. Would I go there again? Maybe but only for its value meal.

(1) Drastic change in behaviour (2) Claims she's the chosen one of Buddha and yet it's ok to make everyone else miserable (3) To help someone is to whack him/her and then weep for him/her (4) Making accusations that are clearly not true (5) Wants everyone to listen to her but she doesn't want to listen to others (6) Wants everything done her way, including parenting method (7) Bang head on floor or use hands to close her ears when others want to talk to her (8) Talk to herself (but only for a short period of time) (9) Get snappy ("You don't know one lah" "You never listen") when we suggest possibilities of, say, why there's blood in her phlegm. The all knowing, all seeing. (10) Demands that she's informed on every single decisions made by everyone (11) Refuses to engage in discussion, insisting that she's right. That's my mum. I had to return to Butterworth two weeks earlier than planned to help my sister and dad to try to...

...including your vote!

By the end of this cycle, my dad's ALT has dropped to 20+, which is his usual reading. So that's good. Another good news is that the gap between morphine intake has widen to 7 hours now. Fantastic! Everything else is under control, except that every now and then he has low appetite but kudos to him (after much persuasion from his family and the hospice nurse) for having small amount of food but more frequently when that happens. The daycare oncology section in their own building (the "green" building) has finished undergoing renovation. Although we've been to that building before, it was in the clinic side. It was then our first time going to the daycare section. Luckily it wasn't too cold. However there is a change in procedure: they asked all carers to leave the section once chemo started. Don't know why the change. When we asked the oncologist for the tumour marker result, he didn't find any lab report in my dad's file. I also ob...

I had to double-take as we (Ban, his brother and I) were walking back to the car after dinner. I laughed and laughed. Do you think it was put up by the owner or his friend? Whoever it was, he was smart to mention "dogs". I believed most people love dogs and this is surely a plus :)

Insurance is part of the infrastructure of our society – you don’t really notice until it doesn’t work. - "Mental Health and Insurance", a Green Paper by Actuaries Institute

Ok, so I decided to stop being lazy and blog about my current Brynn build. It's essentially a shield build for survivability. Refer to this website for more details on Brynn's abilities and mods. (1) Impale: Hold the Line (2 mod tokens) Improves survivability. Aegis would already half the damage. With this mod, you can eliminate most damage from a single freelancer (other than ultimate ability, of course). (2) Aegis: Shieldbearer (3 mod tokens) The best Brynn's ability in my opinion. What could make it better? Make it last another turn. On the turn you use it, movement and position yourself such that you're under cover on as many sides as possible, including that provided by the persisting Aegis. (3) Soaring Shield: Wind Up (2 mod tokens) I selected mods for other abilities and only then considered this ability. The default ability is still good: it gives greater flexibility and sometimes it can catch enemies off-guard. (4) Flight of the Valkyrie: Batt...

(continue from Part 3 ) As usual, Catholic has the largest realm. What's interesting though is that Hindu has the second largest realm, Tengri (probably thanks to Mongol Empire) occupies the 4th position and Buddhist in 6th place. Sunni was completely wiped off. Shocking, eh? The King of England held the largest realm among my direct vassals (just slightly less than 10% of my realm), followed closely by King of Syria (he was on a roll with his holy wars lol) and King of Poland. However, due to a marriage in the past, the King of England was also the King of Navarra although the latter's kingdom was smaller. Yes, I had the largest army :) The only difference among the top 5 compared to the previous list sorted by army size is that Egypt is pushed down to 4th position. I wonder how they had such a large army compared to its realm size. In my current campaign, the Mongol Empire's realm size at one point was only 85 but with an army size of 100k+. Crazy. ...

(continue from Part 2 ) Due to de jure drift, Kingdom of Britanny, Navarra and Lapp had become part of Empire of Alba. Also note that I had sufficient counties to create the Wendish Empire but I didn't for fear of split in empire titles once different heirs are nominated for the empires (Tanistry). Yellow = Empire of Alba (my realm) White = Christian defensive pact vs Alba Green = Muslim defensive pact vs Alba Red = Pagan defensive pact vs Alba Yes, late game I couldn't declare war because of these pacts. I often had 80% - 100% threat level @@. Fortunately, my vassals were actively declaring war and so I would join their wars (more like take over because their armies disappeared the moment they accepted my offer) if they were faltering. Sunni was either gone or very tiny (evidently). Mongolia Empire this time adopted Tengri and so largely propped up Paganism.

(continue from Part 1 ) Disjointed realm, right? Some were my own doing but my vassals were responsible for the bulk of it. Here's how some of them became part of my realm (not in chronological order): (PS: sometimes I created duchy/kingdom titles and granted them to vassal, along with all lower ranked vassals within that duchy/kingdom, to manage my vassal limit) (1) Kingdom of England Each county was conquered based on fabricated claims and de jure claims (I created and granted duchies to my vassals). I did try to usurp, with the intention of vassalising as much lords as possible and then destroy the title (I didn't want a powerful vassal) but most of the remaining counties were then held by the former English king and, understandably, he refused to be my vassal. Hence the slower way of conquest. Later, after I had made sure that substantial part of England was held by vassals with primary titles outside of England, I created and granted the Kingdom of England t...

I've blogged about significant reloads in this campaign. I believed (it's been sometime since I finished this campaign) that there were no more major reloads after those. At the outset, I aimed for Tanistry succession law and to finish with it. I'm proud that I managed to do it. Yes, there are downsides to this law e.g. can't really control what foreign land your heir can inherit (unlike Primogeniture) but, oh boy, the stability it brings to the realm is amazing. Elective Monarchy can arguably be more stable but Tanistry guarantees that the realm stays within your dynasty. The score of 139,066 didn't beat my personal record of 178,253 . Realm is smaller than the latter's (1,165 vs 1,214) and, due to Tanistry, I didn't hold as many titles (for fear of splitting the realm due to different nominees). 22 rulers. Peter the Cruel ruled the longest (56 years) while Emperor Lachlan the Great has the highest score (12,386). As with previous campaign...

With bated breath, we look at the blood test result. Since we didn't know exactly which liver function test to look out for, I tried finding one that has its upper limit in the 40s. I found only one: ALT, with upper limit of 41. The reading was exactly 41! Although it was significantly below 60+, it was still way above his usual 20+. However, we thought that he would be allowed to do chemo because it wasn't flagged out as "high" by the pathology lab and that there would be a 14-day gap before the start of Cycle 5 Day 1 chemo after this second session of Cycle 4. Luckily we were right! Phew. Kidney function reading stabilised just within the normal range. Dad gained a little weight. Not a problem. In fact, there was good news (as acknowledged by the oncologist): dad added duration of his walks and also lengthened the time between morphine intakes from 4 hours to 5 and then to the current 6 hours. Yet, there was no pain in his leg. If he crosses over 6 hours, then ...

Years ago, my parents and my sister's family dined at this restaurant a few times. They loved it. Later, they also dined at Butterworth Western Food which later they found out that it's operated by someone who is former partner of the cafe's operator. My parents thought that the latter wasn't as good as the former. So when Ban wanted a change in routine by having dinner outside, I suggested Butterworth Cafe. My dad joined us too. I chose a set meal that included mushroom soup, root beer, grilled fish and lychee pudding. First thing I noticed was the pitiful amount of salad. Doubling that would had been much better. At almost the same time, I noticed the brown sauce. Normally grilled fish comes with white sauce but this one came with BBQ sauce! So unusual and it was not nice for me. The fish was grilled with a layer of flour. Seems like it was pan-fried rather than grilled. Overall, it wasn't to my liking. The root beer came in this cute glass :)...

Despite having done so just after Cycle 2, the next oncologist (when we turn up for Cycle 4 Day 1 session) ordered another CA19.9 tumour marker test after merely one cycle i.e. Cycle 3. Kidney function test stabilised. At least it didn't decline further. Few sessions ago, my dad's weight was 1.1kg lighter than previous session and so the oncologist was concerned. I had witnessed a patient turned away and asked to take a week's rest because the weight loss was significant. Fortunately, in my dad's case, the weight was still above his pre-leg pain weight. Pain -> less exercise -> higher weight at start of chemotherapy. Moreover, this time, he managed to increase the amount of exercise too. These assured the oncologist, at that time, that it wasn't an issue. Weight on Cycle 4 Day 1 was higher than previous session and yet this other oncologist raised concern that it was still lower than the pre-chemo weight. We gave the same reasons (and also that my dad ma...

Ever since the last heart-thumping ranked game , I usually avoid playing ranked game. Unfortunately, the last chapter of Season 3 required, as one of the missions, players to earn certain amount of ranked points. I was tempted to forgo it but in the end I did it because I had finished all missions so far. The trick was that I needed to win to shorten the number of matches needed because much more points were awarded for wins. Fortunately, I lost only 2 matches. Here are a couple of matches that I won: This was such a refreshing game, even if compared to normal PVP matches. We made mistakes and yet there was no finger-pointing and/or thrash-talking. We continued to communicate and focused on the game, despite falling behind. Good job team! This is the first time I used Brynn in a ranked game. If I'm not mistaken, team needed a tank and I picked Brynn because it was her turn in my personal rotation. Thanks team for my first win playing Brynn :) Brynn was a freelancer ...

If I plan to attack, I make a habit to check on the enemy liege, chiefly to see whether he's already in an existing war or not. Naturally I would prefer to not fight the entire armies of the enemy. During such check, I discovered that HRE had declared war on Byzantine. This was huge because they were in the top 3 largest empires, in terms of size and armies (my empire, Alba, was there hehe). This itself presented a good opportunity for me to attack HRE for a claim on a county (for a vassal). However, this became urgent when, on closer look, the war was to press a claim on the entire empire for a Byzantine princess who was married to the HRE heir. If they succeed, they would be marriage tie between the 2 empires (it would be the second time it happened during this campaign) and upon death of both rulers, the two empires could be united under a single ruler (only hope was that there would be at least 2 male children since Byzantine was on Gavelkind but then again this law could b...

I started a new campaign recently (maybe 2 weeks ago?) and about to finish it. As with all campaigns (except for a period of madness when I did an ironman campaign ), I do reload games when something I tried didn't work out. However, I reload when I know I could have prevented the results if not because of my carelessness or my lack of knowledge. Here are two instances: HRE pressed a claim on France for the Kaiser's heir and won @@. They did it when an underage King of France ascended the throne. By the time I noticed the war, the warscore was already significantly in favour of HRE. I was busy with something else (can't remember what) and was hoping to finish that before helping France, either by offering to help him defend or declaring war on HRE for a claim on a county (I can't remember which one haha). However, I was too late. So I reloaded and kept an eye on them and was ready to pounce it if it happens again, but it didn't. Since then, I've been ...

Since the last repair by Dell engineer, I've waited for Dell sales team to e-mail me quotation of the battery. And waited. And waited  @@ There was simply no response from the sales team, in spite of numerous queries sent to their customer service officers via e-mail, phone and Facebook. I pointed out to them that this is making a mockery of the motto automatically inserted at the end of their e-mail: "At Dell we strive to exceed expectations and provide the highest levels of service to customers." This nonsense went on for about 2 months before I finally receive a quotation from the sales team. No apologies whatsoever though, unlike their customer service officers. Humph. It's been about a week now using the new battery. I have tried a few times unplugging and plugging back the adapter. Seems like the issue "plugged in, not charging" is gone. Phew, finally!

It's been 4 months since the general health screening . There was about a month delay in retesting due to various reasons, especially during two 11-day periods of illness after coming back from Butterworth. As advised by doctor, I retested cholesterol level and the other red flags. MCV (slightly high), MCH (slightly high) and WBC (low) remained more or less unchanged while total bilirubin reduced significantly, although still elevated. Doctor wasn't concerned about these and was fine that I retest these during my planned yearly general health screening. As for the cholesterol test,                                 Jun 2017          Ref. range          Oct 2017          Ref. range      Total cholesterol           6.4                 < 5.2...

This was at Penang GH: I think this is quite clever.

Things pretty much settled after the second session (i.e. Cycle 1 Day 8). With medicine, my dad could pass motion and managed the pain in his leg. In fact, he could increase the amount of exercise via stationary cycling and slow walks without an increase in painkiller dosage. His abdominal gas is pretty much gone...except when he ate spicy food on the sly. His appetite was normal. There were usually no side effects from chemo except for the occasional tiredness The blood test done just before Cycle 3 Day 1 treatment, however, showed an unexpected decline in kidney function. The oncologist wasn't too worried but incidentally ordered tumour marker CA 19.9 test. I was a little surprised because I expected it to be done after Cycle 3. Blood test done just before commencing Cycle Day 8 treatment showed the kidney function improved (borderline). Oncologist was a little concerned that my dad lost weight (63kg to 61.9kg) but was assuaged once I mentioned that his normal weight was 60k...

Some distance away from the mass of Japanese rose plants at sister's house, there sit a pot of them with a variety of colours: Noticed that there are two colours here that are not present in the larger location: yellow and orange-red. So pretty. I do wish, however, there is also the simpler version of this flower i.e. the one with a single layer of petals. Also, noticed the difference in quality of photo? This one was taken with my new Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace (J111F) . It does look significantly better.

I have tried several builds since I last posted on a build I used then. Currently, I settled on 2 builds: (for detailed description of abilities and mods, please refer to this webapge ) (A) "Hold ulti" build (1) Empyreal Ruin - Amplified Eruption (2) Fate Transfer - Energy Leech (3) Quantum Core - Benevolent (4) Astral Fusion - Intervention (5) Cosmic Flare - Energy Accummulation I still believe that in most circumstances, the (3) + (4) combination gives the most healing overall. Sure, Enhanced Reconstruction technically gives most healing (5 more at max shards) but you usually don't always have max shards when you need to heal. This combination gives the best clutch healing, imo. Normally Orion gets energy equal to half of damage he takes but with Energy Leech, he gets effectively 62.5% of damage taken via Fate Transfer and this hasten his accumulation of shards. Energy Accumulation gives the most self-heal and excellent for a "hold ulti" build....

Recently, every now and then, I was disconnected from Atlas Reactor server mid-game and couldn't reconnect due to "network error". Resetting modem and router, as well as restarting laptop, couldn't solve the issue. Finally, I found a temporary workaround (obtained from here ): Running Command prompt as administrator, Type "netsh winsock reset" and press "Enter". Type "netsh int ip reset" and press "Enter". Type "ipconfig /release" and press "Enter". Type "ipconfig /renew" and press "Enter". Type "ipconfig /flushdns" and press "Enter". It fixed it for many hours but the problem came back again. I don't know what else to do but just to hope it'll go away on its own.

Oh, I thought that I had blogged about subsequent Orion builds that I used but apparently not because there is still only one post on Orion build . I have since used 3 different builds and have yet to decide which I prefer. I did come across these gems, though, which must be during the time I used the old build: Noticed that my Orion took 737 damage. In fact, at one point, when the damage taken was almost 600, my Orion was still alive. Enemy team clearly out-damaged us but clearly we out-healed them and won the game. Phew!

Down with sorethroat, cough and phlegm. Not serious but haven't gone away since Friday :( But that's not going to stop us from celebrating our 8th anniversary tonight :) We'll have nice dinner at a Japanese restaurant. I love you very much, Ban. Muacccckkkkkk!

From this list , I narrowed it down to Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace or J2. Although Vivo Y25 is slightly smaller than J1 Ace, it's not availabel on Lazada or Lelong. Also, My sister and Ban had no problem with Samsung after-sales service at their service centres. Along the way, I did get sidetrack by even smaller phones such as Samsung mini series but the specs were too low for my liking. Initially, I was gunning for J2 because it was the lightest and had the largest screen-to-body ratio. What made me hesitate was the price difference: more than 70%. To make matter worse, it is no longer in production and so it was so difficult to find anyone selling it. Its Prime version was significantly bulkier and and about 22% heavier! Later I realised, and confirmed, that Ban's phone is the older version of J1 Ace. He has no problem playing games on it and its battery is ok for his usage. His only problem is memory space but that too it's only a small problem because he rarely takes ph...

So, yes, I called them once again when they didn't call me like they said they would . I once again explained the problem to the officer: it existed since May; gotten new sim card; gotten 4G smartphone. She suggested that I try the alternate way of making calls while roaming i.e. *161*, instead of using + . I pointed out that that didn't work back in May but then quickly added that maybe because my phone wasn't at least 3G enabled. So she encouraged me to try this. Lo behold! It worked! Called one Malaysia mobile phone, one Singapore landline and one Singapore mobile phone. Although it's more troublesome than using + way, I'm contented to just leave it as it is. Finally, I get to use my rarely-used credit once more. Yay!

I believed I was the only one in my family and among my friends still using a normal phone. There was simply no reasons for me to switch because I don't use internet on my phone. Ban would have continued using his normal phone if it wasn't spoiled. His current phone was a gift from a bank obtained by his mum. Over the last year or so, there were some problems with my normal phone. The manual locking didn't work. Hence, I needed to swipe to unlock and select "lock" from the menu to lock it. Then sometimes the swiping didn't work either. I had to get Ban to call me and then it would work again. Then there was that issue with my Singapore sim card , which means I definitely need at least a 3G phone. In the meantime, I discovered how useful Google Maps and Waze are on smartphones. Hence, with all these considerations, I decided to hunt for a suitable smartphone: one that allows me to call and text and occasionally use the navigation software. After some ...

Oh yes, the saga continues. My friend and his partner helped me to get replacement sim card from a Starhub centre in Singapore. According to a Starhub officer there, my line was active and I just needed to change my phone (as suspected). They kindly waived the replacement fee because my friend came all the way from Malaysia. Yay! In the meantime, I researched and got myself a 4G smartphone (more on this in another post) and it can accommodate 2 sim cards (yay!). I called using the new Starhub sim card and ... it was the same issue! "Your outgoing calls have been barred" or "Your outgoing calls have been temporarily deactivated". I can still receive calls though. Spoke with 3 different Starhub customer service officers and tried (1) Switching on and off the phone (2) Taking out the sim card for a few minutes and reinserting it back (3) Cancelling call barring (4) <I forgot what this is hahaha> The last officer jotted down details and said she would l...

While playing as a Life Cleric in a 5e D&D session: Rogue: Ummm I think I need healing. Sorceror: I need healing! Me: Hmmmm how much missing hp from half your max hp? (calculate) Me: Oh, only 8hp. Ok, guys, lose 2 more hp and I'll heal. Rogue: What?! I stab myself! Sorceror: @#$$%%^ I'll remember this! Me: Oh, relax guys. You won't die. I'll bring you back up. Rogue & Sorceror: @!#$#@$% Bard: Hahahaha. Paladin: *facepalm* Lol, I think they don't know that they just fall unconscious (to 0hp), rather than die straightaway. I can sort of "resurrect" them at the same time later. In the end, I did it anyway. Next time I should probably should explain better my strategy hahaha.

One day, my dad requested me to ask GE Life the current sum assured of his life insurance policy and the claim process in the event of his death for my mum to claim (she was the beneficiary). I tried calling but to no avail and so I e-mailed them instead. In it, to incentivise them to reply soonest, I mentioned that my dad had stage 4 cancer and so was anxious to get the answers to these questions. More than a month later, they responded with an apology for the late reply. As expected, they declined to disclose the sum assured via e-mail. They gave me links to claim processes of various claims. To our surprise, the next day, my dad received a call from HQ alerting him that his policy had a rider to claim for critical illness and although it had expired, he could still claim because the diagnosis of cancer was made before the expiry date. We were pleasantly surprised. We totally forgot about the rider (I later confirmed its existence by checking the policy document) and the insu...

Well, the latest SPC episode is still ongoing, although I believe it's coming to an end. I consulted the doctor 4 times @@. Just when I thought I should recover 100% any time soon, another problem cropped up: trouble sleeping. I would have "normal" sleep for a few hours and then just shallow sleep for the rest of the night or none at all. Been going on for few nights already. I thought maybe it was one of the two medicine that was new to me: Carinox (loratadine + pseudoepherine) but apparently it isn't one of its side effects (common or rare), according to several internet sources. Then I thought maybe it was lack of exercise, thereby cortisol level remained elevated. If this was true, I faced a dilemma: start exercising while still not 100% well and risk falling sick again, or continue with this restless sleep? The other medicine presribed was dexamethasone. I didn't suspect this as the culprit at first because I had it before and I didn't have restles...

Ban: The bathroom sink became cleaner after we used it for sometime. Me: I cleaned it. Ban: Ohhhhhh. :)

Yes, the dreaded SPC (sorethroat, phlegm, cough)  strikes again. Funny thing is that preceding this was a huge ulcer at the back of my mouth the day before I traveled from Butterworth to KL. Don't think it's related but thank goodness I developed sorethroat only on the night I arrived. Since my father is undergoing chemotherapy, his immune system is weaker. So when my niece developed high fever, we asked him to wear a mask. However, when any other adults fell sick, he wanted everyone else to wear mask but him @@. By chance, my usual doctor was in his clinic on Sunday (lucky!). He told me that I had "bubbles" of inflammation around my throat that potentially could fuse together if left unchecked. He prescribed antibiotic (he usually tries not to prescribe this), anti-inflammation, something for the phlegm, ponstan and something for phlegm + cough (the last one was prescribed on the day after when I went back again saying that I developed cough). So, the symptoms ...

About 3 days after the 1st chemo , itchy rash appeared on dad's left leg and his back, and there was swelling on left leg above knee. Coincidentally, the next day, he had follow-up appointment with doctor at the Klinik Kesihatan Penaga re hypertension. Doctor gave calomine lotion for rash and prolase for swelling. The following day, the hospice nurse came along with a doctor. Although she believed the rash and the swelling were chemo's side effects, she said it was unusual they appeared 3 days later (usually almost immediately). She prescribed ceterizine for the itchy rash, nystatin for the whitish and sometimes swollen tongue (pharmacist substituted it with decozol because it wasn't available) and added senna for constipation since it was still a problem despite doubling the frequency of lactul and adding enema, obtained from Penang GH. Two days later was the second chemo session (Cycle 1, Day 8). As usual, oncologist attended to every patient at the start. She prescri...

I blogged previously about Ban's unlucky first-use of MyEG service . Bad luck struck again for this first-timer. One day, I purchased an ETS train ticket via KTMB official website. Unlike previous time, when I clicked print, it was a blank page. So I jotted down its ticket and ref ids. I logged back in and using one of these ids, I managed to print the ticket. Later, Ban wanted to purchase a ticket too but he tried easybook.com, which was the website he used the first time he purchased ETS ticket. However, this time, he noticed that the total ticket price is more expensive than that purchased via KTMB website. So he switched to the latter. He encountered the same problem as I did and so replicated what I did. However, the system told him there was no such ticket! Upon my suggestion, he called KTMB and gave as much details as possible. They still said no such ticket. Haiz. Afaik, the KTMB customer service officer said that if it was an error, he would be refunded within 2...

Ummmmm I don't think this is a good marketing strategy lol. Ban and I tried this for lunch after gym one day. It was so-so only and for its price, you're better off with Subway even at full price.

I am fine (or at least try to be "fine") with people requesting change in plan due to emergency i.e. unscheduled interruption in electricity, sudden flooding, accident etc. I can also consider requests for change for any other reasons. What gets my goat (except in emergency cases, of course) is the last minute man-made decision to change plans without  discussing with me even though I'm a major participant in that plan and sometimes I'm the one who's needed to ensure the plan succeed. I'm especially miffed when it happens to big plans i.e. plans that take days to materialise. To make last minute changes simply because the requester thinks is "convenient" is definitely not so. Big plans require some coordination in logistics and time management.

Following our suggestion , my dad tried morphine again, preceded with oat and took Dequadin after. No vomit. The next one, he took oat and pork floss respectively. No vomit! Thereafter, he was ok. He did, however, vomit a few times due to gas in his abdomen. Upon the hospice's nurse advice, we got him Gaviscon for it. The hospice nurse's first day here was spent mostly on information gathering but she did answer all our queries and provided relevant advice regarding, say, constipation, vomiting, abdominal gas as well as services that hospice can provide. She is friendly and seems experienced. The following week she would probably bring along a doctor. On the first day of chemo, we arrived at Penang GH about 8.15am. After registration, nurse weighed dad, took his blood pressure and took some blood to test for Hep B and C (only on first visit). Then waited to be called by the oncologist, who asked about his condition and whether he needed top-up for existing medicine....

Once home, dad tried the prescribed morphine . Vomitted less than a minute later. I googled and according to UK's NHS, some patients vomit after ingesting morphine. They advised these patients to eat some food before taking morphine and that this effect should be gone in a few days. So, on his second try, dad had some oat before morphine and then a Dequadin pastille after. It worked! 4 hours later, he also took oat but not the pastille. Unfortunately, about 50 mins later, he vomited during dinner. Henceforth, he was afraid to take morphine and went back to Tramadol. Instead of taking it only when he felt pain is coming, he took it every 4 hours. He still took Gabapentin before sleep. Seems to work well at first but later the gap had shortened to 3 hours. So upon my sister's and my suggestion, he would try morphine again similar to his second try i.e. oat before morpone and Dequadin thereafter. Meanwhile, we got our dad registered with Penang Hospice Society. They would se...

I laughed when I read this:

(11) Thought of system restore but had error "System Restore error 0x80070091". Searched online and tried  this solution  but the last step was unsuccessful because the file already existed. (12) Meanwhile, rolled back audio driver and the headphone jack always works now! (13) Re (11) above, just renamed slightly different (added "2" just after "old"). System restore worked but didn't solve the low muffled audio problem. (14) New problem: when I played Faeria, Overwatch and Atlas Reactor, at least one of these happened: (a) flickering (b) discolouration (c) patches of monocolours (d) entire screen filled with coloured lines of varying width Strangely, these didn't happen to Paladins, Small World 2, Guild Wars 2 and Crusader Kings 2. Was advised by Dell to choose "on" for vertical sync setting in NVIDIA control panel (although I would think the default "use the 3D application setting" is better) and to use the given ...

Recently, I accompanied my dad at his follow-up appointment with Penang GH's oncologist . Surprisingly, we waited only 1 hour before being called into the room, crammed with 3 doctors @@ (1) Renal function test results seem ok, just below borderline. (2) Tumour marker (pancreas) level has increased again, from 80+ to 133. (3) When asked by oncologist, dad said yes to chemotherapy. When asked by dad, the oncologist also recommended that treatment since dad is (relatively) healthy. If the response rate is good, the pain in his leg will likely be gone. I have strong suspicion that that's just a guess on her part. (4) Will start chemo 2 weeks later. 6 cycles. 1 cycle: chemo on day 1 and 8, and then rest until day 21. (5) Dad will need to go for blood test on the day before chemo and to bring the results to hospital when going for chemo. (6) If during chemo treatment dad falls sick e.g. fever, he is to go to emergency ward (of any hospital) and inform doctor he's und...

I had this chendol (RM4.90) at Kopitan Classic while waiting for my sisters, b-i-l, nephew and niece to finish cycling at Occupy Beach Street . Noticed something odd? It was ice-blended instead of shaved ice. So strange. No large chunky ice for sure. Unfortunately, many other chendol are better than this especially given its price.

(1) From 100% to 40+%, then slowly increased to 53% before plummeted to 3%! Now back to 6%. (2) Bios: battery operating normally. Dell Support Assist: passed batter test. (3) Used Ban's laptop adapter. No change. (4) Dell engineer: changed motherboard and the power input jack. (5) Dell engineer: changed motherboard and power adapter. Advised to get new battery but he would ask Dell to refund me if that doesn't solve it. (6) Meanwhile, discovered sound is too low and muffled, similar to previous incident . Informed CSO of this and (5) above. (7) Then discovered my laptop was performing like a tortoise, similar to what I experienced before . Checked IRST: disk wasn't accelerated. Accelerated it. Still started slow and programme started slow initially but subsequent usage was normal. Saw the RAID cache volume's cache mode is off. Don't know that's normal. Tried to find out but no success. In the end, updated driver of the SATA RAID Controller and it wor...

One day, many moons ago, after a seafood meal at a rather rural area in Penang, we saw this plant at that restaurant. We are already familiar with it and so my sister (thank you!) decided to...errmm...take some sample to cultivate them at home. Do not need the entire plant; steam will do but make sure there is at least 1 node so that it can branch out. They have flourished well, taken care by a few people in the household: Seeing them always make me feel a little bit more cheery :)

Arata has already closed down years ago and currently Udon Kobo Min Min is operating at that shop lot. This is ChaShu Udon (RM19.90). There were 3 slices of chashu which tasted ok. When it arrived, I couldn't smell the soup but I guess it's normal for udon soup? The soup was clear and just right in taste i.e. lightly salted. Unfortunately, the udon was not soft enough for me. There was yuzu peel inside this dish! First time ever for me. I'm not sure whether it actually enhanced the dish or not but it wasn't bad at all. Certainly different. I decided to be adventurous that night and ordered, for the first time, yuzu sherbert (imported). It was aromatic and had yuzu peel in it too. I highly recommend this dessert. I may dine here again in future and perhaps try a different udon dish. For sure, I will have their yuzu sherbert again :)

About a week after meeting Dr D , my dad had a appointment with the oncologist at Penang GH. Surprising, he did not recommend chemotherapy and instead would continue treating symptoms. The only pain right now is on his left leg. The specialist recommended upping the Tramadol dosage from 3 to 4 times a day. If that becomes ineffective, then small dosage of morphine will be prescribed. With regard to the tumour at the lymph node, he acknowledged that it has grown bigger but it's still small. Also, there was no further spread of cancer. When the time comes for chemotherapy, he would recommend 6 cycles but with only 1 type of drug (rather than the 2 types that have been consistently recommended by the other 3 oncologists) so that it's less harsh on the weaker organs. He asked dad to go for tumour marker tests and to meet him again in a few weeks time to look at the results as well as to get an update on my dad's left leg. Currently I have reservation about this ...