Here's My Story

As adviced by Dr Anuar , I took Arcoxia for 3 consecutive days and two days later I reported to the physiotherapist that the pain level, at its worst, had dropped dramatically from 5 to 2. We both hoped that this was a permanent improvement, rather than lingering effect of the painkilling effect of Arcoxia. Well, unfortunately, it wasn't permanent but it wasn't all bad news either: a few days later, the pain level increased but only to 3. Bear in mind that I hadn't really tested by lifting heavy stuff because I'm not supposed to do that and so I don't really know how much more painful it will be. I should bring this up to the therapist next time. Meanwhile, the soreness of doing the hand exercise reappeared. Sometimes I had to stop midway during exercise to rest for half a minute because it was becoming painful. Applying Polar Frost on those areas helped quite a bit. I still avoid swimming but I'm so tempted to try it once......

I had been wanting to try this restaurant but kept forgetting. Doesn't help that we rarely go to One Utama especially since Starling Mall and Paradigm Mall are nearer. We were on the way to Sushiya when we passed by this restaurant. There was lunch promotion (free drinks with certain meals) and so we took the chance to have our first dine-in there. Ban had the Grilled Sea Bass. He found it to be somewhat fishy but fortunately the rather strong sauce negated it somewhat. I had Nasi Lemak Ikan. Fish was quite large and tasted not bad. Unfortunately, the rice wasn't lemak and the sauce wasn't sambal. Felt cheated. I can see why there are many customers: it's quite cheap for the amount you get but to us, the quality is questionable. We might try some other dishes next time.

Here are the results compared to 4 months ago :                                 Jan 2024              Ref             May 2024            Ref Total cholesterol            5.6               < 5.2                  5.3               <5.2 HDL ("good")              1.73              >...

During the course of the 6 sessions of physiotherapry (over three weeks), the weights and resitance were gradually increased, which is good news. The pain level, however, was still the same at its worst but pain  occured less frequently i.e. certain actions now caused little to no pain. During the follow-up appointment, Dr Anuar surmised that there is improvement (he did briefly check the painful spot on the elbow). prescribed 6 more sessions of physiotherapy, ultrasound and K-laser treatment, over the course of 6 weeks. advised me to take Arcoxia at least for 2-3 days because it also has anti-inflammation property (besides acting as painkiller). agreed that I should temporarily stopped swimming since it pains the elbow thereafter. I also bought a couple of 1kg PVC dumbbells since my 700ml water bottle is now significantly lighter than the weights I used during the therapy sessions. Gosh, I hope to recover 100% so as to avoid the need of surgery, which is the third option. The sec...

Saw this at SJMC Rehab Centre:  

    Actually, the first An Viet outlet that we dined at is the one at Gurney Plaza, Penang. It was chosen by my friend who came up from Singapore with his boyfriend. During our recent stay at Wayton Express , Ban and I dined at that outlet again. Unfortunately, they ran out of Ban's favourite clam in coconut broth with vermicelli and so he ordered their beef noodle. I ordered my usual grilled chicken banh mi, with request of more vegetables and they impressed me with how much more they gave, certain way more than that given by the outlet at Paradigm Mall, PJ. I made a point to commend them on this.   Another restaurant we dined at Gurney Plaza was ParaThai, a 4.9 Google star rated restaurant, the main reason I was keen to try. Unfortunately, the Pad Thai was too wet for my liking. I should give up eating Pad Thai: it is quite likely that it's supposed to be sweet and wet, not a combination that I like for noodle dish. I decided to give Myeongdong's corn dog another try, ...

The horrible experience at Sushi Mentai Butterworth back in late 2022 continued and so I discontinued going there. Much later one, I also stopped going to the outlet at Taman Megah becaused of the shrinkage of food. An example: Sorry, I don't have photo of its previous size but in my opinion, it had shrunk to nearly half its size. I rather that they increased the price because this made it hard for me to determine how to make up the difference (since my meal wouldn't be as filling as it used to me).  However, one day, I took the chance to dine at the Butterworth outlet again and I was pleasantly surprised by the size of the salmon sushi: Is this a blip or a permanent improvement?

Mum's first follow-up was a mere 6 days after she was discharged . We both expected it to be two weeks later. Fortunately, my sister volunteered to bring her to that appointment and thus giving me time for my much needed rest. Thank you, sis :) Key points from that follow-up: (1) Temporarily don't do any physio. Just walk. (2) Ban on squatting is only temporary, subject to Dr Tan's evaluation. (3) Full recovery is estimated to be between 3 to 6 months. (4) The surgery went longer than expected because bone had grown onto the old screws and so it took more time to remove them. Next appointment is scheduled to be a little more than a month later. X-ray will be taken then. A few days later, I spoke with mum: there is improvement in her walking overall and the pre-surgery pelvic/leg pain is totally gone. Yay! :)

Yes, I have golfer's elbow, as suspected by my mum's physiotherapist, Nisha, and diagnosed by Dr Anuar, an orthopedic at SJMC. But how did I get it since I don't play golf, rarely play tennis and never do gardening? I highly suspect due to gaming, something that Dr Annuar agreed too. Huh? How was it from gaming? Well, recently I was into a game, where each match lasted almost 20 minutes. When there were more players, the queue popped one after another. I placed my elbow on the arm rest of my chair and must have pressed it too hard on it for too long. Yes, it might be a wild guess but there is simply no other way I could have injured it. Currently, the most reliable to trigger it is to wash or dry my hair, and to hold my backpack at acute angle and slowly lower it down to right angle. It is also triggered after swimming and so the physiotherapist asked me to temporarily stop swimming. The doctor gave me some options and he agreed with my choice of medicine + physio. Medicine...

We checked into Wayton Express after we had done all the necessary for my mum at Penang Adventist Hospital for her surgery that day .  This was an 11th hour decision: it was made the day before when we were driving to Butterworth. It would be tiring for us on Monday if we were to travel twice that day from my sister's place to the hospital as it usually takes about 75 mins on average each way. Twice because one was to check-in my mum into the ward and the second time after she was out of surgery. Fortunately, for subsequent visits, mum was understanding and was ok that we don't visit her daily. I then thought of staying within walking distance of the hospital. I came across Wayton Express that had 8.2 rating in Booking.com, which was just less than 5 mins walk to the hospital and less than 6 mins drive (at peak hour!) to the malls at Gurney Drive. There was free private parking on a first come first served basis, which we never had trouble finding a spot. It's structured li...

We visited my mum the next day after the surgery during the early afternoon visiting hour, after our lunch. My sister was already there. Mum was still a little foggy, slept a lot and had low appetite. Not unexpected, especially since it would take sometime for the effect of general anaesthesia to wore off. We visited later in the evening too and she was a little better. The good news was that she no longer had the pre-surgery pelvic pain. Yay! The next day, she felt much more comfortable after the removal of the urine drainage bag and the surgical drain. About 42 hours after end of surgery, she was taught how to get out of bed and to use her walker to walk, which she could do without much problem. Five days after surgery, she was discharged. Actually, she could be discharged the day before but we asked for a day delay because of logistic issue. For the next 3 months, she should avoid swaying side to side and bending forward or backward. She should never do squats. Edit: On the first f...