Say what?
Why do you keep calling me?
Sigh…Just let me sleep!
Perfection….
Once upon a time, a perfect man and a perfect woman met. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect…
One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve, this perfect couple was driving their perfect car (a Grand Caravan) along a winding road, when they noticed someone at the side of the road in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys..
Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle…
Soon they were driving along delivering toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident. The mind numbing question is, Who was the survivor…?
Scroll down for the answer…
The perfect woman survived. She’s the only one who really existed in the first place. Everyone knows there is no Santa
Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man.
Women stop reading here. That is the end of the joke…
Men keep’a scrollin’…
So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman
must have been driving. And that explains why there was a car accident…
By the way, if you’re a woman and you’re reading this, this illustrates another point: Women never listen, either….
How Not To Charge Split Personality Persons
I went to a shrink today. He says I have a split personality…
Charged me £100. I paid him £50 and told him to get the rest from the other bloke…
2018 – 12 Injections For Pain For Self
29 December 2018, I realised something is not right with my limbs, specifically upper thigh region.
It was deja vu as the same pain that afflicted me whilst I was in Brighton UK returned with a venegance.
It first reappeared when I took the intellectually disabled out for the Zoo trip in November and the pain was so bad that I told my Lords that I needed to sit this one out and wait for them to finish the zoo trip at the entrance.
On that day I took 10,000 steps and ended the day at 11,000 odd steps.
The pain never left me and plaques me still.
So on 20 December 2018, I visited Doctor Boey Wah Keong at Gleneagles. He is my trusted anesthesiologist who saw me through very many surgeries just to chat him up and find out if I need to be warded in hospital to sort this out.
He did a pain check of my back and discovered 12 pain points. He hoped that by injecting me with Shincort at the 12 points, the pain would abate and if so, it was the best case of muscular pain.
I am hoping this is the case but he did say that it would be best for me to be seen by my surgical team led by Dr James Tan Siah Heng for his opinion.
Dr Boey is reluctant to put me through an MRI as I have titanium rods and screws and the big magnets pulling me may not be good for me.
Sigh….I have new challenges and I could still hear the echoing words of Prof Fong Kok Yong when I last saw him in November when he shared that he was worried about my spine.
The same fear and concerns was also felt by Dr Lui Hock Foong when he last saw me in October 2018 when he said it was best I do not mess with my spine anymore.
I am mindful that one day I may lose the use of my legs as my entire spine could end up being a bag of fallen bones. But with that as the end in mind, I try my best to start doing something now and avoid unnecessary load to spine by being careful at what I do and carry.
I am also aware that if my hearing goes as I suffer from vertigo and sometimes have spaces of minute seconds of ringing and then silence, I must not become like my difficult mum as I have no children or any loved one to care for me.
I will then learn sign language and remembered when I was in school, I was put in charge of a visually impaired student and when at my first job, I supervised 4 hearing and speech impaired lads.
Perhaps back then, the heavens above knew that I would end up this way and put me near them to understand their feeling and how to communicate with them. They were not beating selves up and laughed with me, teaching me sign language. I learnt how to be happy with a disability by watching them.
I remembered when I was diagnosed with spinal issues and surgeons were begging me to undergo immediate surgery or else I end up like the late Christopher Reeve.
I was calm back then and took me 3 months to decide. Whilst the surgeon bit their nails waiting for me to undergo surgery, I was calmly finishing work and ensuring that should I not be able to return to work, at least the company had a headstart to find a replacement.
Today, I am equally calm.
My gut tells me something is horribly wrong with my spine again and I suspect that due to massive scarring, the nerve roots may be trapped again and this will require intervention of sorts.
As to if it will relieve me of leg stiffness or pain, I am unsure how.
Will it be cauterization of facet nerve joints? Or new surgery?
I do not know and am cool about it.
If I have a problem, I will act like any manager and treat it as a problem and solve it to the best of my ability with resources that are available and make an informed decision.
2019 is not looking good for me on the health front. But life goes on.
Hello 2019….
2018 went out like a whimper for me as I was so stressed from work, family issues and not having enough self time for me, myself and I.
I wish I did not behave so selfishly to want self time but having to devote myself to 2 elderlies has taken a toll on me. After much dialogue with my siblings, they came down as I am just so tired.
Mum is difficult and “thin skin” which means she is or can be very caustic and complains of pain that confuses the medical fraternity. She is not one to handle pain well and would imply “attacks” which the cardiac team would think she is having a heart attack when she is not.
She would turn on her tears at every doctor she meets and makes me feel like she is living a life of poverty. She would give snide remarks to doctors who charges a consultant fee and be happy when she gets freebie service.
This is so wrong as no doctor lives on fresh air and sunshine. My doctor friends charges her a nominal fee and she gets angry citing my “friends”as being “greedy” and are not real friends.
I give up.
I am only replying her for each pain if she wants me to do a mad dash to the hospital again. To which, she will condemn me and say that I am thinking she is faking it.
I do feel her pain is psycho somatic and it stems from her fall in January 2018.
As an elderly, the intercostal muscles were impacted when she fell face down and the inflammation takes time to heal. As with age, it takes a longer time.
Case in point, if it is was pain on a scale of 1 to 10 and her pain is as she claims, a mega 10, then how is it that Panadol can ease the pain. I have had pain that required morphine for pain to abate.
She claims rubs like nutmeg balm helps. So, this makes me feel that it is her mind that is playing up.
Between a caustic mum and a brain loopy dad, I am crushed with work stressors.
2019 will be giving me more stress as my parents will age one year more and my mum will increasingly get more ugly in words, in actions and everything else.
I wish she can let go of the past and live life with gusto and with happiness. I feel she does not want happiness but embraces, nagging and condemnation of my dad. I have explained to her that he is not able to function as his brain is mushy and it happens not because he wants to but he is just like that with age.
I do not have a good relationship with my dad as he never liked me. But I am the only one he has left and I did not like it that my mum is full of condemnation for him.
If marriage is so difficult, I wish they would divorce and let each live out their last days peacefully. Mum is too chicken to do it as she knows that she cannot be without dad as it is he who helps her with payment of bills or help her read things.
Mum is also one who is incapable of overcoming her hearing impairment. She moans and groans so much that I tick her off by saying what about those with no limbs. Do they curse the world or live on?
Life is tough as lemons come our way most times. But the beauty of it is to be able to accept it, make lemonade out of it and move on.
Given the life challenges I have faced, I have accepted all the crappy things that have been flung my way and moved on.
Will I be perennially happy? The answer is a big emphatic NO!
Will I be accepting of the worst? I have to as there is no other option.
Will I be ready when my parents take their leave from this earthly realm? Yes! In fact, if I feel my mum is living life so miserably and full of condemnation for people, then it is better she leaves earlier so that she can be freed of this horrid behaviour of hers and find delight in the heavenly realm.
The wonders of old age never ceases to amaze me and if I ever become like her, then I am speechless. No one owes me a living and doctors need to make a living. I cannot begrudge them if they charge me consultation fees.
Sigh. 2019 is not looking good for me.
Feasting With Family #3
Last Friday sis took us to The Scholar Chinese Restaurant for dinner.
There was no available table till 8.15pm as the hot special Peking Duck was back.
We had for starters:
1. winter melon soup double boiled with pork.
2. Stir fried Garoupa fillet in truffle oil and asparagus
3. Stir fried mexican beans with minced pork. Since I loved veggies we ordered a giant serving at $24. I managed to take a photo of it below.
4. Peking duck whose skin is slivered and wrapped in crepe, eaten with the special dipping sauce and with a slice of cucumber and scallion.
See below photo.
5. Pork ribs in kumquat sauce.
6. The peking duck cooked claypot style with snow peas and beancurd.
7 Dessert we had yam paste with sago.
Yummy! Total cost $200.
CM’s Food Porn #67 – Fruits For The Rich & Famous
CM or Classmate showed me his stash of exotic fruits from S Korea. He patronises a regular fruiterer at the market and he shared with me the ridiculous prices of fruits from Japan.
Muscat grapes cost $45 a packet. I balked at the small packet and would never buy it, much less even look at it. I am happy with Thomson grapes which costs at most $8 per kilo or on sale at $4.95.
The Japanese oranges shown above costs $100 per box of 6 oranges! Too rich for my blood and I am sure Cape Oranges or Valencia or Sunkist would taste as good.
CM has rich taste for things. I will not pay $2.50 for an apple as these can cost $3.95 for 5 apples.
I am frugal and not as extravagant as rich boy CM LOL!
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