If you are my Facebook friend, you might have seen my status asking for ideas how to handle the 2 Duracell Bunnies I have at home.

The two weeks school holidays started this Monday, I’m getting stressed staying at home whole day with the girls, who has no where to spend their energy.

The Duracell Bunnies (the girls) out lived all the other bunnies (the parents) with their long lasting energy.

On Monday, they finished watching 3 DVDs by lunch time.

Fully charged up (since I guess watching TV turns your imagination wild and you don’t really use much energy just sitting there), they started moving little furniture around the study and arranged them into some sort of adventure land. Where they could crawl under stools, hopped walked from furniture to furniture and see who won’t fall off.

After their naps (both still take a nap in the afternoon), they were playing a little, but most of the time squabling. So they took turns to come upstairs to lodge their complaints. “Maa, jiejie snatch my things, punish her!” “Maaaa, Zaria drew a line on my drawing!” yada yada yada.

By the time I finished work, the study, the living room, the play room were in a mess. Thank God I have Jelly to do the clean up. (Although I did scream at the kids to get them to tidy up a bit, but they did a sloppy job)

It was a gloomy day, so nobody was in the play ground, and the girls didn’t want to be there. Again no ‘exercise’.

After dinner, they played in the room while I did some bread baking and Daddy took a shower. I heard all the giggling upstairs, so I went to check on them.

They were probably playing some dame in distress game. Zaria used the rubbish bin as the stepping stool, climbed up to her chest of drawers (~100cm), then she jumped down. Zara was moving a big pillow on the ground, trying to cushion Zaria’s fall. o.O”

I don’t know how many times they’d done the jumping and catching game, but I immediately screamed and told them to STOP! Told them how dangerous it was. Both looked at me with dissapointment, as though I’d thrown a wet blanket on them.

Reading, doing some spy games, more reading, and at 12am, they were still so energised, but we just turned off the lights, and went to sleep. Don’t know who fell asleep first, they or us.

On Tuesday, same routine. After breakfast, DVD watching again. I brought them out for lunch, and got them to do some running outside the shops.

When we got back home, they didn’t seem to be tired. Started pillow fighting, and stopped only when Zara’s pillow hit Zaria so hard, she knocked herself on the corner of the table. *faint*

More shouting and screaming (from me), and finally got them to take their naps. This time, I limit it to 1hr.

When they got up, asked Jelly to do body painting with them. Which occupied them for an hour, and they were so proud of their artwork (most of it done by Jelly though).

When I finshed work, brought them to the play ground. Held a race and made them compete with their friends. After dinner, Daddy brought them out for ice cream and took them to some indoor play ground.

When they got home, I took over, showered and brushed their teeth and then did reading with them, and there wasn’t any more jumping around in the room. By 11pm, Zaria climbed up the bed and said “I’m going to sleep already.” Yee Har!

Lights out at 11:30pm, we all slept. Did better on 2nd day.

There’s still 8 more weekdays to go.. Have to find ways to tire these two Duracell Bunnies! (and I didn’t sign them up from any camps or holiday programs. Sigh)

My girls are too small to know when Mother’s Day is, but they talked about it, because the school has prep-ed them by teaching them to sing different songs related to love for mothers.

On Saturday I asked the girls, “So, tomorrow is Mother’s Day, what are you girls going to do for me?”

Instead of getting me toys per their earlier agreement, Zara said, “I’ll let you go pak toh (Cantonese : Go out dating) with Daddy.” (if you know how difficult for me to apply for visa to go out, you’ll understand this is indeed a very precious gift) and if this is not enough, she added,
“And then you can go do your hair, you can spend a long long time to get your hair done.” (I’d just told her I haven’t had time to get my hair done, because I spent all my time with them).

For Zara, granting me Me-time is her most ‘valuable’ gift.

For Zaria, she said, “For mother’s day, I’ll order cheese and bread (from Auntie Jelly) for you in the morning.”

Such innocence.

But then, something happened in the afternoon, which made me seethed with anger for the rest of the day, so I didn’t have any mood for a celebration.

Daddy wanted to have dinner with his mum, so a simple dinner with my in-laws at a near by restaurant is how we did it.

If you are my FB friends, you would have heard the songs the girls sang for me.. Their serenading voices, is the best gift to me.

Hope you have a nice one.

******* Post includes photos of of my dead Grandfather *******
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My 92yrs old Ah Kong (Hokkien : maternal grandfather), always said this when we visited him, “What to do, the one above didn’t want to call on me yet.” He was called by the one above on Sunday morning.

I only visited Ah Kong once a year during Chinese New Year for the last couple of years. Too busy with work, too preoccupied with our own family, too far away, are these good enough reasons?

My earliest and fondest memory of Ah Kong was me holding on to him on the bicycle when he sent me to school.

My father, who’s not done much of his son-in-law’s duty after my mother’s passing, worked extra hard to prepare the program, readings and hyms for Ah Kong’s funeral service.

The BEC (Basic Ecclesiastical Community) where Ah Kong belonged to did such a good job with prayers organising, and providing support to the family. I’m so touched by these people. They may not know him personally, but they were willing to devote their time.

Yesterday, while attending Ah Kong’s funeral service, I realised, the last service I attended in a church, was my own wedding 12yrs ago.

The relatives and frieds who came for the wake and the funeral service, some of them I last met in my mum’s or my Ah Mah’s (Hokkien : maternal grandmother’s) wake and funeral service, more than 12yrs ago. Near and far, they came to pay their last respect. A wake, a funeral draws a better crowd than a wedding, a baby’s full moon. Isn’t it ironic?

The person who shed the most tears after Ah Kong’s passing was, Mala, the Indonesian maid, who not only took care of Ah Kong, but also his best and closest companion for the last 4 years. She was the last person he called for in the hospital.

The Eulogy in the funeral was given by Mala. Her speech was well composed, spoke so wisely, and full of confidence. It made me wonder if she was given the same opportunity like we did, would she have been some one important in Indonesia.

The girls, with Tai Kong’s passing, wanted to know more about him, and what he was like when he was younger.

The girls, with attending Tai Kong’s wake and funeral, seeing Tai Kong in the casket, have better understanding of death now. Only death in fairy tales can be resurrected with a kiss from a handsome prince.

Rest In Peace Ah Kong.

After deciding to send my dad to Singapore for his liver surgery , we started looking for Service Apartment in Singapore.

We stumbled upon Hotel Alternatives website, and was attracted by its rates, its nice photos, its stated location (near to Orchard Road), and the ‘Service Apartment’ amenities they promoted, i.e. with kitchen and cooking facilities. We should have read the Tripadvisor reviews, and stopped ourselves, but then it was a very rush trip.

We made the bookings for these dates :

a) Mar 11th – 1 room, for my eldest sister and I; total paid S$140
b) Mar 18th – Mar 26th – 2 rooms, for my dad, my youngest sister and I; total paid $1800
c) Mar 19th – Mar 21st – 1 big room, for my brother and his family; total paid $410

All prepaid before our stay, via bank transfer or cash on delivery.

On March 11th, we drove down to Singapore after work. By the time we’d checked on dad (at the hospital) and reached the ‘hotel’, it was already 10:30pm. The ‘hotel’ is located at Lucky Towers on Grange Road. There’s no reception, and we were supposed to call the ‘ground manager’ to check in.

Ground manager assigned to us could not be reached. We had to call the ‘reservation manager’, who then assigned us another Ground manager. We then had to call the newly assigned ground manager (why can’t the reservation manager call the ground manager and instruct him to come??) and informed him we’re waiting to be checked in. All these ‘coordinations’, we had to do from the condo lobby, using our own mobile phones.

A big size man in shorts and flip flops arrived 10 minutes later, he’s Gerald the ground manager. He told us to follow him (actually, quite scary right? Luckily there were 2 of us).

We went up to 20th floor, and entered a condo unit. He took us to one of the rooms, and before he finished his sentence, “Your room is …” He closed back the door and told us, “Oh, not this one, lets go to another unit.” o.O”

We took the lift down, went to the other block, took the lift up again to the 20th floor. This time he showed us into the correct room.

By the time we put down our bags, it was more than 30mins since we arrived at Lucky Towers.

Room was spacious by Singapore standard, with 2 nice and comfy queen beds with thick linen. FULLSTOP. The rest of the furniture – very dated, and mismatch. The toilet has chipped tiles, old fittings, although it looked clean. The toiletries were probably stolen/taken by the owner from their stay in Sofitel , and looked like they have been repeatedly refilled.

We left our room to check out the other amenities.

This is actually a condo unit converted to about 6 rooms, all sharing a kitchen, and there’s also a common toilet outside. We didn’t see the living room. 3 of the other room doors were placed on walls which wasn’t solid (hollow when tap on, plywood maybe), so we assume whatever available space has been converted to rooms (this proof to be true in our later stay). The kitchen, which was one of the reason we booked this place post-ops, was a sorry state. Mismatched utensils, a couple of unwashed rice cookers, 2 pathetic hot plates, a fridge with half eaten food, and they called this fully equipped kitchen! There were also dirty dishes piled in the sink. No drinking water was provided.

There’s a foreigner outside of his room next to ours, ironing his clothes in the narrow corridor. There’s cigarette smell and loud Chinese (with Beijing accent) coming from another room facing ours.

This is a hotel or hostel? Don’t be fooled by the photos they posted on their website. The place is definitely not a boutique hotel nor a service apartment. It’s more like a hostel with comfy beds.

In the morning, we left by hanging our key behind the door. That’s no check out to be done.

On March 18th, after my dad was discharged from the hospital, we moved all our things to Lucky Towers for our week’s stay.

Upon arrival, we have to call the Ground Manager, Gerald, again, and this time he asked us to go straight to the condo unit, and the maid will show us in.

We booked and paid for the 2 Bedroom Luxury Apartment. We thought that’s what we’ll be getting. But, what we got was a condo unit’s living and dining room combined. 1 Bedroom was partitioned from the dining area, and another smaller bedroom a small corner of the living room. There’s a small living room in between these rooms with a two seater and a dining table. A toilet is shared between these rooms. All walls which are not the original condo structure are thin, and of course not sound proofed. The kitchenette, was just a table top with an electric cooker (those we normally use for steamboat). No sink whatsoever, so we ended up having to cook our meals in the shared kitchen. What con job is this? Luxury my butt!

The maid, an Indonesian probably hired as a domestic helper, was still cleaning the apartment, even though we arrived at 2pm, the official check in time.

Half way through, she was called by Gerald to clean up another unit as there was another family who just ‘checked in’. We voiced out our dissatisfaction. To please both sides (as she was being called repeatedly by Gerald to finish the job in the other apartment too), she was switching locations every 15mins. More than an hour later, she finally finished cleaning our place.

The girls arrived with Daddy in the evening. Daddy wasn’t happy with the place at all. He was to sleep in the smaller room alone, and his bed, sandwiched between thin walls, was located next to the noisy aircon compressors. Girls slept with me on a King bed in the same room as my sister and dad who shared another king bed. Jelly slept at a single bed which was located outside of our room.

Nobody slept well when we were there. Daddy claimed his room was too noisy. Our room did not have any aircon, and we had to leave the door opened to catch some of the cool air from the centralized aircon in the living room.

The following day when we woke up to use the common kitchen to make breakfast, we saw a Caucasian man sound asleep on a sofa at the corridor right outside the kitchen, he was fully clothed and has his shoes on. He didn’t stir at all the whole time, and was still sleeping even when we left late morning to go out . I wonder if this is the cheapest bed offered by Hotel Alternatives, of if this guy sneaked in for a free night sleep? And if he could sneak in, what kind of security does this place offer?

The girls’ favourite pastime in the apartment besides watching whatever TV program that was on, was to check on the walls, “This one bluff one.” When they knocked on a plywood wall. “This one real one” when they knocked on a solid wall.

The place is only cleaned every 3 days. It was done by the same Indonesian maid we met on the first day.

If all these are not bad enough, just wait till you hear the last part.

Originally, our plan was to stay till Mar 26th, a week post ops as advised by the hospital. However, dad was recovering so well, that he got the doctor’s permission to leave Sun, Mar 21st when he did his check up on Sat, Mar 20th. We quickly called the hotel office and also informed the ground manager we’d checked out on Mar 22nd; as we paid full in cash, we requested for a refund for 3 nights amounting to S$810. They told us refund is not their policy, but we could try calling the billing department on Mon, Mar 22nd.

My dad left with my brother and his family on Sun, March 21st. Leaving our family behind, as we have made plans to stay till Mon, March 22nd.

On Mon, 22nd, we called all the phone numbers available for Hotel Alternatives, the only person who answered our call said he’s not authorized to do a refund; the rest of the numbers we called, no one bothered answering the calls. We wrote in as well, but no one replied our mails.

We pursued the matter even after we arrived back in KL.

It’s already end of April, in total we’d sent 9 emails, and got only 2 replies. 1 to state that our mail has been forwarded to the billing department, and another to tell us there’s no refund policy. We even wrote to their Regional Manager, Isa Bella Lin, and requested for vouchers for future stay, she just ignored our emails.

The hotel claimed they are a LVMH Couture Company (the company that is responsible for Louis Vuitton and all luxurious goods). I don’t believe this. Firstly, why would they want to associate themselves with a hotel where rooms are partitioned out of condo units? Secondly, I don’t believe a company like LVMH would handle our appeal so unprofessionally.

We also found this, and this, when we goggled further into Hotel Alternatives, LVMH, Isa Bella Lin.

These 2 sites are associated with Isa Bella Lin who’s the regional manager for hotel alternatives.

So beware, if you ever consider booking a room Hotel Alternatives. The rooms are not luxurious! It’s not a Boutique Hotel! The location is not convenient! (unless you called a 15mins uphill downhill walk to get to Orchard Road convenient). The place is run by a group of very unprofessional people who ignores you when they see trouble!

Head on to YMCA, YWCA for better quality and cleaner rooms, more professional and efficient service, which is located not far from Orchard.

My only regret is, I didn’t take any photos of the place at all to show you what the rooms, kitchen, actually look like.

Daddy and I hardly go out alone, we always bring the girls everywhere we went. In a year, we probably go out for dinner 5 or 6 times without them. The girls, who are hardly left at home without us, had to be informed in advance, it’s kind of like having to apply a going out Visa from them.

Over the weekend, we wanted to go out for dinner alone (first for this year), so here is the Visa Application process.
I asked, Zaria, “Zaria, mummy and daddy go out for dinner tonight, you and jiejie stay at home with aunty ok?”
She replied, “Ok mum.” That was easy.
Zara was upset, and she said “No. Why must you go out without your children?”
I had to explain to her, parents have sometimes spend time alone, etc etc, and I’m not really asking her for permission, but rather giving her advance notice we’ll be going out.
“You think leaving your children behind and locking them up in the house and then you go out is a nice thing to do is it?” o.O”
I have to tell her we’re not locking them up, they are free to roam about, choose what they want to do in the house, and we’re just going out for dinner, not leaving them that long.
“You have all the bad things (thoughts) in your head, that’s why you said this.”
o.O”
(She’s very capable of attacking you using words.)
When I told her that’s not something nice to say, tears was welling up in her eyes, and she said, “I want you to forever stay with me.”
“But I’m staying with you forever, it’s just that Daddy and mummy had to go out for a few hours for dinner to spend time alone, then we’ll be back. You can have your favourite spagetti for dinner, and then you can watch a show after dinner, and then we’ll be back already.”
“What time are you coming back?”
“By ten.”
She thought for a while, and then, Visa approved!

Oh, this is not all, we had another check point. When I told Jelly, our maid, we would be leaving the children with her for a couple of hours while we went out to have dinner, she put on her black face.
Daddy was so annoyed, he gave her a lecture, “What do you expect? We cannot get you to take care of the children when we go out for dinner is it? How often do we go out without them? Just this one time you want to give me black face?”

See, not easy huh? To just want to go ‘pak toh’ (Cantonese : dating). After all these, when we reached the restaurant, Daddy said, “I really don’t like to let the girls miss out on such things.”

Aiyo.. like I’m the bad one, who likes to go out without them, and do not feel bad about it.

When we read on newspaper that the National Museum of Singapore will be cooperating with Kunsthistorische Museum Vienna, Egyptian and Near Eastern Department to display some artefacts from ancient Egypt early this year, we’d already planned to make a trip down to Singapore as Zara has a lot of interest in pyramids, mummies, etc.

I never knew it was under such circumstance that the trip finally materialised. Daddy drove the girls down together with Jelly (my insistence) on 18th March. Luckily my dad recovered well after surgery, or I think we won’t be doing all the sight seeing.

♥17th March, Thursday♥
Girls and Daddy arrived. Girls were so happy to see me after a week. They were hugging me and kissing me, and Zaria kept telling me, “I love you very very very very very much, mum.”

Daddy was showing sour face the whole time because of the sleeping arrangement, and also his inability to get tickets to Universal Studio (as if it’s my fault!)

♥18th March, Friday♥
I cooked a hearty breakfast for everybody. Scrambled egg white for my dad, egg and bacon for the rest. I had Greek yogurt and honey instead, something I can’t find or cost too much in KL.

After instructing Jelly what to cook for lunch, Daddy, the girls and I left for the National Museum. Girls got all excited when they saw the Quest of Immortality posters in the ticketting hall. Finally, they could enjoy what we’d talked about since the newspaper reading.

Zara then pointed, “Mum, look, Hieroglyphic!”. I had no idea what it was, and had to follow her gaze. You can imagine how much interest she has in all things Egyptian.

After the Quest of Immortality, we went on to visit The Singapore History Gallery. Seriously, how much history does Singapore has? But they did it in a story telling way, with free multimedia handheld device given out which guides you around the gallery, it made the whole thing so interesting.

I left the gallery with the girls first (because my device broke down half way) and proceeded to have lunch. Daddy turned up 30mins later. He said he thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

After lunch, we went shopping at Sommerset 313 and later met up with my brother and his family, my dad and sis for dinner.

♥19th March, Saturday♥
My brother brought my dad for his check up, and left my nieces with me. Again, I made everybody a big breakfast, and I continued to have my yogurt.

We went to the zoo after breakfast. It was actually pouring, but since we didn’t have any other day to do this (my nieces were going home the following day), we just braved on, with raincoats bought from the zoo.

That’s how silly we looked.

Even in this weather, the walk around the zoo was very pleasant. So green, so much to see, so informative. We could see almost all the animals up close.

There’s the outback section where girls can pat kangaroos.

My favourite, the polar bear.

Zaria’s favourite, the baboons. She has a book about June the baboon, so she was very interested to see a baboon real life.
After that, she told everyone “Baboons have heart shaped backside!”

We left the zoo in the evening, and then straight on to dinner with the rest of the family, and off shopping again.

♥20th March, Sunday♥
We had breakfast together at Tiong Baru Market. Probably the only market we know how to go, and my dad’s favourite eating place.

After breakfast, my brother and his family, my dad and my sister left home. We had to sort out with the ‘hotel‘ on the refund we wanted since we were leaving earlier (as my dad has been given permission to leave Singapore by the doctors earlier than planned), and also moved to a new room. (When I wrote this post the refund is still in progress)

We then brought Jelly along and took a taxi and went to Suntec City. Big mistake! Nothing there, not much to shop. We made the girls walked from Suntec City to Millenia Walk, then to Marina Square, and then later to Esplanade.

We then headed back to the ‘hotel’ to rest. At night, it was another round of shopping, this time at Ion (which I think where we shopped most).

After shopping, the girls played at the water fountain at Ion, and had a lot of fun.
Luckily we brought them spare clothes.

Daddy then suggested we took the MTR to Raffles Place to look at the Merlion up close. Zara and I were so tired, we didn’t really bother, Merlion or not. Zaria was however very keen. So off we went again.

♥21st March, Monday♥
We woke up late, had a lazy morning, then went to Wisma Atria for lunch, and then headed home.

11th March, Thursday
My brother flew down to Singapore with dad as dad has to do some more test at the hospital and to get himself admitted.

I’m not sure if it’s normal procedure, but for dad’s surgery, he had to do an ECG, Stress Test, CT-scan on the heart to see if he’s strong enough to go through the surgery. All these he did on 5th March when my sister and I went to Singapore with him. His risk was 5%.

My brother sms-ed us sometime in the afternoon informing us that dad has done a ct-scan on the heart artery, and the results wasn’t very good. His calcium deposit on the arteries was high. Increasing his risk. They were in the midst of talking to Dr KC Tan, the very famous liver surgeon, who’ll be performing dad’s surgery.

30mins later, my brother informed us that dad was all set for surgery. Dr KC Tan said due to the size of my dad’s tumor, the risk of him waiting longer to do the surgery after fixing his heart problem (3~6mths) is higher than doing the surgery the following day.

In the evening, my BIL drove 2 of my sisters, my nephews and me to Singapore. We arrived after 9pm, where my dad has already been warded, we had a short chat and left early so he could rest and be prepared for the big day.

My youngest sis stayed with my dad in the hospital, and each of us went back to our own accomodation.

12th March, Friday
All of us arrived early at the hospital. They started to sedate dad at about 10am +, we told him we would wait for him outside and asked him to be strong. He was already in a daze when he was wheeled into the operating theatre.

The doctor told us the surgery will be at 12pm and would take about 4hrs, and we can do our own things and come back by 4pm.

So off we went, having lunch and shopping around Orchard.

We got back at 3:30pm, and at 4pm, Dr Tan came out and told us the surgery was a success, dad didn’t loose much blood, and he’s in stable condition. There were also other satelite tumors found around the main tumor, and one of them was already leaking, as a pool of blood was found in the abdoment when they cut him up. It was good that he didn’t wait any longer to do the surgery, because if the tumor ruptured, it’ll be an emergency surgery.

4pm +, Dr Gong, the assistant surgeon came out and showed us the left lobe of the liver that was removed from my dad. It’s almost the size of a placenta.

I have some photos here, and if are interested to take a look (just for knowledge), just click on the links. Take note they are not a pretty sight.

Photo 1 : This is the size of what was cut out, and the main tumor can be seen right in the middle (lighter colour).
Photo 2 : The white bit is where it separates the left and the right lobe.
Photo 3: Another shot from another angle.
Photo 4: The super ugly satelite tumors can be seen clearly.
Photo 5 : Dr Gong actually sliced up the liver to show us what healthy liver and tumor looked like.

By 5pm+, my dad was wheeled out and brought straight to the liver unit ICU. He was still and will continue to be sadeted until the next morning. We were only allowed to see him through the glass panel, as he’s still very vulnerable.

The sight of him with all the tubes and machine beeping nearby, was rather heart breaking.

That evening, knowing his surgery is successful, and he’s in stable condition, we went to celebrate. We had dinner at Jumbo at Eastcoast, after sending my eldest sister off to the airport (she was going to Hong Kong 2 days later).

13th March, Saturday
I stayed the night at my BIL’s niece’s place, and at 6am+, we left for the hospital. They have removed the sedation from dad, and he was waking up when we arrived.

They actually have to strap him down, worrying he might just pull out all the tubes and gadgets that were attached to him when he’s awake.

Besides having a slightly high blood pressure, he was slowly coming to his senses. He told us he could remember nothing about the operation. His last memory was him being put on the stretcher, and then waking up now in the ICU.

He was not talking much, as he said he still felt sleepy, but we tried to keep him awake by talking to him etc.

By 11am+, he was out of ICU and transferred to the normal ward. My brother stayed till 1pm before he left for the airport for his flight home (he was going to New York a day later). The rest of us, just hung around the hospital accompanying dad. Luckily there’s TV and there’s broadband, so we were kept entertained.

Dad was slowly more alert, and chi-chatted to us a bit. He was still not able to eat anything, but solely depended on drips.

In the night, my youngest sis stayed the night at the hospital, and I went to my friend, SK’s house to stay.

14th March, Sunday
My dad could only have clear diet. I boiled him some ABC soup before I left for the hospital.

I took over my sister’s shift, and she was free to do her own things (but most of the time she remained in the hospital).

The nurses helped my dad to stand up for a couple of times, but he was complaining he felt dizzy, so he only walked till the door, and then had to turn back to rest. The nurses claimed the morphine might have caused that. He was spending most of his time seated however, and only lied down to take naps or to sleep.

His appetite wasn’t very good, eating (soup only) and drinking a little only.

15th March, Monday
Dr said he could start on soft diet, so I boiled some porridge for him. The hospital provided pretty good food actually, mashed potato with chopped fish, minced beef, etc, so it has been decided that I no longer needed to cook for him, and he’d just take the hospital food.

He could stand longer and even walked in the room withoug feeling dizzy. In the afternoon, the nurse decided to take him out for a walk. He’s definitely back to his normal self when he asked, “Does my hair look good?” before we left the room.

16th March, Tuesday
Still on soft diet, but eating more.

I came in about noon time to relieve my sister. We ate cold food which I packed from the coffee shops near my friend’s place, and also whatever dad couldn’t finish.

Dad was doing well, walking more, and the nurses actually had to tell him to slow down his pace. He complained no pain, but just said the stitches were a bit tight.

They also removed the catheter, so he had to go to the toilet to pee.

17th March, Wednesday
Still on soft diet and the nurses and doctors were closely monitoring his bowel movement. No bowel movement, no discharge. That was the order.

Dad went to the toilet a couple of times, but always came out disappointed.

We bought prune juice, got him papayas, and more fruit juice to try to help him.

When I left for the day, there was still no sign of the poop. Dad was getting a bit anxious.

18th March, Thursday
I sms-ed my sister in the morning, and she said dad has done his poop. He was sooo happy, he was declaring victory when he came out of the toilet.

So when I got in to the hospital, he was all ready to be discharged.

I settled all remaining hospital bills, and then waited till 2pm, our check in time at the service appartment.

We moved to a service appartment on Grange Road called Hotel Alternatives. They have a couple of units in Lucky Tower. Tey partitioned each condo units to several rooms, and let everyone share the common kitchen. We had a 2 Bedroom unit, and it’s actually the living and dining room of the condo. The toilet was the powder room. 🙁

It’s reasonably priced ($270/unit), and we thought we were going to stay for 7 nights, that’s why we settled for this. Boy, the thin plywood wall made the slightest sound audible, being a light sleeper, I didn’t have any good sleep while we were there.

That evening, the girls arrived with Daddy. They were so happy to see me after a week. Both was clinging on to me all the time.

19th March, Friday
My brother and his family arrived. Dad was feeling so much better, but he complained about the bed in the ‘hotel’ being too low, and difficult for him to get in and out of bed.

20th March, Saturday
Dad went for his follow up in the hospital, and requested the doctor to allow him to go home earlier. Instead of staying in Singapore for another 7 nights, he was given the green light to leave, since he was recovering well.

So it was decided that he will follow my brother home on Sunday, 20th March.

We were left with the problem of getting our money back for the other 3 nights that we would not be staying in the ‘hotel’, since we paid them up front in cash!

I will write about girls’ time in Singapore next. As for my dad, he’s now staying home and recovering well. He’s however, complaining that he’s very bored, and trying to get us to allow him to go back to work at his book shop.

We thought he should at least have a 30days confinement period, but I think he’s winning, next week I heard, my BIL will be sending him to the book shop to work half day.

We brought our father to Asia Centre For Liver Diseases & Transplantation located at Gleneagles Hospital Singapore for another round of diagnosis last weekend. It has finally decided that, it’s best he does a surgery, for these reasons :

1) His tumor is only on the left lobe, other part of his liver and organs are clean

2) His liver function is normal based on the blood test, meaning the other part of his liver is in good condition

3) His tumor is too big to be removed or killed by chemo, if he were to go for chemo, he’ll have to do many rounds to reduce the size.

His surgery will be tomorrow. Hope all will be well.

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I’m so touched by a few, who’d shown me so much compasion since they knew about my father’s condition.

Dinah, who helped me made the appointment with her BIL during Chinese New Year.

C, my neighbour, dropped by with books; one by Dr Wu, who has fought and won his cancer battle through a change of diet and lifestyle; and another book on negative ion and its benefit.
C also offered to take care of the girls and have them stay with her, if I needed to be away.

K, also my neighbour, in the midst of moving, dropped by with recipe books for cancer patients which she has to dig in her packed boxes.

SK, who’ll be giving me a place to stay, and her kitchen to use next week when my dad is in the hospital.

I’m most touched by Lisa, who is herself battling cancer with spunk. When she knew about my father, she started sending me all the long sms-es with information on things that I can do, or get for my father to help him, based on her own experience and what she knows. She said, “Fighting cancer is like a crash course.. getting a new degree.. in the shortest time.”

I thank her for giving me the cheat sheet.

And what touched me most was her dropping by my house yesterday with these for my dad.
Leaflet on Dr Rath’s Program.
3 bottles of Mangosteen juice (high in anti oxidant)
A box of Maharishi Amrit Kalash Mak 4 & 5 (also high on anti oxidant)

I didn’t get to see her, because I was out with the girls.

She also gave 2 Chinese style bags for the girls.

The girls were so happy to see those, and immediately started using them. See what they used them for?

*bow humbly* Thank you Lisa, C, K, SK, Dinah. I’m so touched by your compasion, your help and your friendship.

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Girls’ prayers for my dad now became something like this,
Zara : “Hope Ah Kong’s operation will not be painful. And he will get better after that, then he can play with me.”
Zaria : “Hope the doctor wash the knife clean clean clean for Ah Kong’s operation. And after that Ah Kong will not have diarhea any more.”