It’s more than 10 days since I last updated. I’d been busy with work (3 Shanghainese colleagues off for the New Year, so I have to back them up) and due to some family matters, I’d been feeling a big sluggish (in blogging). Now it’s time to be back.

So what happened during the Chinese New Year (CNY)? Photos will be coming, but here is to share something that affected me lots during these last 10 days.

7th Feb, my dad got his yearly check up results, and my sis (whom my father lives with) sms-ed us and informed us that his liver readings were not very good.

8th Feb, another sms-ed came in to inform us that my father has a very bad bout of diarhea and is in the midst of being sent to the doctor’s. I went to the doctor’s to see him, he was on drips, very tired and pale looking, just spoke to me a little and went back to sleep. My BIL updated me on what happened, i.e.

My dad had roti canai for breakfast (why so soon after he has his blood test results and supposed to be watching his diet, I don’t know), and drank up the whole bowl of fish curry. He then drove from Briekfields to PJ State to do his banking, and right after he parked his car, he had the urge to purge. He wanted to go to the nearest toilet, but when he got out of the car, he just felt so dizzy, he slumped on the the floor. A couple of attempts later, he gave up. Got back to the car when he felt he was strong enough, and drove to Pudu (He was being stupid! He could have fainted half way driving and had an accident), and on his journey, purged in the car. Upon arriving at Pudu, he just spent the rest of his time in the office toilet. His colleague then called my sis, and soon after my BIL came by to pick him up from the office and sent him to the doctor’s, where he was found to be very dehydrated, and his blood pressure very low.

When my dad’s blood pressure was back to normal, he complained the right side of his upper abdomen being very painful. So painful he was cringing when he got up, or when he lied down, he only felt comfortable being at a certain position. The doctor claimed it might be caused by the gas in the stomach.

He was discharged the same day. A couple of days after, he still complained about his upper abdomen being very painful. On 12th Feb (the last day of work before CNY for most people), my BIL brought him to do an ultrasound, and that’s when the shocking news came. The radiologist found a 14cm growth on his liver! No specialists were available to diagnose what this meant, so everybody’s mood was a bit gloomy over the CNY period.

I was especially worried when I saw him on 1st day of CNY with his very greenish, yellowish complexion. But luckily, 2nd day onwards, some pink returned to his face.

On 17th Feb when the doctors are back to work, he saw his first liver specialist, Dr. Ryan Ponnudurai. A CT scan was done, and the growth is actually around 14~16cm on the left lobe of his liver.

On 18th Feb, he went to see a 2nd specialist, Dr. MV Kudva, also a liver spealist. The options given were more or less the same.

1. Surgery to remove the growth, but because of his age and the size of the growth, it’s not recommended.
2. Chemotheraphy, Dr. MV Kudva said the best chemo option is to do TACE – Transarterial chemoembolization, a procedure in which the blood supply to a tumor is blocked (embolized) and chemotherapy is administered directly into the tumor.
His other chemo option is to take chemo drug in pill form.
3. Do nothing and hope for the best.

My dad, being the funny sort, asked me, “What if I go for option 2, and my hair fall off?” As though that’s the most important thing to him!

He’s kind of decided on option 2, now we are getting another round of check on all his tests and scans by the radiologist, Dr. Asokan R. Nair, and to see if he can have TACE done on him. It’s likely that he’ll be doing it in UMMC, because Dr. Asokan will be recommending another radiologist (a professor) from UM to do it for him.

He’s still driving himself around, going to work, to church etc. He stops eating out, and on a control diet now, while waiting.

For someone who’s rather healthy all this while, this is all hard news for him and us. I’d lost a couple of days sleep, worried about him, worried about myself (I was told I had fatty liver the last round I did my check up).

The girls, not knowing what really is happening, is praying in the night, Zaria will say something like this, “Jesus, please help my Ah Kong to be better, so that he don’t have diarhea and go on drips.”

Sometimes you think he has no interest in whatever you do.
Sometimes you think he doesn’t care.
Then he took the place mat and help you with the lighting when you tried to take photos of your baked goods in the night (which is normally when you finished baking).

The man in charge of lighting (if he’s around, that is) for most of the photographs posted in my other site My Sugar and Spice.

We don’t have Astro installed in our house, girls don’t get to watch Cartoon Network nor Nikelodian except when they are visiting their cousins or friends, or staying in a hotel with these channels.

It’s through their cousins that the girls were introduced to Sponge Bob Square Pants, and they love the program as well as the characters.

So when Zaria went to Tesco with Daddy (while Zara and I attended Yamaha class) last week, and picked up a box of Koko Krunch with Mr Krabs figurine (which Zaria insisted on buying), Zara made noise and wanted one too. Daddy had to go back to Tesco the following day to get Zara another box of Nestle cereal, and this time with Patrick (Zara’s favourite Sponge Bob Characters).

Then this week when I attended Yamaha class with Zara, Zaria again went to Tesco with Daddy, and picked up another box of Nestle cereal with Sponge Bob. o.O”

Zaria said she has 3 children now at home, which I think will just eventually end up a decoration on the tv stand. Her Sponge Bob and Crabby Crab (that’s what she called Mr Krabs).

And Patrick.

They wanted a family photo.

And another, and they said the bread I baked was Krabby Paddy (Krusty Crab) Restaurant.

And another.

So now, we’re stuck with 3 box of Nestle Cereals (luckily different flavour), and the girl will have to have this not so healthy breakfast for the next few months.

The girls’ one month holidays and my 2 weeks holidays are over! Dang!

Before my holidays started, I had big plans like wanting to watch some DVDs, read a few books, go for a few sesssions of massages etc. But…as though in the spirit of 1Malaysia, I only managed to watch 1movie, went for 1massage and finished the 1book I was reading even before I started my leave. Bah!!

Besides our Bali holidays, here are the things we did that made this holiday just zoomed by so quickly :

♥Beautifying the house♥
Daddy painted the bathrooms ceiling, and we also bought new curtains to replace some of our old ones.

♥Checked out Christmas decorations at some malls♥
And managed to catch the ‘snow-fall’ in Pavilion (which the girls absolutely loved).

♥Celebrated Tasha’s 4th birthday at Jungle Gym♥

♥Celebrated Christmas♥
With a Chinese dinner (thanks to my dad who paid for dinner)

And plenty of present opening.

Zaria’s favourite present is the muffin Ah Ku (my bro) and Ah Kim (my SIL) bought for her.

Zara’s favourite present is Patrick from Spongebob, but unforutely that’s not hers but her cousin, Alicia’s.

♥Play with the girls or watch them play♥
They loved playing with the Elephant that my sister bought which puffed out butterflies for them to catch.

♥Girls did plenty of drawing and arts and crafts with no supervision♥
Zara cut out pieces of coloured papers and made this Christmas art.

And also a bag for me.

Of course for Christmas she drew this.

Zaria not to be outdone, did lots of drawing too. And I’ll need to have another post to write about this.

♥Celebrated Zaria’s birthday♥, and to be fair, will have another post for this too.

♥Went to Sunway Lagoon with my sister and Tasha♥

By evening, all were hungry and the little one extremely tired.

Had a ♥New Year’s BBQ♥ (all were too busy to take any photos).

And of course ♥lots of baking and cooking♥.
Hop on to my new site to catch some of the things I made.

Apologise for all the paid posts that have flooded my site. Suddenly I had ~20 assignments and all due the same time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We claimed credit card points for a new point and shoot, Panasonic DMC-TX7. Don’t ask me why this model, it’s Daddy’s points, so he got to choose the model.

See the quality of the photo taken with the point and shoot

vs the DSLR

Not bad hor?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some funny things the girls said recently.

Zaria wanted Daddy to read to her, and when he said he was busy, she came to me and instructed, “Mum, scold daddy, faster, he didn’t want to read to me”
(You can tell I’m always the one doing the scolding).

While waiting for Daddy to finalise his purchase in the camera shop, Zaria was saying, “It’s so boooooring here. I know what, lets go to to book shop. Mum, is there a book shop here?” After that, it was “I want to go to the book shop” all the way.

We were talking about why we need to have a maid at home. Zara said, “You don’t know how to wash the dishes right? That’s why you need Aunty Jelly.” Children are just so innocent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zara’s passport is due for a renewal, and Zaria’s for a photo update.

This was Zaria’s old photo

This was the photo taken few days back.

Oh my, how much she has grown.

And look at Zara’s old photo, taken when she was about the same age as Zaria now.

How much THEY have grown!

On Saturday after work, we attended my cousin’s daughter, Monique, 1st birthday. It was held in a hall of a club.

When we arrived, the girls were immediately invited to join the crowd at the stage with other children for some entertainment by a hired clown. Both didn’t even complain and just sat down among strangers and watched; while Daddy and I joined my other family members at a table.

Girls were taking care of each other, and I was very glad to see Zaria participating in games and dance without any of us adults coaxing.

Here are the photos of the day.

Zaria watched the clown intently when he was doing some magic tricks (the stern look stayed on the face for a long time).

Zara and Zaria were watched over by Sam or Ally.

Girls joined in action dance with the clown leading, and also went on stage to dance together with the other children.

The clown actually caught hold of a few people to dance on stage alone, and even put a mask on them. Zara was one of them, and she got the Whoopi Goldberg’s mask, and without hessitation, she danced away. (Gosh, she’s a brave one)

Zaria loves the toy that Zara got for going on stage.

Monique, the birthday girl, waiting to cut her cake.

The entertaining clown.

My cousin’s girl friend.

And Zaria, finally smiled and laughed, when she made a mess with her cup cake.

Last year, my RM99 cake mixer broke down on me half way creaming icing for the cupcakes I made for Zara’s birthday celebration. Since then, I’d been asking myself the question, should I get another RM99 cake mixer? Or should I go for a good one?

I’d been looking at the Kenwood models, wanting to get one which is made in Italy or England, but I found the RM2xxx ones are all Made in China. No way I’m going to pay so much for a China made machine.

I asked around those baking gurus, most of them are using KitchenAid, and if they were not, they planned to get one in future. Then I saw the KitchenAid Artisan mixer in Tropicana City, and that’s it, my search for a mixer is over. KitchenAid it is! Fully Made in USA (except the bowl which is from Korea), it’s beautiful, and comes in various colours.

We didn’t get it immediately because Singaore is selling almost RM700 cheaper, and we were wondering if we should make a trip down south to get the mixer.

We made about another 4 trips to the same shop in Tropicana City looking and touching the machine, waiting for a price reduction (and contemplating at the same time); even Zara started questioning, “Why do we keep coming back to this shop?” and she even learnt, “Not everything I want, I should get. You like the cake mixer so much, you also didn’t buy, right?” 🙂

Anyway, last weekend, I told Daddy, enough of waiting, I want to get it!! And we did! So happened there was some promo running, and we got another RM100 reduction on top of the promo price.

And here is my new toy…… (oh by the way, Zara insisted that I should get the pink one, but we didn’t listen to her, and chose a colour that matched our Oak-coloured kitchen).

What a beauty, don’t you think?

I tried it out yesterday, and baked a butter cake using a simple recipe from Donna Hay.

Put all ingredient into the bowl and mix it.

So easy, so quiet, so smooth…

Baked it for an hour +, and viola.

Daddy is expecting some bread to be baked soon. o.O”
Tell me if you have a good and easy country bread recipe to share.

Visited my MIL over the weekend and told them (SIL & MIL) about Zaria’s lung crepitation, and the rash that Zaria is having (the same rash that Zara had). My SIL has a friend who is a Chinese doctor, and she told us we should let him have a look at the girls. Thinking that he’s the same type as my Chinese Doctor, we agreed.

Dr Low happened to be a specialist in Acupuncture and Osteorpathy, totally different from my Chinese Doctor who uses mainly herbs for tuning.

I thought he wasn’t very good with kids. While he was checking Zara, Zaria touched his desk calender as a cartoon drawing caught her interest. Dr Low raised his voice and said, “Eh, cannot touch my things!”. That startled Zaria and made her cry. Bad start.

One by one he checked the girls. It seems my girls have liver problem (from the blue hue in the white of their eye) and internal fever (forehead warmer than cheeks); and then the doctor checked their spines, he claimed Zaria’s spine is absolutely crooked (right butt cheek has a dimple but not left; protruding stomach), and because Zaria has a crooked 4th toe (since birth), he concluded Zaria has gall bladder problem too.

Before the girls started their ‘treatment’, I thought I will be the guinea pig, since I constantly feel tired, I’ll let him check on me and treat me first. One looked at the age spots (or oil seeds, what do you call them anyway?) that I have around my eyes and neck, he claimed I have appendix problem. But it’s genetics I told him, all my family members have them; he said, then it meant genetically all of us have appendix problem. o.O”

So I was brought to the treatment room and was told to remove my clothes. (I made sure Daddy was with me throughout) With just panties and bra on, he started feeling my spine. According to him, I too had a few discs slightly out of place. He will do Osteorpathy on me; which is actually a massage on the spine, and also some exertion to try to align my spine. According to the doctor, once the spine is aligned, the nervous system will function properly, and I won’t have any ailments. Before he started, he pressed a few of my meridien, and asked me to rank the pain I feel. After he finished he again pressed on these meridien points and asked me to rank the pain, the pain should vanish or lessen (which is true for me for some points). After this, he poked 4 acupuncture needles to my calf to further improve the ‘alignment’. This treatment made me ~RM330 poorer, and each treatment will only make me 10% better (which means I have to come for 10 sessions and spent RM3300 to get 100% better).

It was then the girls’ turn. Zara volunteered to be first. Dr Low did moxibuxtion on her, which is to bring a lighted ‘herbal cigar’ (the girls called it Magic Wand) close to her meridien points to provide heat for 10 minutes or so.

When it was Zaria’s turn, she didn’t really want to corporate, remembering the scold she got from the doctor. She was crying, and it was difficult to coax her to lie down. To make things worse, in the middle of the treatment, she moved her leg and kicked the ‘cigar’. I wasn’t in the room (Daddy was with her, since I have to be ‘resting’ after my treatment), but it seemed the ‘cigar’ landed on her big toe and burnt it. She wailed and it took a while to calm her down. As though this incident was not enough, while the moxibuxtion was done above her belly button, Daddy was asking Dr Low some stupid questions, and when Dr Low was answering his question, he didn’t realise the accumulation of the hot ashes at the end of the cigar, and suddenly the hot ash just dropped on Zaria’s belly (I saw it this time). Zaria gave a loud scream and wailed. Since it was coming to the end, we just stroke her and calmed the traumatised her for the last few minutes while the moxibuxtion continued.

Once it was done, Zaria clung on to me like a koala, and kept saying she wanted to go home.

The girls’ sessions cost RM100 each (and extra 1 time RM20 each for our registration or the creation of our files). We are all supposed to go for follow ups, but I’m not sure if we will be going again. It seems a bit mumbo jumbo to me. What do you think?

Zara called Dr Low, Dr Harry Potter, because the ‘cigar’ to her is a magic wand. When I asked Zaria if she liked Dr Harry Potter in the morning, she replied, “No. I want to burn him for dinner.” o.O”

The last the whole family met up was probably during Chinese New Year. Although I had met up with my sisters’ and brother’s family separately on a few occasions, it took my father’s birthday for every body to (agree to) meet up at the same time.

In the car, Zara suddenly realised and asked, “Where is Ah Kong’s present?” When I told her there was none, she asked, “Why we go to Ah Kong’s birthday party with no presents?”

Zara was extremely happy to meet up with the cousins, the aunts and uncles. Zaria on the other hand clung on to Daddy and me (she has been pretty clingy after all the attention we’d given when she was unwell), and kept saying, “I want to go home now.” after we’d stepped into the restaurant.

This is the 6th birthday ‘party’ we’d attended this year (although my dad’s party wasn’t a real party with musical chair and all, but more of a dinner), and the 6th time Zaria cried when the Birthday song was sung. It’s strange. Every party we attended, when the cake was whipped out and the candle litted, Zaria’s lips would start trembling, and the minute the first note of the birthday song was sung, she would cry. We always have to carry her out, away from the singing to calm her down. Her reason, “It’s too loud.” and she told us afterwards, “I don’t like birthday(s).”

Since her birthday last year, she has this thing about birthday song and cake cutting. We just hope she’ll out grow this when it’s her 3rd birthday or it won’t be fun having the birthday girl cry when her own song was sung.

Some photos :

Ah Kong and Zara cutting cake

Zaria cried and just clung on to me

Norman monkeying around with Tasha

Norman monkeying around with Zara

The beautiful girls

The very sociable Sam was too occupied with games