Surgery again

First a chronicle of the surgery drama:

Jan 4:  Original date of surgery

Jan 5:  Date doc requested hubby to present himself for appointment.  Turned out he had somehow forgotten that 4 Jan was hubby's surgery date, and wondered why his calendar was free that day!  But he said it was just as well as he wouldn't be available after that anyway.  New date 10 Feb, after CNY.

Feb 4: Hospital called, surgery had to be postponed due to a malfunctioning machine.  New date 15 Feb 

Feb 9:  Hubby develops a bad cough.  Kept visiting GPs and pharmacies to get meds 

Feb 12:  Cleared to proceed for surgery.  Hubby starts taking the pre-surgery medication 

Feb 13:  Doc called, surgery had to be postponed due to malfunctioning machine (we will never know if it's the same one!)  New date 1 March.

Pretty fed-up by then heh.  Roller-coaster emotions must have been awful for hubby.  Each time I also had to reset the preparations for the kids to stay to my parents' place.

Finally, we went to the hospital on 28 Feb as scheduled.  Getting a room took ages.  We were planted from 930am to 6pm in the admissions waiting area - luckily tests proceeded as usual for hubby.  Someone would come to take him for the Echo test then brought him back to the same place.  Ditto for the rest of the tests. The blood test was at the Patients Lounge on 9/F Menara Timur - which was a blessing as hubby then knew where to find food and snacks!  The chairs were way more comfortable too.  

Wait wait wait

Hubby was taken to the operating theatre the next morning.  This round, unlike the previous one, hubby was able to move his right arm (as well as leg) upon waking up.  So relieved!  

Warning that the next picture is not for the faint-hearted... long cut to remove the tumours.  The faint perpendicular (much shorter) scar is from the previous surgery.

Long cut

Story to be continued.
 

Dark cloud

We ended 2024 on a high note. But there is actually a dark cloud hanging over us.  This concerns hubby's health.  He had an operation for a brain tumour 3 years ago where he walked into the hospital like a normal person and struggled to walk out, with a non-functioning right arm.  Today, he has regained movement although he says it's as though there are weights strapped to that arm.  He walks, although the legs get tired more quickly.  He has various pains and aches which weren't previously there.  Where he was frequently out of the house going to work, to the gym, to drinking sessions with friends... now he is mostly home watching TV.  Still, he has adapted and seems as fine as the situation permits.

The cloud came last October. During a routine MRI brain scan, the doctor found out new tumours had grown.  There were in fact 2 near the site of the old tumour and one starting at the site itself.  We were shocked - assumed/hoped it would be years before we would need to worry again.  And now there were multiple tumours which were already quite large.

The plan is to have surgery again to remove the tumours. Then have frequent MRI scans to check for new tumours. If any are detected, use radiotherapy to shrink them.

Oh the anxiety, the whys and what-ifs.  Still, we must face this.  One step at a time.  

Photobooks

Around every year end, I would get busy on a photobook.  This would contain our photos throughout that year.  I start from pictures which made it into this blog since they would be the ones I liked best.  I arrange them into the book pages in general chronological sequence and add/subtract photos to fit.  The cover must be a photo of ALL of us.  This makes me consciously ensure we take such photos else the bulk of photos would contain 1,2 or 3 of us.  Arranging the book takes me ages.  Definitely a labour of love!

One book a year

I fished out all the photobooks recently.  Timing-wise, I'd started the first book with photos from my time working in the UK (hubby came over twice to visit and travel), our honeymoon East Europe trip and later holiday trips nearer home.  JE appeared towards the end of that book, and SE on the very last page.  

Content with kids start here

The first two books were big and expensive.  Later on I noticed offers given on certain book types - some years the small type was FOC, only had to pay for postage - and took advantage of those.  That's why the books aren't the same size nor shape heh.

Two giant books

My editing skills improved with time.  There were some errors in the initial books.  The first book was missing some 'where' and 'when' of the photos.  I started putting the year on the cover only after the 5th book.

The latest book just arrived.  Photos are much sharper, attesting to technology improvements (we upgraded to iPhone 14/15 recently).  Made use of technology to remove 'extra' people in some photos too.

Latest book

Job done, and done well.   Happy!  :)

Muzium Negara visit

For my recent assignment, the route back from the client office took me past the national museum.  Each time, I'd plan to take the girls there since they had never been and they might learn something.  Finally went there this school holidays.  Entrance was only RM2 for adults (parking however cost us RM11).

 

Told JE to make the visit worth the ticket price heh.  There was a special snake display in conjuction with the snake year which I steered clear of.  There were 4 sections in the museum - early history (of humankind - interesting enough), Malay kingdoms (Parameswara and so on - hope the girls remembered something that would help them for their Sejarah/history lessons), colonial era (occupation by the Portugese, Dutch and so on - ditto for the girls) and Malaysia today (political and least interesting section for me).

I was walking around with SE so got more pictures of her compared to of JE.

Are these real? How did they get here from sunken ships?

Asked her to pose with this historic 'meeting' and got this...

Oi why got Caveman era person here??

I can also proclaim 'Merdeka!'

 

Overall I thought it was average:  Most of the exhibits were clearly replicas.  There was room for more exhibits, more details.  After all, this is our 'national' museum.  Erm it was rather warm as well when we visited.

What I liked it:  Exhibits had both Malay and English write-ups with decent language standards.  At least people can learn language if not history heh.  

For lunch I saw a good selection of dishes for 'nasi campur'/mixed rice.  But the others were more interested in the cafe so we had coffee, pies and cake instead.  Hmmff think the 'nasi campur' would have tasted better.  

Then we messed around with the stilts provided in the open area.

Whoa this is hard

Let me try!

I totally forgot about the impressive murals at the front.  Just took this last picture before leaving.

Yep we were here

Then we drove to the nearby National monument.

And now this, folks, is our Tugu Negara

 Not bad for a 'patriotic' day eh?  

Rest of CNY

What else did we do for CNY... there was a potluck at my parents' place as usual.

Let's eat

Close-up of the food... dishes were all home-cooked (none by me personally heh.  The ones I brought were cooked by my helper)

Finally a lunch at Hee Lai Ton restaurant with hubby's side...

Huat ah!

I count 5 'lou sang' sessions for myself this year, not bad.  :)

Day1 CNY

As usual, we dress up and take pictures.  This year we all somehow had blue outfits.

Happy CNY from us

JE:  Always gets a new CNY outfit as she would have outgrown the one for the previous year.  This year, she selected a red cheongsam.  It arrived and fitted fine.  But there was something about the sleeves and material which she didn't like.  Good thing Shopee allowed returns!  Her second selection was a blue cheongsam.

SE:  Was supposed to wear JE's red CNY outfit from 2 years ago, but she forgot to bring it home.  Luckily JE's blue cheongsam from 1 year ago fit her fine. 

Hubby:  Happened to have a blue shirt bought from China or something.

Me: Decided to wear my blue-green outfit from last year.  After all, what are the odds haha.  CNY outfits would be red, oh, 90% of the time?

Blue for the sky!

And ocean!

Hehe that was fun.  Next year I suppose we revert to red.

CNY eve

This year we made our usual peanut cookies and seaweed crackers.  We had a good stock of bought goodies but I thought that we should make SOMETHING for CNY.

Cookies in the making

For the first time ever, half the cookies got burnt and the rest didn't taste good.  JE said there wasn't enough peanut taste, I tasted too much baking soda.  Oh well at least all the problems were with ONE thing.  The seaweed crackers were perfectly fine.

We had two CNY eve get-togethers, lunch with hubby's side...

Kong hei fatt choy!

And dinner with mine. :)  Unlike last year, we had enough time to prepare.  Steamboat tasted good!  Next year we should reduce the fishballs and add on meat items though.

Kiong hee huat chye!

The kiddos have been using this small table for years.  

Kid's table

After dinner they started the gambling session and didn't want to go back home haha.

Don't call the police ok?

We remembered to take a group photo...

Happy new year!