It seems we cannot ‘reserve’ the ventilators. Operations-wise, I guess I can understand. They should now have any ventilators lying idle in the hospital since it is a very useful and expensive machine that can save lives!

Other than that, the baby’s growing normally. I’m excited and panicking. Still seems like there’s so much to do… *sigh*

Oh ya… I’ve started my new job. So far so good. People at the new office seems nice and friendly. Only thing… It takes almost one bl00dy hour to get to work and to get home. How can people stand working in KL! *sigh*

Ya… That’s one reason why I have not been updating my blog. Still trying to adjust my timing, etc…

Will write a ‘review’ of this car in another week or so. I think I have had enough of time with it to be able to write something fair about it.

The second check-up was for myself. It has been more than 6 years since I had a full medical check-up done. The last time I did it, it was a pre-employment check. I also did a basic blood test about 2 years back before I got married — to ensure blood compatibility, etc…

I wanted to do a check of my physical well-being. So I went to this quite famous clinic and told them I wanted to do a medical examination. They looked at me puzzled. They asked what type of examination do I want to do… I explained that its been a while since I had a medical examination done and I just wanted to know that I’m ‘healthy’. They looked at me like I’m asking something that is out of this world… I guess not many people come in to do this. So I just told them its probably something people do when they get a new job. Then it looked like the light-bulb finally lit up. They exclaimed — pre-employment examination and asked which company I plan to join. *sigh* I told them that it’s for myself but somehow, I don’t think they believed me.

I had to go to different floors to have the different tests done. And without fail, each time I would get asked which company I plan to join… Hmmm…

All this got me thinking… These days, so many people are so concerned about their health. We worry about cholesterol. We worry about high-blood pressure. We worry about being diabetic. Besides that, isn’t there anything else that helps measure how healthy we are? I mean what about heartbeat (I mean is it beating too fast, too slow)? Or blood clots? The eyes? Ears? Nose? We keep hearing public service announcements that we should do cancer detection tests, etc… But what kind of tests are these? It seems that all these have to be ’specific’. If you want to test for lung cancer, then you have to request for it. Else it is not done.

I just wish there was some kind of test like what is done with cars — first 1000km, they change the oil, etc… People know what tests and servicing needs to be done. But not with our body. It seems there’s no specific test. We’ve developed so much and perhaps have made things ever more confusing and complicated for ourselves. All I wanted to was for a professional to check my health and tell me I’m ok. But not that easy…

I was also told that a full battery of tests could cost like at least rm500!!!

The baby is due end of this month. We still have quite a number of things to do and prepare like (in no particular order):

1. Pack the bags - hospital admission, hospital stay and when baby is out of hospital

2. Paint the room Just completed at 1130hrs

3. Clean refrigerator (or maybe we should just get a new one since we’re going to move to our new house by end of the year anyway)

4. Baby’s car seat (need to do more research into this — seems like there are so many types that it’s gotten to a point where I got confused as to what is what — serious! there’s the stroller, stroller-and-car-seat-in-one, stroller that allows lying down and seated, etc)

5. Steriliser? Or just use tablets? Or use boiling water? Seems that plastic milk bottles may release Bisphenol A or BPA which can cause chronic toxicity. Over the weekend, we bought 2 glass milk bottles — ya, we managed to find them.

6. Wash baby clothes, napkins, etc… We are using some hand-me-downs from relatives and friends. So have to wash them first as some have been stored for months (or I was told, even years!).

7. Clean up room. Currently we have lots of books lying around in our room (have to read up on how to be good parents, etc) and there’s a bit of dust now. Will probably need to store them in plastic containers so it will be easier to clean.

8. Baby cot… Hmmm… What kind of mattress? Spring? Latex? I think we’re kind of decided on this — coconut fiber. I think its coconut anyway.

9. Diapers… Errr… Do we stock up now? What size? How much will we need? *sigh*

10. Baby grooming set - nail clippers, etc… I just found out that you can’t use the normal nail clippers for the baby!

…The list just goes on and on…

I don’t really have much time to spend on working on this ’simple’ template. And the last Wordpress upgrade sort of really screwed things up.

Even before the upgrade, the formatting looks a bit weird on Firefox but looks fine on IE.

So, anyone wanna volunteer and help me do up this template so it don’t look so cacat-ed?

Mrs Tai said it died while her colleague was trying to feed it with the antibiotic the vet had given. It was trying to peck Mrs Tai’s colleague and was struggling. Then it just dropped dead…

So its Goodbye #1.

I also said goodbye to my hamster. That’s Goodbye #2.

Today, I also said goodbye to…

My Proton Waja

We have had our ups and downs. For almost eight years we have worked as a team. Eight years is a long time but I guess it is time to say goodbye. I was using this car when I first met Mrs Tai. We picked up Gerger using this Proton Waja. The sale of this car was quick. Hand over the keys and that was it. It was only 10 minutes later that I realised I would never see that car again. I didn’t say ‘goodbye’ to it. But in a way, that was Goodbye #3.

And say Hello to…

My new car - the Proton BLM now known as the second generation Proton Saga

Yes, Proton BLM or what is now known as the new Proton Saga. Once I get a hang of this car, I will do a ‘review’ it.

This bird has a story to share…

Mrs Tai sent me this photo via her mobile phone this afternoon saying that this bird had hit the fan and broke its wing. I thought it was just a minor accident and the wing was just injured a bit. So I didn’t call her back.

Later on, I called back to check on her and asked about the bird. She told me that her colleague had taken the bird to see a vet. The vet said that the next 2 days will be crucial for the bird. It’s a live-or-die situation. Hmmm… I still don’t get it. I’ve seen little birds get hit by the fan and was just knocked unconscious for just a few minutes. Maybe this one had some broken bones and internal bleeding of some kind, I thought to myself.

When I went to pick up Mrs Tai from her place, I decided to take a closer look at the bird.

It is a very beautiful bird. Wow, I’m surprised we can find such a colourful bird in Petaling Jaya. But I was warned by Mrs Tai’s colleague that the bird was aggressive — it would peck on anyone who comes near. I guess I can understand. The bird is wounded and afraid. I took a closer look at the bird. Yikes… It’s lost one of its wing! I don’t call that ‘broken’!

I found out from Mrs Tai’s colleague that the bird had flown into a classroom and hit the fan. The fan had severed its wing. Poor bird. And I pity the kids in the class too! They probably has a shock of their lives when they saw the bird having its wing severed!

Anyway, the vet had given this bird some medication - antibiotics. Hope it gets better. Mrs Tai’s fren said that he will care for this bird if it survives… I hope it does.

Can see from here that its only got one wing left

Oh ya… Now I’ve only for 1 hamster left - Lengchai. Namesless just died…

We are touched by the many kind gestures as well. Besides advice, many of our family and friends have also offered us stuffs like baby napkins, baby cots, clothes, pump, feeding bottles, etc… Words just cannot express how grateful we are to have so many wonderful family and friends.

Mrs Tai ended up going to the hospital alone for the last 3 follow-up visits because I had some problem getting leave from my present job — which is partly why I decided to quit my present job and look for a more ‘family-friendly’ work environment. I felt bad about all this because I was not able to be there for my wife as well as my baby. To me, this is not a very good start.

But from what Mrs Tai have told me, the baby is doing alright. She is growing very healthily and normally. Ultrasound scan shows everything else is fine, other than the earlier suspected condition - congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Yes, doctors have told us that the baby should a girl.

On her latest check-up (just two weeks ago), Mrs Tai also got to meet up with a neo-natal specialist. He advised Mrs Tai to consider the option of planned delivery (we had originally wanted to try natural birth as we read that it is much better for the baby) as this will allow the hospital to be ‘ready’ for our baby - the pediatric surgeon can be put on standby as well as the necessary equipments. We have until early May (the next follow-up) to inform the hospital of our decision.

What the neo-natal specialist have told us is quite true and logical. So we’re most likely to go with planned delivery instead — just not too sure if its induced or Ceasarian section. Will need to check with the hospital again on the next visit about ‘planned delivery’.

To be honest, there are still quite a number of things that we have yet to work out, like confinement lady’s services (do we still require one?), where will baby be sleeping when she comes back from hospital (we have the baby cot but where to put the cot is another question), do we buy a new refrigerator (we need lots of freezer space and since we will be moving to our new place by year end, should we get the refrigerator now?)… So many questions. So many little things to think and do. But we know from past experience that eventually, everything will fall correctly into place.

Oh ya, we’ve got a name for our baby already…

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Mrs Tai (that is what I call my wife) asked me to help her do some banking on Saturday morning since she had to be in school (she is not the student, in case you need to know).

She handed me her ATM card and a piece of paper with instructions (yes, that’s how bad my memory can be). Very simple task, really - withdraw money and deposit into 2 different accounts.

How difficult can that be, right? It can be very difficult, actually, when you’re confronted with this screen:

Sh1t, which one is withdraw money la…?!?

We forgot Maybank actually remembers your preferred language and Mrs Tai’s preferred language is chinese. And I can’t read or write in Chinese! So how? Press Cancel and wait for her lor…

Cr4p! Actually, it can be a good point because if it is a snatch thief trying to withdraw money, the fella may not even know how to withdraw money. Bad point… When it is a genuine case like mine. I am so helpless… Shy only…

What? Suddenly they (actually, I’m referring to the politicians) all became so free (like what some of our politicians used to say about bloggers — too much free time on hand)… Or maybe some of them lost their job after the recent election…

Anyway, here are some of their blogs (no, I won’t be adding them to the links at the sidebar — waste of space):
http://drchua9.blogspot.com/
http://drkhir.blogspot.com/
http://mohdalirustam.blogspot.com/
http://www.rembau.net.my/

Feel free to add to the list (in the comments section). You can also check this site for a more comprehensive listing…

(actually, I’m not sure if the blogs mentioned above actually belong to the real person or its just someone trying to pull a fast one)

Last Sunday, I went to Pet Family to buy some bedding for my hamsters. The bill came to rm6.98 but I ended up paying rm7.00 instead because of the rounding mechanism. The new mechanism didn’t save me any money… I ended up paying 2 sen more! So much for the JIMAT part…