Dad just called a few minutes ago…
My grandpa had just passed away… 
He had fallen down twice yesterday and had been admitted into the hospital. He was still unconscious then. This morning, my uncle (dad’s youngest brother) had told us that grandpa has some brokens bones but no surgery can be done as he’s old and weak.
The past few months has been a series of bad news for me…
Dad sold of the old Volvo and got himself a Perodua Viva recently. The car arrived middle of the week and I have to say that it looks good. I believe the one he got was the 850cc version.
Since we were relatively ‘free’ over the weekend and dad has not been to Setia Alam (my future home) in a long time, we decided to try out his car and drive there.
Can’t say I know a lot about cars. So don’t expect an expert kind of review. The three of us (my dad, Mrs Tai @ my wife and myself) sat comfortably in the car. I am kinda impressed that at its price (I think around rm33k, all inclusive), it comes with power windows for all the windows. Cabin space was quite big. As I said, we felt quite comfortable inside. Dashboard was very minimal and basic. There is the single CD player. Side-view mirrors is not manual (meaning you push some buttons to adjust the side-view mirrors). I think it even comes with air-bag (I might be wrong about this — sorry la, like I said, I’m not a car freak).
So far, the things I noticed and found to be slightly ‘off’ is the lack of a meter to show the temperature. Viva only has two light indicator - one for COLD and one for HOT. They will only turn on when the engine is too cold or too hot. I think that’s kinda bad. I would like to know if the engine is starting to get too hot. Besides that, I also noticed there’s no way to turn off the air-cond vent. You can turn it left or right or up or down… But you just can’t shut it.
I think Mrs Tai has fallen in love with this car. She said that if not for our need to have extra space (meaning the car boot), she would love to get this. We have been told by friends who have kids to get a car with lots of space - for baby seats, strollers, etc…
The drive to Setia Alam was smooth. We didn’t expect much changes for the house since its like 95-99% completed already. I managed to speak to the sales person and she said that the house progress is still on schedule and we’re expected to receive the house keys next month (April). The Certificate of Fitness/ Occupation (CF) is expected to be ready in April or May. Once we get the CF, it means we can move in.
But for us, we are planning to only move in by the end of the year. Partly due to other more important matters - our baby is due in May. Plus, we would like to take our time to decorate and improve the house (plant flowers, add cabinets, etc) before we move it. Like Derrell, we will slowly move our things to our new home.
Over the past few weeks, things have been a bit of confusing for both my wife and myself. But I am glad to say that we have both ’settled-in’ (in regards to our baby’s complication). I have to say that I have never realised how much of preparation work is required for the would-be parents. Getting baby cot, strollers, making the house and bedroom more baby-friendly (meaning clean the room, etc), baby clothes, baby names (in a way, we have actually decided on the name), etc…
We are just glad that there are a few friends who have offered to loan us their baby strollers, baby cots, clothes, etc… If you believe what the old folks say, the baby will be ‘easier’ and more ‘comfortable’ when using hand-me-downs. The more hands the item’s been through, the better it is for the baby.
It was also nice to receive calls from family and friends offering to help us find out more about Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia from their local hospitals (these are friends staying overseas). Some even offered us a place to stay should we decide to go overseas for treatment. Others have included us in their prayers. We are so touched! 
But I think for now, we will just stick to getting the treatment and surgery from UMMC. We have confidence in the doctors at the UMMC. But yes, we are also reading up, surfing the net, asking around, etc to find out more about Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. No harm in having more knowledge and options.
Two week ago, I bought two children’s songs CDs. It took me a while to find those CDs. And honestly, I forgot how to sing most of the songs on the CD. Seriously, how many can still remember the lyrics to songs “How much is that doggy in the window”?
Just last week, my wife bought a toy for our baby… Can’t remember what that toy is called… It’s the thing that plays music when you pull the string. But I told my wife the string was to short (the song ends very fast). Oh well, maybe we’ll get another one for our baby later.
You can get the final results here:
http://thestar.com.my/election/results/results.html
http://thestar.com.my/election/maps/
This time around, Barisan Nasional (BN) wins the election with only a simple majority. This is supposed to be BN’s worst performance since 1969. They did not get 2/3 majority which would have allowed them to approve or amend the new law without needing to consult the oppositions.
What I find puzzling is the fact that BN leaders seems to have been caught off-guard with this result. Mainstream media, as usual, chose not to report (or some may claim were ‘discouraged’ from reporting) many events that showed how much support the oppositions were getting during the campaigning period. I mean nowhere on TV and local newspapers could you find these:
http://www.mycen.com.my/sightings/sightings060308_ceramah.html
http://themalaysianinsider.com/mni/penang-rally-draws-30000.html
So much for intelligence reports if BN could not even detect and anticipate this results. For those who frequent the internet for a more comprehensive news, the results of the 12th General Election was no surprise.
I would like to end this post by quoting Raja Petra Kamarudin of Malaysia Today:
Thank you Malaysians, for having the confidence to opt for change.
Thank you Malaysians, for grabbing back power and handing it back to the people.
Thank you Malaysians, for giving back Malaysia its future.
Thank you Malaysians, for believing that your one vote can make a difference.
Thank you Malaysians, for ensuring that my grandchildren will have something to look forward to.
Vote counting process on going in many areas. News from everywhere seems to indicate a wind of change.
Want to know the latest results for Malaysia’s 12th General Election? Then check out these few sites:
http://www.malaysiakini.com/index.php <– Updated quite regularly
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/malaysia2008/seats.htm
http://www.dap-elections.com/
http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/election08/results.html
I noticed mainstream media (like TV and newspaper websites) are very slow to provide updates and results.
Today is the day where Malaysians go out and have their voices heard! This is the day where if you are not happy with how things have been, you make a change.
I have cast my vote. The process was relatively fast. Took me less than 10mins from the time I arrived at the polling station to the time I left the place. I was lucky my booth (more like classroom) was empty. I saw some booths that had quite a number of people queuing up outside.
I had wanted to write more about the 2008 General Election sometime earlier this week but I just couldn’t find the time, But here’s what I have to say about the 2008 General Elections.
Candidates
I won’t go into details about candidates all over the country but will just focus on mine - Kelana Jaya for Parliament Seat and Seri Setia for State Seat. Heck, I don’t think I want to even talk about the state seats. I have not really seen those two candidates in action. They don’t come off as impressive at all. As for Kelana Jaya, I was ‘lucky’ to have three candidates - Lee Hwa Beng for Barisan National, Loh Gwo Burne for Keadilan and Billi Lim running as an independant candidate.
Lim Hwa Beng was previously running in Subang Jaya. No introduction or explanation required. He’s been in newspapers, etc quite often. Loh Gwo Burne has also been in the news lately. You don’t know him?!? He’s the guy who taped Lingam la… Oh wait, Lingam said it looks like him, sounds like him, but might not be him (or something like that). Other than this Lingam thingy, I don’t think Gwo Burne’s being doing anything else (politically). He’s been so busy with his business that he’s got no time to even register himself as a voter. If he has no interest in politics, then what they heck is he doing running for Parliament seat? If he gets elected, will he actually be able to serve the people of Kelana Jaya? Or will it be business first, politics/ community second? I have once encountered a doctor who was also a politician (thank goodness he’s not running this year - what I heard is that there is in-fighting among the people in that party) who actually put politics first instead of his medical practice. I wonder if Gwo Burne’s even stayed in Kelana Jaya before.
Billi Lim (don’t you think he looks like Old Master Q? This is interesting (and that’s why he’s getting his own paragraph). I like his haircut. Oh good, he finally got his website updated. Yesterday it was still very crappy. From what I understand, he is a motivational speaker and the author of the book Dare To Fail. I guess Parliament can definitely do with some extra motivation and people like Bung can learn to speak better properly.
News flash: I just got an text message on my phone from +4540590097 saying “UNDILAH BARISAN NASIONAL UNTUK KITA SEMUA. SEMOGA SELAMAT AMAN DAN MAKMUR.” Does it mean if I don’t vote them, the country’s not going to be peaceful?!?
I wonder how many of the candidates have done community service? Or are the expecting a windfall when they become part of the government?
OPPOSITIONS
We do not have real oppositions. DAP? PAS? Keadilan? They only work together during election time. Plus, Khairy did raise an interesting question - If the oppositions win, who is their candidate for Prime Minister? I don’t really see anyone from the three parties that I would like to see as Malaysia’s future leader. If they are serious about being strong, form a new party.
CORRIDORS
I wonder why are all the corridors suddenly announced just before election? There have been many that says its too ambitious to have so many MEGA projects running almost simultaneously. If so, could it be that if Barisan Nasional do not get 2/3 majority, they can then say the projects can’t take off because oppositions are causing problems?
MY WISHES
I would like to see a party that is not based on race. I would like to see a party that fights for everyone - regardless of race or religion. I would like to see a party that is committed to developing our country and at the same time, care for the environment. Poverty does not only affect one race. Every Malaysian should have equal opportunity for health care, education, etc… Improve public transportation and reduce the number of cars on the road. It helps save reduce pollution and more importantly, our reliance on petrol. After all, only the rich can afford petrol guzzling cars, so why is the petrol subsidy used to benefit the rich who can afford such petrol guzzlers? I read somewhere that Malaysia will become a nett importer of petroleum in the next 5-10 years. When that time comes, what will be our country’s source of income? Proton?!? Don’t kid me…
Oh ya, would be nice to see more forward looking politicians. Most of our national plans, including election, seems so last minute. Speaking of last minute, how come the jokers who thought up the use of indelible inks never thought of the legal implications? Isn’t these the same people who should at least know some legal stuffs, especially when it comes to election-related legal issues?
As my car was still in the workshop, we decided it was best for us to just cook lunch instead of going out to eat. Mrs Tai usually does all the cooking and that means very healthy food - very little salt, very little sugar. I was in the mood for a tasty meal and told Mrs Tai that I would prepare lunch instead.
Checked the cupboard and found we had a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, a can of button mushrooms, a packet of Cintan Cup-A-Mi instant noodles and some dried mushrooms. In the refrigerator, we had a lemon, an orange, a bottle of mayonnaise and yesterday’s leftover potato wedges from Kiwi Express.
One hour later…
Next two dishes…
Cintan Cup-A-Mi instant dried noodles with a dash of lemon
Cream of mushroom
As for the soup, I got the inspiration from Soup Spoon’s thick mushroom soup as well as from my wife. She had prepared something similar (as paste sauce) for my colleagues about two weeks ago. I basically chopped a can of button mushrooms and about 4 pieces of dried mushrooms and added them into a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom. Then added some pepper and water.
It has been an ‘eventful’ week for us. Over the past few days, everything had been like a roller coaster ride for us. It gave us lots of scare. But I guess both of us have settled down and have a better understanding now.
Over the past week, we found out about 2 other people who had gone through what we are going through with our baby now. One is a colleague of mine who has a 7 year old daughter. According to my colleague, her 7 year old daughter turned out fine.
They had diagnosed her daughters condition only after she was delivered. Her daughter went for surgery on the third day and all’s well now. Another is my cousin’s cousin brother. According to my cousin, this cousin is now 21 years old and is doing National Service (this cousin of his lives in Singapore). My cousin told me everything should be OK for us as well.
All these have made us more calm now and as we go along, we will share what other things we find out about Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia.
We still have many things to prepare for our baby. Since there is a warehouse sale in Setia Alam, both of us decided to check out the things available there. The morning was spend checking out Babyland in SS2 (just to compare prices). Then we went to Little Whiz’s warehouse sale in Setia Alam. There were quite number of things on sale - baby cot, breast pump, toys, baby chairs, etc… We stared at each other… Are all these necessary? I guess we didn’t do enough ‘research’ on what is necessity and what is luxury. If you ask the people at Little Whiz, they would of course tell you we need everything!
We also took the opportunity to check out our house. There’s nothing new from out last visit except that they have even locked up the houses now. So there’s no way we could go in and check out our unit. So we just took a photo from the outside.
After about 2 hours of waiting, mechanic told me he lost his way and will arrange a tow truck instead. I told him that I’ll try to start my car again and then if still necessary, will call him back and ask him to send the tow truck over instead. Luckily, the car could start and we were on our way back to PJ again.
Got back to PJ and sent the car to workshop… Again. Very good record (being sarcastic here). See… And it’s just the first day of March!
Thursday and Friday was spent once again at the hospital.
Yesterday (Thursday), we saw the doctor as part of UMMC’s admission procedure. In order to deliver at UMMC, we are supposed to register, attend a course (was told it is mandatory for all government hospitals to have this breastfeeding course for all mum-to-be) and then see the doctor (officially since Monday’s appointment was more as a 2nd opinion). We had originally wanted to use Serdang Hospital like what Dean and Adeline did with baby Shuyin. Serdang Hospital is one of the newer hospitals and basically everything there is ‘new’. But because of the complication that we are now facing, both Mrs Tai and myself have decided we will just have the baby delivered in UMMC. We understand they will have pediatric surgeons on standby during delivery.
After the course (dad-to-be are encouraged to sit in as well to provide morale support to the wife), we waited for our turn to see the doctor. As ours was a special case and we had to see one particular doctor, we faced this incident where we were told its our turn. When we went into the room, we noticed it was another doctor. After a quick check and after asking us a few questions, the doctor realised that we are a ’special case’ and told us to wait again outside for the correct doctor. There are a few doctors on duty at UMMC’s maternal clinic.
After another 10-20mins of waiting, we finally got to see the doctor. She basically explained to us again and asked if we have any further questions regarding our baby’s condition (see The ultrasound scan and The follow up scan. She then used to Doppler to listen to our baby’s heartbeat… Words cannot describe how it feels when you actually can hear your baby’s heartbeat. Seeing her images on the ultrasound scan is one thing, but hearing our baby is a totally different feeling. I felt so happy and I just can’t wait for our baby to finally come into this world.
The doctor also wrote us a referral letter for us to meet up with the pediatric surgeon on Friday (today). And before we left, she told us that she will arrange for us to meet up with a Neonatal Specialist before the baby is delivered - possibly during one of the next ultrasound scan sessions.
So this morning, we were off to the hospital again early in the morning. We had been told to come early as we had no prior appointment with the surgeon and would be considered as ‘walk-in’ patients. However, our doctor was nice enough to write the word URGENT on our letter yesterday.
It was about 2 hours wait before it was finally our turn to see the surgeon. Basically he acted more as a counselor for the two of us. He explained the situation again and even drew a diagram for us to understand further. He also explained his role - the surgeons will only come once the baby has been delivered. He also briefly explained to us what they will do during the corrective surgery. According to him, the corrective surgery is done after the baby is stabilised, which is usually on the third day. The only thing is that during the three days, baby will be on IV drips. No food (milk) until after the surgery. Even then, it will be quite a while after the surgery before the baby is allowed to take food (milk). I guess our baby will not get to taste food until the second or even third week.
First of all, thank you to all our friends who have called up or texted us over the last few days. We really appreciate the kind words, prayers and concern you have all shown. It had been one nightmare weekend for us and we really appreciate the support shown, especially my wife. She had at a time over the weekend felt very down and was blaming herself for this - if she had eaten the wrong food, moved too much, etc. But I told her it is not her fault. It is no one’s fault. In a way, you can say it is fated. We can hope it will be a relatively smooth journey for us in the next few months till delivery.
Almost the whole of Monday and first half of Tuesday was spent at the hospital.On Monday, we met up with another doctor at UMMC (University Malaya Medical Centre) who performed a more thorough ultrasound scan on our baby. She also suspects the same as what our regular doctor has suspected last Saturday - our baby is most likely to have this condition called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia.
Diaphragmatic hernia?!? What is that? That is what went through my mind the first time the doctor mentioned it. It is the same when I tell my concerned friends… A big question mark appears. So, in my own words, understanding and illustration… Diaphragmatic Hernia basically means that the diaphragm (see illustration below) is either not developed properly or there is a hole/ tear on the diaphragm and it is causing the organs from the abdomen (like the stomach, liver and intestines) to move into the lung area.
Doctor have also informed us that there is a possibility of a ‘worst case scenario’. I guess this is one scenario which we hope will not happen but in a way, we have to be prepared.
Both Mrs Tai and myself have agreed that we will be open and positive about this. We will post updates as well as our experience, findings, links, etc here so that if there is anyone else who is facing such situation, especially in Malaysia (though we do hope no one else have to go through this), we are more than happy to share our experience and lend our support.