Day +1426 : Follow-up at BMT clinic

My Blood Count Today: - Readings in square bracket [] are result from previous test.

Red Blood Count (HB) = 155[150] (Normal 130-180)

Platelet = 192[183] (Normal 150-450)

White Blood Count (WBC) = 9.7[6.9] (Normal 4 - 11)

I am fine today.

I went to UH this afternoon for a post bone marrow transplant follow-up. The blood counts today were good and I was told that the liver function test result for the last follow-up (3 months ago) was in good order as well. For your information, the liver function test result for the blood sample taken this afternoon was not out at the moment I saw the doctor.

I asked the doctor about the necessity of having H1N1 vaccination as I am considered to be under the high risk group. The doctor advised me to have trivalent influenza vaccine which covers the pandemic H1N1 strain and also the seasonal A and B influenza viruses. In other words, the vaccine has a wider coverage than the monovalent vaccine which covers the H1N1 only.

But the problem is that UH is starting to roll out trivalent vaccination and the priority now is to give this vaccination to the staffs, not the patients. I was advised to go to the government clinic for trivalent vaccination. I will try Puchong clinic one of these days.

The doctor also told me that most people who received trivalent vaccination would have fever as the side effect :-(

Doctor also commented that I have more post transplant side effects than most patients but my condition now is generally good, so he scheduled my next follow-up 4 months later. This is the first time ever I got to enjoy such as long interval between follow-ups :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +1425 : Popcorn and pineapple tart

I am fine today.

My wife and Daniel made sugar popcorn and pineapple tart today. This was the first time ever she made pineapple tart.

Both of them looked very attractive but unfortunately they were too sweet for my sensitive teeth. I tested the popcorn and suffered until I dare not touch them anymore.

I must congratulate my wife and Daniel for making the popcorn and pineapple tart successfully.

The attractive sugar popcorn. My wife told me that it is better than honey popcorn as the coagulation of sugar makes the popcorn crispy.

The pineapple tart

See you next post :-)

Day +1424 : Goodies from Sarawak

I am fine today.

My eldest sister brought many goodies from Sarawak; some from the kampong and others from Kuching.

My third sister (my bone marrow donor), who is staying in our hometown Bintangor, purchased about 50kg of fruits for us. It is by not mean a trivial effort to get the fruits here.

The fruits were first carried from Bintangor to Kuching through express boat by my niece, Siew Ling, who was just starting her internship in Kuching. My eldest sister and my brother-in-law then picked them up from the jetty.

After adding some more goodies from Kuching, the overall check-in luggage was 66kg; something over the combined limit of 60kg free luggage weight. Given that the airline charges RM16 for each kg of excess luggage, the total excess luggage cost was RM96, which is more than the value of the luggage itself. So it is not worth to pay for it.

It was fortunate that they found a solution to the problem free of charge at last – hand carried a box which was supposed to be checked in.

I believe not all family members would like to take so much trouble to do this but I am very grateful that my family members did and not only that, they were very happy to do this :-)

The honey oranges - do not look beautiful but taste "beautifully"
Lemons and limes together with another type of orange (the big one)
Pomelo
Chickens from Kuching
Nice butter milk bun from Kuching - can't find it here
See you next post :-)

Day +1423 : Dinner with my eldest sister's family

I am fine today.

My eldest sister came here for holiday together with my brother-in-law and Min Huang today. The other three children - Soon Hui, Min Hie, and Min Hui - are already staying here.

My brother-in-law is a retired Telekom engineer and my sister is a primary school teacher teaching in Kuching. Following today's Wesak holiday, her school will be closed for one week Dayak Gawai, and then followed by two weeks mid-year school holiday. She take the opportunity to visit her children and us here.

We went to Restoran Kepala Ikan Jalan Lima (陈秀莲鱼头) near Tesco for dinner.

A group photo - My sister's family and my wife. I was busy taking photo.

The dishes we ordered. Too busy eating and forgot to take photo of the crab.



See you next post :-)

Day +1422 : See how Adriel laughed

I am fine today.

"Ah...hahahaha!"

See you next post :-)

Day +1421 : I paid Google USD 5

I am fine today.

I hit the Google Picasa Web Albums 1GB storage limit yesterday. Since all image postings on this blog are stored on Picasa Web Albums, I won't be able to post further images anymore.

I have no choice but to purchase additional storage. It is fortunate that the cost of additional storage is considerable cheap; 20GB storage for a year cost only USD 5. This extra storage can be used for Picasa Web Albums, email and Google Documents.

Google will auto renew the storage subscription plan annually until we discontinue it through Google Account.

One thing that was puzzling me regarding this additional storage subscription was if we discontinue the subscription later, what would happen to our content? I was glad to find out that Google promises to keep the content even if we discontinue the subscription later.

No matter when you cancel your storage subscription, your extra storage will be available for the entire year you've purchased. After your plan expires, your storage will be limited to each individual product's free storage quota. Under our current policy, any content over the free storage quota will still be accessible, however you will not be able to add new content until your storage balance falls below the free storage limit.

If you need storage, paying USD 5 per year for 20GB can be a good choice.

The extra storage subscription plan - USD 5 for every 20GB

My storage usage - take note of the 20GB paid storage which is fresh from the "credit card"
See you next post :-)

Day +1420 : Alvin the dog

I am fine today.

Our dog, Alvin, is almost 6 months old now. He grows very fast - big and tall now.

He is still naughty and over the past 6 months, he has destroyed many shoes.

When I spanked him, he wanted to bite me, so I am afraid of him.

One day, we purchase a bone for him. He became very aggressive, holding the bone in his mouth. My mother-in-law tried to pick up a pair of shoes somewhere beside him, he bit her suddenly. I think he thought that my mother-in-law was going to take away the bone from him.

With this incident, we dare not give him anymore bone.

Alvin is tall and he always welcome us by jumping onto us, scratching our hands and legs with his sharp claws :-(

Exercising
After exercise - gasping with tongue outside his mouth
Waiting for food



The only time that he listens to command is when he sees us holding some food. Daniel is holding a piece of bread in his hand, and asked him to sit and he listened.

See you next post :-)

Day +1419 : Four reverse sensors for a small car :-)

I am fine today.

The Perodua Viva that my wife is driving is without reverse sensors. She has to rely on her eyes and sense of distance while reversing the car, and this put her under heavy pressure.

I went to Brother's Car Accessories Puchong to fix the reverse sensor this afternoon. There were two choices; one with two sensors and the other one with four sensors. I was told that four sensors unit give a better coverage whereby it can detect objects besides the car.

In order to give my wife better protection, I opted for the the four sensors unit even though it is more expensive. But when I reached home and noticed that my Innova, which is bigger than Viva, had two reverse sensors only, I felt that I was overdoing.

It cost me a total of RM280 to fix the censors. The cost includes a voltage regulator and labour charges.

The four reverse sensors
A reverse sensor
Indicator in the car
Something on the right which is approximatly 0.5m away
Something at the back
Innova - 2 sensors only and without indicator in the car
See you next post :-)

Day +1418 : Homemade popcorn

I am fine today.

Joseph wondered how popcorn was made. In order to satisfy his curiosity, my wife demonstrated the popcorn making process to him today.

We followed the steps outlined here, using "Method Two" to be exact.

The corn purchased from TESCO
Heat some margarine
Put in popcorn
Cover the frying pan until all corn pop
Fresh from the frying pan, mixed with some honey and ready to serve :-)

Homemade popcorn is very economical. A small bag of corn costing less than RM3 produces a lot popcorn.

See you next post :-)

Day +1417 : Siew Ling completed her study

I am fine today.

Time passes really fast. My niece, Siew Ling, had completed her study in Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). I still remember sending her off to UUM at Puduraya bus station on 30 June 2007. Daniel and Joseph followed and you can see in the photo posted on “Day +361 : Busy sending off my nieces to universities” that Daniel was still small at that time.

Siew Ling will undergo internship in a tourist firm in Kuching for a few months before graduating next year.

She stopped here for a few days before returning to Sarawak two weeks ago. We had a dinner at Grill King before she went back to Sarawak.

May God bless her internship and all her future undertaking!

Group photo before the dinner
Some of our orders



See you next post :-)

Day +1416 : Cough and Flu again

I am fine today.

I started having cough and flu since yesterday. I acted fast again this time; going to see the Traditional Chinese doctor (中医）next to my church.

She prescribed me some pills and herbal powder, something like what I got previously. These traditional medicines seem to work quite well. The cough was almost gone this morning. The irritation in my left lung that causes the cough was no longer felt too :-)

Again, I felt very sleepy after taking the medicine.

I hope these medicines will work well again this time.

See you next post :-)

Day +1415 : HK 100Mbps, Malaysia 1Mbps and US? 512kbps

I am fine today.

A STM team member from Hong Kong told me that 100Mbps broadband internet access is common in Hong Kong. Comparing to current 1 to 4Mbps offered by our Telekom, we are turtles. Even if we have the so called high speed broadband service - UniFi - which offers 5Mbps, 10Mbps and 20Mbps, we are still very slow :-(

But a friend working in US told me that he got 512kbps only and the television there is still advertising dial-up internet service.

Hong Kong is fast, Malaysia is turtle but someone is even slower than us - and that is US :-) I am not really sure if this is true.

See you next post :-)

Day +1414 : Kacang Satay at DG Food Court with HK visitors

I am fine today.

I brought the short missionary team (STM) members to DG food court for Kajang Satay last evening. The team, comprises 13 members from CMA Grace Chapel, Hong Kong (香港基督教宣道会宣恩堂), reached here on last Saturday, and will be departing for Hong Kong coming Monday after a series of activities.

I pre-ordered 80 Kajang Satays in the afternoon. The stall owner kept his promise, serving the satays immediately we arrived.

Each one of us got an average of 5 satays but this amount is certainly not enough for us to call it a dinner. I believe an average person should at least consumes 10 satays and 1 Ketupat for a proper satay meal. The intention of ordering less is to give some room for the visitors to try Malaysian delicacies other than Kajang Satay, which they could order freely in the food court.

Eating with so many people can be fun, generating a group effect that somehow enhances the taste of the food. It was a happy meal :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +1413 : Drag and drop files onto Gmail

I am fine today.

Are you using Gmail in Google Chrome? If you are, then there are two new features that will make your life a lot easier:

1. Drag and drop attachments onto messages
2. Drag images into messages

Drag 4 images and drop them onto the green area as attachment. (Click the image to get a larger view)

If you drop the images into the message body, then the images will appear right inside the message body.
But I just discover that if you drop multiple images onto the message body, nothing happened. Hopefully Google will address this issue soon. However, dropping one image will still work.

See you next post :-)

Day +1412 : Happy Teacher's Day!

I am fine today.

I wish all teachers a Happy Teacher's Day!

I have four children. All of them are schooling. We have 28 Teacher's Day presents to prepare. My wife and I searched TESCO last night and purchased 30 plastic containers for the children to bring to their teachers as Teacher's Day present this morning.

See you next post :-)

Day +1411 : Clearing statues

I am fine today.

We had a statue clearing session at a church member - Mr. Ray Shoong’s - house after church service this afternoon. Joining us this time were some short term missionary team members from CMA Grace Chapel (基督教宣道会宣恩堂), Hong Kong.

Mr. Ray is a businessman. His business partner betrayed him a few months ago, leaving him a huge debt to burden. His lorry and car were repossessed by bank because he was unable to service his business loan.

Without transportation, he called William – a church member- to help. William told him in the car that no one could help him except Jesus and advised him to turn to Jesus. Ray heeded William's advice and decided to move away from the idol worship and turned to Jesus right away in the car. William then leaded him a prayer, asking Jesus to deliver him from the crisis.

Ray was offered RM100,000 credit term by a supplier three days later. This allowed him to carry on his business and some room to due with his debt. At same time, William also supporting him by purchasing advertisement materials from him. He was very encouraged by this and treated this as God's answer to his prayer.

Ray was a drunkard. He used to go home very late. When his wife demanded him to come home early, he would complied by coming home as early as 5:00am, but only on the next day. After experiencing the life transforming power of Jesus, he always comes home early now.

Seeing the miraculous changes happening on her husband, his wife was happy and accepted Lord Jesus as well. Their relationship used to be very poor but now this is not longer true.

Since they decided to follow Jesus for the rest of their life, they would like the church to clear all statues in their house.

It is great to see how a life was transformed and then blessed through accepting and following Lord Jesus :-)

Praying in the church before departing for Ray's house
Singing session before clearing statues
Ray & his wife together with their children
Pastor Derek Woo sharing the Word of God
Statues

Now let's start our work









Cleaning the place
Presenting a present to the family
Now Jesus is the Lord of this house
A group photo
A blessing prayer from Mrs. Rev. Lau
We experienced something supernatural before departing to Mr. Ray's house. One of the church van plug cap was detached mysteriously. The van was unable to start but this didn't hampered our plan to clear the statue. We squeeze more members into other cars :-)

The photo below shows the relocation of the plug cap. We found out the plug cap relocation after the statue clearing session. The van could be started easily after putting back the connection. Then we tried to uplug the cap but we found out that the connection was very firm. It is not easy at all to unplug the cap. Who unplugged it?
After putting back - 5 plugs altogether
See you next post :-)