Day +290 : Happy Birthday, Aaron

I am fine today.

We celebrated our youngest son Aaron’s birthday today. He was born on the 20 April 2006. I was in haematology ward doing my fourth round of chemotherapy at that time. He was the first child that was delivered without my presence as I was not allowed to leave the ward. I described the birth of Aaron on my Blog Day +128.

About two months after Aaron was born, I did my bone marrow transplant. Time passes very fast. He is now a one-year-old cute and healthy boy :-) I praise God to be able to live to attend Aaron’s Birthday.

We delayed the celebration of his birthday until today because we are hosting a church’s cell group meeting at our house today. This would allow more people to attend the celebration.

As you can see, the birthday cake also included a baby called Joan. She is the youngest daughter of my brother, Richard, who was born 3 days earlier than Aaron. Two families had dinner together in the evening and I thought Joan and Joseph could celebrate birthday together after the cell group. But the meeting ended quite late and Joan had to leave earlier, she miss the celebration. You can click on any of the photos below to get a larger view.

Singing birthday song to Aaron. Aaron was enjoying meehon.Aaron was enjoying birthday cake.

See you next post :-)

Day +222

I am fine today.

I would like to say a big thank you to all of you who supported me and my family throughout the challenge of my life. The following card is for you. Do me a favour by filling in your name in the blank :-) If you need a larger card than this, just click on the card.

I wish to thank my churchmate Choon Lim for designing the card for me. He is a professional designer :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +184

I am fine today. My red eyes problem is completely cured. This shows that my immune system is working :-)

I appreciate and love life very much now and I believe this somehow influences my buying decision. You see, Life is too precious for me not to buying it or I just couldn't refrain myself from purchasing it.

May be eating these Life sauces can increase my life level. Something like this always happen in computer games :-)

Sandra, if you could not find this Life sauces in UK, I can send you some:-)

See you next post :-)

Day +179

I am fine today.

I went to church in the morning and attended the Near Year countdown to 2007 organized by the church with my family. There was a dinner and testimonies sharing session before the countdown.

Everyone was allowed to have a 3 minutes sharing about the grace of God in Year 2006. Since I got so much to share, I ‘borrowed’ the 3 minutes from my wife. Apart from this, I also ‘borrowed’ 3 minutes from each of my 4 children. This increased my sharing time to a maximum of 18 minutes :-) One of the advantages of having lots of children :-)

I managed to enjoy the foods since I did not wear mask anymore.

I was sharing. It took about 22 minutes to complete the sharing. If I added the 3 minutes from my mother-in-law, I just exceeded my time by 1 minute :-)

My wife played piano for me while I was singing.

Due to internet infrastructure problem caused by earthquake in Taiwan, I am unable to upload the audio file of this sharing for you now. I will do it later.

See you next post :-)

Day +178

My red eyes problem is getting better today.

We celebrated Joseph 7 years old birthday tonight. This is the second time I celebrate my children birthday since my bone marrow transplant. The first one was Adriel’s birthday on 11 August 2006. At that time I was still ‘hiding’ inside the room while they celebrated her birthday. Anyway, they passed me a dish of spaghetti for me to enjoy inside the room.

The situation had improved very much this time. Not only I managed to attend the birthday celebration but I also purchased and prepared most of the foods and drinks.

My wife made him a cake while I fried chicken nuggets and French fries. In addition to this, I also cooked spaghetti and prepared the drink. Daniel said the spaghetti is very delicious :-)

I managed to complete the cooking in less than one and half hour time. I believe my mother-in-law needs to spend more than three hours to finish this much of cooking :-( This is because she is very ‘detail’ in preparing the food. For example, if she were to cut the sausages for spaghetti sauce, she will cut each of them longitudinally into four parts and then slides each part individually into smaller pieces. So she needs to slice a total of twenty parts of sausage one by one which will definitely take a lot of time to finish. In contrast, I am very ‘rough’. I cut each of the five sausages longitudinally into four parts first, then hold all the twenty parts together as one bunch and slice them at once. If the resulting pieces are not fine enough, just chop them again :-)

However, having the patient to do thing in such a detail manner is not always bad. For example, she has the patient to peel off the peanut skin one by one and then divide each of them into half using a knife. With this, she will definitely be able to spot any ‘bad’ or rotten peanuts and throw them away. The resulting skinless half-sized peanuts are guaranteed to be fresh. Even though she might expect me to eat the peanut piece (half-sized) by piece, I always enjoy her ‘hard work’ mouthful by mouthful. She must be ‘scolding’ me in her heart when she saw me pouring a mouthful of peanuts into my mouth :-)

Family photo taken during the birthday celeberation. Click to view a large one.

See you next post :-)

Day +177

My eyes condition worsens today. Both eyes become redder and turn sticky. And I also have the feeling that there is sand in my eyes.

I told my cell group members last night that I was using my wife’s eye drop. One of them quickly pointed out that it is not advisable to do this because the eye drop might be contaminated with bacteria. Sharing it might cause more problems to me. So I went to see doctor in a nearby clinic early this morning. I hope with the fresh eye drop and the eye ointment, my eyes condition will be improved very soon.

I purchased Christmas presents for Daniel, Joseph and Adriel at TESCO yesterday. I asked Daniel and Joseph to choose the presents that they want. Daniel wanted to have bicycle pump and Joseph selected the remote control car. You see, I, the servant have to always seek the approval of the bosses before buying presents for them, else they will be angry at me :-( I also chose a xylophone for Adriel.

Photo of the presents and apples. Click to get a larger view.


The bicycle pump worked very well. But to our disappointment, the remote control car is only half working :-( It managed to move forward most of the time but sometimes it just gave a very loud noise without any movement due to certain mechanical problems. And this was the problem, if it broke down totally I could just bring it to TESCO and demanded for a replacement. Now it worked intermittently. What if it worked perfectly when I show it to them? They might think that I am cheating :-( Finally, I got an idea. Why not ask the children to play the remote control car ‘fiercely’ until the problem becomes permanent? This would guarantee that it won’t work when I show it to them. And I tell you, it worked! Read carefully, not the car worked, but the idea worked :-) The problem became permanent.

I also discovered the 12 notes xylophone that I purchased for Adriel had a very soft and dull tone. It almost makes me sick and breathless listening to the tone.

What about the apples? Sigh! Eating this so called “4015 Red Delicious Washington Apple” is just like eating cotton :-( Not crispy at all.

So this afternoon, I brought the remote control car, xylophone and the apples to TESCO requesting for replacement. They agreed to replace the remote control car and the xylophone (I replaced it with a cheaper 8 notes xylophone which gives much brighter sound) but not the apples as their policy does not allow return of fresh product :-(

Now I have big headache, firstly because I lost money in buying this cotton-like apples which I hate most, secondly because I don’t know how to dispose these beautiful apples. If I simply throw them into the dustbin, my mother-in-law will definitely pick them up again. She is so thrifty (节俭) that sometimes she is even reluctant to throw away rotten foods, what more to say these fresh and beautiful looking apples? Sigh! Next time must be extra careful in buying apples.

See you next post :-)

Day +175

I am fine today.

On Christmas night, I promised my eldest son Daniel that I will treat him a dinner which he can choose to order anything he likes. Initially, he wanted to eat crab but he changed his mind later. He wanted to have a steamboat dinner. So I brought my family for a steamboat dinner tonight.

The standard steamboat set did not come with any crab. However, we can side order it at a cost of RM30 per kg. I told Daniel the price and let him decide whether to order it or not. He finally 'abandoned' his desire of eating crab because he felt that it is too expensive.

You see, nowadays, children are bosses and parents are servant. The parent-children roles of filial piety(孝顺) has reversed. Instead of children have to respect and honor (孝顺) parents, now parents have to respect and honor (孝顺) their children :-( No wonder many of us do not want to bear too many children because the more children we have, the more people we have to respect and honor(孝顺).

The photo below proves what I said. (老爸正在孝顺孩子们) .Click to get a larger view.

See you next post :-)

Day +174

I am fine today.

Christmas season this year is a lot better than last year. Not only am I able to attend Christmas events, our family also blessed with a large guava and a giant papaya.

With limited space, we manage to grow a guava tree and a papaya tree at the front and back yard of the house respectively. The guava tree bears only one fruit so far :-( and the papaya tree already produces quite a number of papayas :-).

Many people persuaded me to eat organic foods because they believe ‘food is medicine’ and cancers are caused by consuming polluted and processed foods. With this in mind, these two fruits are very valuable to me because they are certified (by me) to be 100% organic and they are also unprocessed :-) I hope they really become medicine to cure whatever diseases that I have.

Photo of the 0.8kg guava fruit. Eaten and fully digested :-) Click the photo to get a large view.

Photo of the 3kg papaya. Eaten by the family last night and I believe it is also digested by now :-) Click the photo to get a large view.

There is also a big and tall Mangga (jackfruit) tree in front of the house but it does not bear any fruits so far. If I were not mistaken, we in the 'kampung'(village) last time used to cut the trunk with a chopper to make it bear fruit. I don't know how it works. Most probably it serves as a warning to the tree, "Listen carefully, if you don't bear fruit again, I will cut you like this with greater 'power' until you fall down." Hopefully with this, it will bear a 50kg organic fruit next year Christmas so that I can invite you to a Mangga fest :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +173

I am well today.

Today is Christmas day, my family and I attended a Christmas celebration in our church. On the way back from the church, my eldest son, Daniel, ‘demanded’ me to bring him to a restaurant to eat crab. I told him it was too late (10:30pm) and we had to go home to rest. At the same time, I also promised him a dinner later which he can order anything he likes. But he wanted to eat crab immediately and was angry with my proposal. What a hot tempered and gluttonous boy! Like father like son :-(

It has been more than one year I could not bring my family for holiday or enjoy foods in restaurant. I hope my condition will be improved further that I can do this in the near future.

Last year on the same day, I flew back from Kuching after my holiday and first round of chemotherapy. I thank God that I am still alive today and not only that, there is one precious life (Aaron) added to my family :-)

Let me share with you my family photo taken today after the Christmas celebration. Click the picture to get a large one.

I thank all of you who supported me financially, morally and also through prayers, various form of encouragements and visits.

Merry Christmas to you again and may God bless you!

See you next post :-)

Day +171

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday...

Am I weaker after the transplant? If no, why couldn’t I loosen the screws on the wheel? Don’t worry, I believe I am as strong as before, or may be even stronger after the transplant. Few weeks ago I just effortlessly pull off the handle of the front right car door handle. And without this handle, there was no way to open this door to access to the driver seat. Every time, I need to go into the car through other doors and then open this door from inside. What a troublesome thing to do!

I am reluctant to fix a new handle because it costs more than RM100. The mechanic also face difficulty in finding a second hand handle for me. In the end he found a quick fix for me which costs RM0 :-) Now there is only one car in this world with this type of door handle. I think it deserves to be included in the Guinness World Record! What do you think?

The good handle on the front left door.

The modified handle on the front left door :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +169

My Blood Count Today:
Red Blood Count (RBC) = 128(Normal 130-180)
Platelet = 124(Normal 150-150)
White Blood Count (WBC) = 4.4(Normal 4 - 11)

I am fine today.

I went to a nearby clinic to do a blood test this morning. It costs me RM35. With the white blood count increased to 4.4 now, I think I can attend some Christmas events, and even enjoy turkey :-) Turkey, turkey, I love you :-) But wait, where is the mouth watering roasted turkey??

Don't worry, it’s here :-)

In fact we can conveniently order a 4-6kg roasted Christmas turkey with stuffing and gravy from Victoria Station Restaurant at a price of more than RM200. I believe it costs less than RM100 if we roast it ourselves. A big saving, isn’t it? The more you roast, the more you save. If you cannot finish it, just call for my help. I am very obliged to help you save money by eating the turkey for you, so that you can roast more and thus save more :-)

If you don’t know how to roast a turkey, get the recipe here and start saving money today.

See you next post and Merry Christmas to you :-)

Day +155

I am fine today.

I attended my church cell group meeting tonight. Many attendees shared about changes in their life after becoming a Christian.

A lot of hot tempered ladies and gentlemen become ‘cold tempered’ or not so hot tampered than before. Apart from this, a few of them are once alcoholics who claimed to be able to drink a lot without getting drunk (千杯不醉、万杯不醉). Surprisingly after becoming Christians, they get drunk after one cup :-) This miraculous change in ‘alcohol intake capacity’ rescues them from alcohol addiction which indirectly saves them lots of money. Furthermore, this also postpone the date they would go to heaven to report to God because they are now not subjected to health risk attributed to indulgence in alcohol.

A new believer who just accepted Christ for 5 days said that he received 5 calls from friends tonight just before coming for the cell group. These friends told him that a table-full of wine was waiting for him to indulge with free of charge. But he chose to come to the cell group :-)

Actually I have alcohol drinking problem too, but fortunately it is unable to appreciate it rather than addiction to it. To me, to drink alcohol is no different than drinking Axe Brand Medicated Oil (斧标驱风油) as shown below :-(



See you next post :-)

Day +153

I am fine today.

Let’s talk about food again. One type of Asian foods once we think unhealthy is now found to possess antioxidant properties about 10 times more effective than red wine and 150 times more potent than vitamin C. Look at the dish below and guess which food I am referring to.

To our surprise, the answer is dark soy sauce. Cheer! We no longer need to feel guilty of taking soy sauce again :-) It is 150 times better than vitamin C!

The researchers at National University of Singapore (NUS) fed 24 volunteers a single dose of 30 ml commercial dark soy sauce mixed with 200g plain boiled rice or 200g plain boiled rice mixed with food colouring (placebo). Blood and urine sample were taken before and after meals to measure the antioxidant activity, and they found out the soy souce possess very high antioxidant properties as mentioned.

Antioxidant protects human cells from damage by free radicals, which have been linked to the aging process as well as a range of ailments including Parkinson's disease, cancer and heart disease.

This means eating soy sauce can slow down aging, prevent Parkinson's disease, cancer and heart disease :-)

If you want to read more about this, click here and here.

See you next post and enjoy eating soy sauce :-)

Day +152

I am fine today.

The classical guitar concert that I attended yesterday was organized by KL Guitar Ensemble II (KLGE II) led by Simon Cheong. He also leads the Classical Guitar Society of Malaysia. A copy of the poster for this concert is as follow:

A ticket costs RM48. There are about 300 audience turned up for the event. The performers did quite well in their performance. Of course, if compared to Ana Vidovic’s performance which is close to perfection, lots of improvements are still needed. However, if compared to my lousy skill (半桶水), they are top performers.

Attending concert like this regularly enables a guitar player to appreciate better the correct tone and colour (not referring to the painting on the guitar, but the varieties of sounds that the classical guitar can produce) of classical guitar. Nowadays, everyone wish to be thin and slim. However, guitar players always try to produce rich, fat, full, deep and round tone, which can only be achieved through correct shape of right hand’s finger nail together with the correct way of plucking the guitar string. Unfortunately, due to ignorance and lack of guidance, I always produce thin, shallow, empty and sharp tone. That means my right hand technique is wrong. My friend, who learned classical guitar under Simon Cheong and passed his grade 8 classical guitar exam is now teaching me (FOC) the correct right hand technique. With this, I have to 'throw away' my old habit (乖乖ly), and start to learn from ‘kindergarten’ level again :-(

With my shaky right hand (already improved now) and wrong right hand technique, I got last position in my classical guitar competition organized by a online classical guitar forum in China :-( If I were not mistaken, there are 7 participants. Forum members voted for the pieces that participants had submitted, the one who got the most vote win. I got 3 votes, 3 other participants got 4 votes, the champion got 10 votes, 1st runner up got 7 votes, and the 2nd runner up got 6 votes.

I am not discouraged at all with the position. In fact I am very happy because "I have a life to get last position" :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +151

I am fine today. I attended Sunday worship this morning and then went to do some shopping on the way back. Joseph is having fever and headache, and Adriel and Aaron started to have running nose. So only Daniel and I went to the church.

Now continue from yesterday...

The audience has to wear formal attire and has to behave very gently in the classical music concert. If we attend a concert like this, we also need to know when we can clap our hands. A piece of music might be divided into many movements, and there is always a pause between movements. People will laugh at us if we clap our hands between movements. So if we don’t know the music well, clap hands only when everybody claps their hands (有样学样，不懂装懂) :-)

After the performance, she held an autograph session. Everybody asked her to sign on the program note as follow: (Click on the picture to have a larger view)

In fact, I missed two free classical guitar concerts by a Brazilian classical guitarist at KLPAC on 27 and 28 November, two consecutive days just before Ana Vidovic concert. My friends and I saw the poster at the KLPAC while attending Ana Vidovic convert. Nobody informed us about thsi concert. We joined The Classical Guitar Community during this concert, and we hope that the community will inform us all future classical guitar events, so that we don't miss any good concert especially those with free admission :-)

This is the best classical guitar concert I ever attend. Anyway, I only attended two classical guitar concerts including this one :-( I attended first classical guitar performance not long before I went for bone marrow transplant. It was performed by a young guitarist who is still studying a music course in US. We believe he still has a long journey to go before becoming a fine guitarist.

I will be attending another classical guitar concert tonight by a group of local classical guitarists called KL Classical Guitar Ensemble II :-)

I was admitted to Kuching General Hospital on 28 November last year due to Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, and I managed to enjoy a high standard classical guitar on 29 November this year. I praise God for his mercy and grace that sustain my life to enjoy many things in this world :-)

See you next post and may God bless you :-)

Day +150

I am fine today.

On Wednesday (29 November), I attend a classical guitar concert at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC). The performer was called Ana Vidovic, a 27 years old Croatian. She has given over 1000 public performance since first taking stage in 1998. As we can see from her web site at http://www.anavidovic.com/, her upcoming performances already planned until March 2008.

There were more than 400 audience turned up in this concert. A ticket costs RM68. The performer played 8 famous classical guitar pieces as follow, arranged in the form (composer: piece name, followed by musical movements if any) :

1. Fernando Sor: Introduction, Theme & Variations on a Theme of Mozart Op. 9 (莫扎特魔笛变奏曲)
2. F. Monero Torroba: Suite Catellana
· Fandanguillo (1st Movement)
· Arada (2nd movement)
· Danza (3rd movement)
3. F. Monero Torroba: Sonatina
· Allegretto
· Adante
· Allegro
4. Isaac Albeniz: Austuria(Leyenda) (传说)
5. Manuel Ponce: Sontina Meridional
· Campo
· Copla
· Fiesta
6. St Jepan Sulek: The Troubadour’s Three
· Melancholy
· Sonnet
· Celebration
7. A. Barrios Mangore: La Catedral (大教堂)
· Preludio Saudade
· Andante Religioso
· Allegro Solemne
8. F. Tarrega: Recuerdos de la Alhambra (阿尔汗布拉宫的回忆)

Except The Troubadour’s Three which was composed by a Croatian called St Jepan Sulek, I am quite familiar with other pieces. I also have CD and scores for these pieces. The last piece is a wonderful piece composed by a Spanish composer called Francisco Tarrega (1852-1909) in remembrance of Alhambra. He is regarded as one of the most influential guitarists the world has ever known. He is also considered the father of the modern classical guitar.

Alhambra is an ancient mosque, palace and fortress complex of the Moorish monarchs of Granada, in southern Spain. It is now perserved as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. A picture of Alhambra is shown below (Courtesy of Wikipedia). Click on the picture to get a larger view.

If you never listen to the piece before, you can dowload it here and let me know if you like it. If you need other pieces, either in the form of audio file or score, I can share them with you.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +123

I am fine. I went to church this morning. I just would like to share with you some photos today.













The moustache grew too long. I cannot be lazy anymore; else they will disturb my eating. So I shaved them.














Have you ever heard of "organic" helmet? It is so healthy compared to normal helmet. That is why Joseph and Daniel like to wear them so much :-)


Adriel would like to protect herself from haze.


Aaron said he dared to play with Python.

See you next post :-)

Day +95

I am fine today.

I would like to show you how I look like now. The first photo was taken just before I was diagnosed with AML while I was enjoying holiday in Sarawak. The second one is taken today. Who do you think I look like now? POW :-(














POW stands for Prisoner Of War, just in case you don't know. A free POW I am now :-))

See you next post :-)

Day +10

My Blood Count Today:
Red Blood Count (RBC) 106 (Normal 130-180)
Platelet 18 (Normal 150-50)
White Blood Count (WBC) =0.1 (Normal 4 - 11)

I am well today. The appeptite remains good. The WBC increased from less than 0.1 to 0.1. Even though the increment looks small but it is a very signification improvement. Prayerfully, it would increase to about 0.2 or further tomorrow. The platelet count drops by 1 even with transfusion yesterday.

I received transfusions of another 6 units of platelet today. Each unit of platelet is separated from the full blood from a single donor. So, 6 units of platelet have to be from 6 different donors. The earlier platelet transfusions were all from a single donor who just donated their plalelets through a filter machine while the rest of the blood components were return to the donor body. Single donor platelet is of higher quality compared to multiple units of platelets from different donor.

The iv drugs that I am still receiving are cyclosporin for GVHD, antibiotic Tazocin, 4 litres of normal saline, potassium and magnesium. The oral drugs are sleeping pill called Lorazepam , Antiviral drug called Acyclovir and Antifungal drug called Itraconazole. In addition, the Neupogen is given by injection to stimulate the bone marrow to produce white blood cells.

Normally, after the nurse "unwired" me in the morning, I have about an hour of precious freedom moment to move around in the room and to take bath. Before taking bath, I would do about 5 to 10 minutes of cycling. Since my platelet count dropped below 20, the nurse no longer allowed me to cycle to prevent bleeding.

Now, I changed my morning exercise to playing the two sport cars as shown in the picture. I purchased the toys for the children the night before I was admitted to hospital for transplant. The sport cars are made in China, 6 units cost about RM8.00 only. Even though they are cheap, they are incredibly fun to play. I saw the children playing, but did not have time to join them as it was too late. I need to prepare for the admission. I asked my wife to borrow two of the sport cars from the children for me to play in the WAD. The nurse won't bother to play with me, so I have to play alone :-(

The sport cars are equipped with good spring, you just press them against the floor and push backward quickly and then release, they will run forward with a very high speed. The right one shown in the picture will even make a beautiful turn for you before it speeds off. They can run very far and my room is really too small to play them. So they always end up colliding the wall, of course without getting damaged :-) I would spend about 10 minutes chasing after these two sport cars until I almost sweat before I go to take bath.

One idea to play the sport car is to place a chair at one end of the room and speed off the car from the other end of the wall, aiming the car to the chair, estimating whatever turn that the car might make. If the car goes through between any two legs of the chair, then it is considered a "goal". Please be warned that if you use a single legged chair, no matter how smart you are, you would never strike a goal. Another idea is to place more than one chairs from one end of the room to the other, the more chairs the car passes through the more point one gets. To make the game more interesting to play, the room has to be very big and vacant. With this, you can enjoy "Family-Cup" everyday with your children :-)

If you want to know where to get the sport cars, just let me know, I will tell you where they are available.

See you next post.