Natalie hospitalised due to HFMD

My precious little girl was admitted to KK Hospital due to dehydration last Sunday, 30th May 2010. It was a traumatic experience that I wished I could trade places with her. Seeing her screamed and cry in pain when the houseman on duty tried to administer the plug in her little wrist made my heart stopped. When the houseman's unstable hands shivered and failed his first attempt almost made kicked him.

Fortunately I was still rationale enough and I stopped him from trying again (in a harsh tone). I demanded an experience doctor to inject the plug and he had to asked his senior MO to do it. At that moment it forced Natalie to shout out lots of words that I never thought she knew.

She screamed "Mummy I don't want!" ; "Mummy carry me!"; "Let's go home"; "Go mummy's room!"; "let's go!"; “為什麼！”；“我怕！”。Although I was devastated, I knew it was for the better so I was prepared to face it even though my heart was bleeding literately. Jeffrey was badly affected at the sight of Natalie shouting in pain, he pouched his fist at the hospital cabinet. I could understand what he was going through as we love Natalie so much and yet we were helpless and could only watched her suffer.

Finally after the 2nd attempted, the senior MO successfully inserted the plug and set the drip for Natalie. It was such a relieved for all of us, even for the nurses and MOs on duty.

She woked up few hours later, got very angry that her hand was immobilized by the drip and tried to pull it out. She kept asking me to take it off for her, I had to distract her by letting her watch her favourite DVD programs on my laptop.

I accidentally pulled out the plug on her hand when we were about to transfer her to another room. I wanted to kill myself as due to my carelessness Natalie had to go through the painful process of inserting the plug into her hand! I kept apologising to her and to Jeffrey, really felt like dying then.

Jeffrey went home to get her toys and my clothes as we had to stay with her throughout her hospitalisation period. She got angry when she could not utilise both hand to play her toys.

Daddy bought Elmo balloon for her to cheer her up. She looked so much better on Day 2 and she finally managed to drink 200ml of Apple Juice that Jeffrey bought from Mac Donalds.
That was the 1st improvement we saw.

On the 3rd day she drank her milk and accepted some porridge when I fed her. She didn't reject the meals and water and could eat regularly. The doctor gave the green light to discharge her but not clear from HFMD yet. I have to monitor her fluid intake everyday, the acceptable amount is 1 litre every 12 t0 16 hours. She will be cleared of HFMD this Sunday, really looking forward to her full recovery.

Day 2 of hfmd

She is being quarantined at home currently, together with Jeff and me at our space. As there are lots of other family members staying in the same house, we have to be real careful not to infect the rest.

The spots, blisters and ulcers are starting to form on her mouth, tongue, hands and feet, spots were also noticed at the buttocks area. She gets aggitated whenever we tried to feed her. Fortunately now she is able to take in small portion of porridge that I grained finely and make sure it is cooled down before introducing it to her. It takes about 30 to 40 minutes to feed her and needs lots of patience and perseverance, no joke. It is certain that she has ulcers in her throat area too as she wines when drinking her favourite milk even when the milk is chilled already. I read through the various symptoms of HFMD and I know that it will get worst within the next few days and expected recovery is usually seen at day 6 to day 7 after diagnosis.

It pains me to see her go through such torment at her age. I have decided to let her stay away from school and only resumes back to school when she turns 3 years of age. This decision might be a little harsh but since I enrolled her to school this year March, I have never had a peace of mind. At first the form teacher told me that she suspect Natalie is and Autistic kid and kept encouraging me to take her for the test. Her suspicion was purely based on Natalie's behaviour in school during her first 3 -4 weeks. I was devastated for days and it also traumatised my family, I cried almost everyday and couldn't sleep well at night. Kept thinking what have I done wrong during pregnancy that may have affected Natalie's development.

Luckily it was a FALSE ALARM, Natalie is not autistic and she is 100% normal!

Natalie has been confined at home for the pass 2 days, she looked out the window although she did not throw tantrum or say anything, I knew she must have been wondering why she could not go out and play, and why she is kept in the room all the time. She is a brave girl, although she is in pain, she did not cry unreasonably. It upsets me but at the same time relieve that she is taking it very well.

She spends most of her time watching her favourite programs like Elmo's World, Baby can read, Eric the tiger and Hi5. She told me she loves me just now when I was playing with her.

I love you too Natalie, please get well soon! Mummy will be taking leave to stay at home to look after and play with you during these few days till you get better.

Natalie is active again

Today is Natalie's 8th day of the HFMD, it means a great deal to me and my family. This means that she has fully recovered and will not spread the virus to others. I am so glad that it is now over, she must be delighted too as she is able to go out to Malls and playgrounds. Seeing her getting back to her normal energetic levels puts a big smile on my face.

We are staying in a Condominium away from the rest of the family members for the time being to minimise contacts of HFMD from spreading to them.Though there are some inconvenience caused, I cannot deny the fact that I am actually happier. The only set back is I began to see the flaws of my domestic helper. I realise she is not capable of handling the housework by herself, and is incompetent in many ways. She can't cook, she can't wash, she can't mop... what I meant here is that she does all that, but food is not cooked, her washing is still dirty after wash, floor is still sticky after she mopped... She does not put in an effort to the work and produce sub-standard results.

Just today I told her to prepare a simple lunch for us, just a pot of porridge, some frozen japanese crispy chicken, fish fillet, hot dogs and fry 2 eggs. Simple right?? In the end, the crispy chicken was crispy on the outside, cold on the inside. The hot dog was worst burnt on the outside cold on the inside, you should know what happened to the fish fillet...! The egg and porridge was edible because I cooked them. In the end, I had to make a trip to the nearby coffee shop and bough lunch back. Sigh... Instead of lighten my burden, she adds on to it. I have to bring food home every meal for them... I provide catering service to my maid.

Anyway that was a minor issue, as long as my family is healthy, I am willing to make some sacrifice. After being locked up in the hospital and house for days, Natalie was finally out. We took her for a stroll by the pool and the Community club nearby.

Introducing her to the pool of the condominium, wanted to catch a good family photo of the 3 of us can be quite a challenge at her age.

It is getting tougher to take a decent photography of her as she struggles a lot.
Standing behind Jeffrey, her height was almost at Jeff's hip, everyone said that she is tall for a 30 months old baby.

She was trying to do chin up at the monkey bar with the help of MUMMY!

Quiet time by the Koi pond at the Community Club with mummy.

I missed her mischievous look when she was sick, so glad to see it on her again!

Sorbet Balenciaga Part Time

My only hobby currently, my first Balenciaga bag. Fell in love with it the moment I saw it, the lovely delicious pink and the giant hardware makes the bag looks so attractive!

Beside the bag, my new bangle from Hermes. :P

Woman needs to know how to pamper ourselves, agree with me.

This is a better picture of my bag, isn't it lovely? It's mine now.

Natalie is down with Hand Food Mouth Disease

Life is full of the unexplained, but I am able to see a pattern. When all is well whatever you do will have positive results or outcomes. When you are experiencing set backs or stumble blocks, it will come in a long chains and you will never know when the chain will break.

The month of April and May has been a rocky emotional rides for me and my family. Since April Natalie has been falling sick, seen a GP twice for her flu but her recovery was not progressive. So I took her to see a Ear Nose Throat Specialist and finally after a week she recovered. It took a total of 3 weeks. Then her left eye was swollen due to mosqitoe bite, it took her about 3 days to subside. Immediately after that, her right eye was bitten by mosqitoe and again it swell. It took another 3 days to recover.



I barred her from going to childcare when all these happened, needless did I know that there was a spread of Hand Foot Mouth Disease going on in her class. When she recovered from her swell on Sunday I decided that she should be fit enough to go to school. On Monday I received an sms from her Form Teacher that her classmate was down with HFMD and advise parents to keep children at home if they were unwell.

So I let Natalie stayed at home on Monday, and on Tuesday I took her to school and asked about the situation on HFMD in her class. This was the 3rd case of HFMD in her play group and I would expect that there were tougher measures to contain the disease from spreading further. The teacher told me that the little girl that got HFMD was sick for one week without symptoms of HFMD but she still carried on school and was only diagnosed much later.... She assured me that it was all taken care of and I was relieved that during that period Natalie didn't go to school and secretly thanked the mosqitoes for that. I thought that Natalie could escape being spread, I was wrong... I overlooked the fact that the girl who came down with HFMD went unnoticed for a week... within this week she could has spread it to other classmates too...

I called the school just now and informed about Natalie's condition. I told them I was disappointed about the way they handle the situation. The director told me that they do screening 3 times a day and sterilized all the toys on a daily basis. This was their normal routine even when there was not HFMD reported. I told them since these was their normal routine and yet it was not able to contain the spread of HFMD from continue spreading, then it is not good enough. They should act fast and come up with other productive measures to show that they are making an effort. You know what she said? She asked me for my advise of what other ways I can suggest... If I was speaking to her face to face she could have seen my eyeballs rolling from one end to the other! Unbelievable, they set up educational centres and yet they do not know what to do.

I suggested to her to break the class into smaller groups of 4 - 5 students to a teacher. That way they will be able to monitor the students closely and if one of the student came down with HFMD, the teacher can quickly inform the rest of the 3 students that was interacting closely with the affected kid. She said that my suggestion was a good one and she will discuss this with her management. Then she raised another question to me, she asked how to break into smaller groups as space is a constraint. Sigh... I told her that is her responsibility to find solution not mine. As I told her by doing the above, it will only benefit those kids that are still not affected by HFMD, not Natalie as she is already the victim. So its up to them to take a different approach and measures.

This is the first time Natalie looses appetite, it's very worrying. Usually when she was down with cold n flu that did not affect her appetite. There is no cure for HFMD currently, I can only monitor her closely and hopes the medicine will help relieve her symptomatically. It is going to be a long battle at least for a week.

Think out of the box (in a bigger BOX)

To think out of the box means to come out with creative and innovative ideas be it for a project or a task. Due to restrictions and noises of disapproval all around, thinking out of the box comes with an invisible frame that frames up your supposedly 'frame less' space. It makes the statement:-

Think Out Of the Box
become
Think In A Bigger Box

There is no hard and fast rule to creative thinking but what usually restricts creativity is the conservative nature of human and the resistance to change. Instead of sending employees to numerous courses teaching them to think creatively, I suggest we all go empty our brains, get rid of our usual believes, practices, the can & can't, the dos and don'ts, into a big trash bin and start all over again. Learn like a baby, see everything as if we see them for the 1st time in our life. Adopt the NIKE slogan, "Just Do it" instead of "I don't think this can work" without even set out to try. This is the true first step to creative thinking.


I did something different for work recently. I adopted the NIKE slogan and put it into use. I did a presentation of my creative ideas to the company, came up with a draft skeletal write up, bought the stuff that will aid my pitching so that the visual aspects is present. As no one else done that before, it was a shock to them when I took out what I got. I lost my cool when I saw their shocked faces and got impatient when they threw me questions on why I bought them and what will I do with the stuff if my ideas were not accepted by the company. I have never expect the company to reimburse the stuff I bought for the presentation. I did consider these carefully before making the decision and also to face the fate that my ideas will not be accepted. In another words, I was ready for rejection.


My intention was being interpreted as I acted irrationally and that the company has no choice but to accept my suggestions since I already paid for the stuff. This upsets me as what I did was a genuine gesture, an effort I put in to show the company that I really want to contribute. I never once, not even for a second, thought about forcing them to accept my idea. I swear.

When Apple wanted to create a touch screen phone, their designers had to come up with many prototypes of a phone before it becomes iPhone. When an architect designs houses, they have to draw sketches and build models to show their potential customers. What I did was merely a fraction of what everyone has been doing all along. Because I wasn't expecting those responses I lost my cool. I felt that my efforts was not seen by them and instead they doubt my intentions.



Anyways my ideas were accepted by my director, I am confident to say that it was accepted because she agreed it will work for the company and not because she felt obligated to accept it. I might have indirectly caused unhappiness amongst some of us due to my behaviour that day. Hope this incident will not cause a strain in the relationship. I can only say I regretted not keeping cool but never regret my decision. Finally the take home message for myself is:

I will learn to stay cool at all times.

Universal Studio Singapore

Last week was an unusual week for my colleagues & I. We went through lots of major changes, received good as well as some shocking news about the company's future plans. Best of all, to commemorate our achievements in 2009, the Company sponsored us to Universal Studio Singapore.

I have been to Disney Lands, Ocean Parks, but never to Universal Studio. Heard lots of fun and exciting rides in the theme park and I was all geared up and ready for the most exciting rides that day.... But the roller coaster ride was still under some major re-construction, therefore my most 'exciting' ride I had was the mummy return.... not at all exciting. Though I am not young anymore, I still love and enjoy taking high acceleration, fast moving roller coasters with 2 to 3 grade of G forces. Too bad the USS rides did not match up to the criteria.

Perhaps this is Singapore's first time having to build a famous franchise theme park, we should not expect too much? During my visit there, there were 3 breakdowns and technical faults that caused delay to up to 15 minutes each.... So you can imagine we wasted 30 minutes sitting in dismay and disappointment while they get to the fix. Fortunately the technical faults happened during the shows and not the rides!

Nevertheless, with great company and sporty colleagues, I did enjoyed myself very much. Photos are the best evidence of our enjoyment! I am looking forward to bring Natalie there sometime soon....

The icon of USS, The Globe!

Frankenstein had his big and rough hands on Sherli and my neck!

To Far Far Away Land , SHREK!

My favourite charactor in USS, Kong Fu Panda!

My second favourite charactor in USS, the Lion in Madagascar.

These are my wonderful colleagues.

My Donkey ears and tail, cuteee!