Another Miracle

I have been waiting anxiously for my kidney operation for a few months and it finally happened just this Monday.  I had a keyhole operation to remove a big stone (thought one consultant) or a big cyst(another's opinion) in my kidney.  Miraculously, during the operation, they found the cyst was outside the kidney and not inside as they originally thought!  So the operation was about an hour less.  I actually requested a lot of my friends to pray for me before the operation so I believe that had helped a lot.  The operation went smoothly and now I am on my way to recovery after a rough days the last 2 days.  Apparently people tell me the worst days are actually a few days after the surgery and not immediately after because it takes a few days for the aneasthetic to wear off and then your interiors wake up and struggles to catch up with the rest of your body!  I am now officially painfree for the last 24 hours and I hope it stays that way!

Praise God for taking good care of me during my surgery as everyone told me that the operation went smoothly except for the intubation which left me with a very sore throat.

Getting Bella!

Teenage Deaths

                                     courtesy of home.comcast.net

I was never really exposed or aware of the high rate of teenage deaths unlike I started teaching in New Zealand.  Almost every year since I have been teaching, there was a death amongst one of my former students and 4 out of 5 times, it will be suicide.  

Teenagers here take their own lives for reasons known or unknown but when you look at the known reasons, they seem to be so miniscule for the young people to take their own lives.  Here in NZ, there are lots of counselors available and most of them are free to the youths. One year the police were even looking out for a so called 'death pact' going around when one teenager took her life and everyone watched closely all her friends who were at her funeral.

Most of the teenagers are usually what experts labelled as high risk in that they usually would be your disruptive kids in class or the rebellious type that do not fit into your normal average school environment.

I have always wondered if the way that children are raised today (with velvet gloves and very pc oriented!) are making them too soft and thus not able to handle everyday problems and taking the easy way out when they are faced with any issues they think they cannot solve!

God works in mysterious ways!

                                          courtesy of www.phrasecrazy.com

Recently  I was stressed out at work so much so that about 3 weeks ago, I had sharp abdominal pain in the middle of the night and my 12 year old daughter had to call the ambulance and I ended up in the Dunedin Hospital Emergency.  

My pains started at about 1.30 am, was admitted about 2.45 am.  Doctors tried to give me all sort of painkillers, took my blood for test, took ECGs, X-rays but still I had my pains and was vomiting, too, (due to the side effects of morphine) until about 8.30 am in the morning when they decided to take a urine sample.  I panicked when I saw how pink my urine was but found out later that it was a result of my passing a kidney stone!  Immediately, they sent me for a CT scan and then gave me different painkillers again.  Then the director of the ED came and informed me that I had stones in both my kidneys and also a very big 2.5 cm big stone!  I waited at the ED for the specialist who never showed up so at about 1.45pm, the ED director told me I could go home as the Urology Department needed to talk about the big stone tomorrow before they get back to me.  So I left at about 3.40 pm when one of my friends picked me up and send me home.

It was only after I saw my GP and got him to call the specialist to find out what they planned to treat me that I found out that I actually have a big magnesium cyst.  I saw it on the CT scan when I finally got to see the urologist last week and it is about 1/3 of my kidney.  Now I am waiting for the shock wave treatment which hopefully will break up everything or I may have to go for the keyhole operation.

Looking back I would never have known that I have all these kidney stones if I was not stressed out so GOD must have decided for me that it is time I took care of my health and brought it to my attention.  I always think that things happen for a purpose and GOD does work in mysterious ways....

Quick and Easy Chicken Rice and Pickled cucumber

Pickled cucumber

 Chicken rice

Living overseas, I have to cook most of our home delicacies myself as we get very limited Malaysian restaurants.  So I experimented and look at some of the ingredients on the bottled chicken rice so here's quick and easy chicken rice.

Chicken Rice Ingredients

2 cups rice

500 ml chicken broth

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon minced ginger

2 tablespoon cooking oil

salt to your own taste (my daughter likes it salty!)

Instructions

Put all the ingredients into an electric rice cooker.  Stir it until it is all mixed up well and cook.

I am sure most of you will have very good recipes for roast chicken or steamed chicken as I do not have the time to roast chicken and normally just buy one from the supermarket!

But I love fresh pickled cucumber and experimented and come up with my own pickled cucumber which I love to eat together with my chicken rice.

  

Pickled Cucumber

Ingredients

1 medium size cucumber or half a telegraph cucumber

1 red chilli (optional)

1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

Instructions

Slice cucumber thinly.  Deseed the chilli and cut into thin strips.  Put in a bowl together with the salt and sugar and squeezed the lemon juice into the mixture.  Allow to sit for at least one hour for the pickling process.

Enjoy!

Malacca, World Heritage Site

View of Malacca Straits from outside the chapel at ST. Francis Hill with the Taming Sari and the Eye on Malaysia in the foreground

Statue of St.  Francis Xavier who preached and died in Malacca and was briefly buried there before he was exhumed and moved.    

The remains of a chapel with numerous memorials to Dutch, Portugese and English parishioners of the past.

The bright and colourful trishaws available to transport tourists around Malacca town.

The only movable large ferris wheel in Malaysia which will make a tour across all the states in Malaysia starting with Malacca.

On our recent trip back to Malaysia, my close friend, Shirley invited us to visit her in Malacca.  I have not been to Malacca for almost 10 years so decided to take her up on her offer.  My two other close friends based in Kuala Lumpur drove down with us and we stayed overnight.

It is quite a change from when I visited last.  Going on a Sunday was also a no - no as there was traffic jam all over town as I understand the Singaporeans love to drive up to Malacca for the weekend.

We did a few tourist attractions including taking a ride on the Eye on Malaysia ferris wheel which is visiting Malacca for the year after being in KL for 2 years.  We did it at night and I must admit I do not advise a night ride as there was not too much to see in Malacca in terms of night lights.

We had a great stay catching up with friends and tasting the local delicacies including chicken rice balls, now everywhere in Malacca.  

What I missed was the trademark bullock cart pulled by buffaloes where we once took a ride around the padang as in place is now a shopping centre and no water buffaloes in sight.  The price we pay for modernisation!

International Air Travel

I have just got back from travelling back to Malaysia for about 3 weeks.  What I discovered was the inconvenience of air travel these days.  

First, Air NZ has restriction on amount of check in luggage, i.e. one piece per passenger and not more than 25 Kg.  And they worry about people breaking their backs carrying heavy bags!  Hand luggage is not more than 7 kg.

Next my girl decided she wanted to bring her skates and that she was going to hand carry them but nooooo!  At the boarding gate, we were told we had to check in the skates so I had to fork out NZ$15 for the extra piece of luggage as we had already checked in 2 pieces of bags.

When we got to the international airport in Auckland, we had to repack everything (because fo the skates) only to find out about the liquids in hand luggage limitations and at the last minute I had to open up our luggage  (we were checking in at the same time) to squeezed all the manuka honey jars into one of our bags.

Even then I missed out a half full bottle of shampoo which was still in the hand luggage so I told security he can chuck it out.  It just seems ridiculous the liquid rule only applies for international but not the domestic which means to say it is alright to bomb the domestic flights but not the international ones???!

As we were passing through security towards boarding our flight back to NZ, I saw a couple in front who got pulled over for having several big bottles of lotion and perfume in the lady's hand luggage.  Boy!  Did I feel sorry for her as I know that she will loose them all as I doubt they will check them in for her as everyone was already boarding the plane.  Even with all the notices at the check in counter people still do not read or following instructions and get caught up and lose money in the process.