A Hand in Need is A Friend indeed

After the long 1 week holiday of CNY, it is the end of first week work. A lot of email checking and follow of the leftover. Gradually i found my left hand started to relax and my right hand is back to 'working' mode now. Thanks to my dearest left hand, who has been learning, practicing and contributing during my injured right hand's finger. Glory to the hardworking one. I want to say special thanks to this left hand because never before it had ever need to work so hard, and yet i can see little muscle built up because of the absence of the other partner in several weeks.....

I still remember when i was young, i told myself i can live without left hand because i used my right hand most of the time. Ha ha.... this is another little child naive talk. God create the body parts for its purpose, and we can't live without absence of any. God also gives gifts to us, we just never realize how significance and spcial they are to us in our daily lives. Why we always lost first before we realize we ever had it before? Good things are always around us, just that we never open our big round eyes to see, direct our long ears to hear, stretch our gentle hands to grab, step out our strong legs to walk around..... Thanks to God we have 2 eyes, 2 hands, 2 ears, and 2 legs.

Start my Bday with pain killer...

First thing i woke up on this meaningful day - my 1 year old celeb, i looked for painkiller. The morning call on my finger is pricking on me, it is not noisy fussy, but I know is there because I feel it. It is minor sting, seems like yelling across the mountain with echo - light to the least you can hear it. And soonest i know, it is pain killer time. Pain killer don't assasinate the pain, but they are just 'bribing' them - to buy some time off. I suddenly feel like blessing the pills, may the FORCE be with them so that they last long! Because the pain did come back every now and then during the day. This is a test, testing me how to shift my focus on something else then just sit there and tortured by the pricking pain on the bone. But God is gracious, He will not give me a test that i could not bear, and I am sure i can get well over it because His force is with me HA HA HA!!!!

Look out the balcony, beautiful sun, beautiful sky .... I've learnt to give myself a deep breathe in this beautiful morning and i felt the fresh air had traveled through to reach my finger tip to cool it down - This is Mother-Nature-Pain-Savior. It dissolves together with the pain, and I felt great in my mind and my soul and another great day ahead of me. Think further, sometimes in our lives, are we chasing for a pain killer or a pain savior?

Another Finger Story of 09

Yesterday just came back from surgery. When you experience FIRST in your life, there are so much things to learn, and that is just another blessing that is given. Thank God. I was in day care surgery, nowadays, nurses are very professional and considerate. Taking care of things that patient never thought about. Prepare locker to store belongings, extra receptives for contact lens, and even arrange places where anxious husband can wait for their injured but lovely wife :) They are very friendly. I also learnt about GA and LA - General Anesthetic or Local Anesthetic. But at the end doc had given me GA, it is a very fast process, the minute the jab was taken, I felt dizziness when being pushed into OT. A lot of people in OT, i can felt that everybody is doing something in some part of my body - very well organized. yet the last thing i know is that i was inhaling on oxigen mask, and my hand was spread out to the side.....After a while i thought i dreamt, and i felt difficulty in breathing, and i can open my eyes. A voice from the side saying, "it is well done, it is over" For a moment i thought i would died of suffocation because hard to breathe, bu later found out bandage of my hand and was placed nicely on my stomach - the surgery is over! My goodness! I felt just a moment in time only! I suffered heavy blow of headache when opened my eyes, heard my doc was talking and laughing with some other nurses, to clear my eye sight, i found myself already outside of OT. I am speechless, because everything was just too fast. I quickly recouped my memory, and found myself blank but only the last moment inside OT.
I thanked God because I managed to wake up, at least the anesthetic didn't lie to me.Haha...
Back to the day care area, suffered from nausea and really was seen pale on my face. Nurse asked me to take a nap. When I woke up found my belongings with me by the bed side - at least can check waht time is it now. It is already 446pm. Quickly wake up and there are things that i scheduled to do but not managed to get done now. Suddenly i noticed my 1st 3 fingers are blue black in color. Shocked, but noticed by a nurse. In a minute or two, the whole nurse team, about 7 of them are beside my bed discussing about my hand. The truth is the bandaged was too tight and causing the swollen and blue black in color. After consulting the doc, they rebandaged my wound. Good of them because they have this kind of knowledge. After 15 minutes, i said goodbye to the team and went back home with unmovable ring finger!
Thank God everything went so well!

Enchondroma

One of blog in year 2007 mentioned about hurting my finger while playing golf in a company event(See Finger Story in year 2007 archive). Never thought that the injury can cause another discovery of my body. After suffering the on and off pain for several months, pricking like a signal to remind me not to ignore it, I decided to go through the medical examination. Before that I had tried Chinese Tittar to get my finger rubbed and bandaged with herb. I thought that is just early stage arthritis problem to show my aging (that is sad...). Being a modern scholar, I also tried to take glucosamine sulfate. After a month none of the 'self-researching' method worked out for me, I decided to trust in the Lord to lead me to good doctor to remove this little pain in my life. After going through GP and took x-ray, i found a big new medical word to me - ENCHONDROMA. In my whole life, I have no any major issue that will relate me to specialist, today was the first time i stepped into a medical specialist, the first time to meet an orthopedic, the first to have x-ray that suggest surgery treatment. Enchondroma. A buzz word that had given me a lot of FIRST TIME in my life. After numerous of Q&A with the doctor, it was found that
1. it is benign tumor in a bone, normally found in hands or legs
2. rare case, 1 out of 100,000 people will get this
3. Average only 1 patient a year for Orthopedic in Malaysia will have this case
4. There is no syptoms to discover, most likely a coincidence through x-ray (To me, there is no coincidence but a God revelation to me to get right treatment)
5. Expansile type will cause thinning to the outer bone
Although rare case, it is considered minor surgery with more than 99% of success rate by bone grafting. Next week I will experience the First surgery in my life, which is only 30 mins in day care surgery room :) and thank God it is not major operation. Furthermore, I am 1 out of 100,000 hahahaha....

Kissed by Mr Sun on 1st Sept 2008 ... Nice!!

On Merdeka weekend, group of 8 of us just hiked to the highest to of SEA mountain - Mount Kinabalu at 4097m above the sea level. Being on the top of that mountain, I am so proud of being Malayian and holding the flag to celebrate this 51st Independence day. There were a lot of inspirations during this trips. Bits by bits, and there were all so wonderful!!

While I was walking i was so much into the stairs. Step by step that was so careful and so concentrate, afraid of any false steps that would make me fall. The fear of falling down and the fear of getting lost were there, undeniable.However, is it not that it reflected our true life? I asked to train myself to be brave for every steps that I keen to take. I also learnt to have 1 step at a time, and make it steady, and it forward patiently. It was inspired when I was so tired and having sore knees while walking for more than 5km during the journey. Sometimes we want to forward, but i found that having 2 knees in same step at a time is even more tiring than having 1 step and 1 leg at a time, having one in front and one at the back. This is the way to progress.

During the journey i found that resting is very important to prolong the energy for the whole journey. At the same time it also allows laziness to creep in. We rest because we need to walk long, but when we rest too long, it caused our body to slow down. It becomes harder to resume the heart rate. In our life we always give reasons to ourselves for not doing things that seems difficult and consumes a lot of energy. As mother nature says so, and that is built-in characteristics for human beings. Laziness creept it undoubtly. Lazy to think, to act, to run an extra mile. Therefore, keep up is always the word i reminded myself during the journey. Even i slowed down, but i keep it up.

Thank God, these are all wonderful revelation and learnings in this journey.

Story of a drowning kitten

Can you imagine how you would feel... a drowning kitten who struggle so hard for its life, trying to use the powerless jaws on front legs, squeeced as much as possible on the forehead, trying to give all its strength to climb up the side walls of a drain... she was hysterical, breath unsteadily, felt like the whole world is left behind, can't hear or see anything but her focus on breathing non stop. The oxygen can never be enough for the little nose and vein to get the blood stream down, it can never get enough to inhale suficiently... afraid there is not even enough strength to have the heart pumping, the beat is just too fast to catch up forever... this is the time one could wish to have a different system to survive, an alternative other than the heartbeat. She was saved, yet she was shaking heavily. she can't walk but just lied down restlessly. How much she thought she can just stay on the green grass for another one minute. But she was alerted, and she knows she can't, she has to continue the fight.... don't fall sleep, because sleep will never come awake to see the world. So she bearly survived. Struggled again to wake up to see the first light shined through her eyes. She know her destiny and time to wake up. Without delay, she was on the move, one step another, dragging along the weaken body. Just hope this is another day that nobody will see her suffering through. There is no reason to earn pity from another eyes. So she walked straight and see straight, heading the way back home. Imagine of a nice warm house just on the other end of the road, there is no hesitation but dragging along. Soon she know she will be home...

This story dedicated to a special friend who had been through the suffering just like the drowning kitten in his life. So sudden yet no preparation. How many of us can get through? I always felt for people who can describe, because to anybody else the situation is indescribable if not experiencing every bit of it. I believe every beating of his heart is precious and every laughter is wonderful to him and for him...Just hope he can get through the suffering. In God, we trust.

Creating a Memory

Today i have attended a forum. There is this story that shared by a brother regarding "creating a memory":

Ken Blancard – One minute manager shared a story about a business consultant in grocery chain training more than 3,000 employees to approach their jobs with the goal of creating a memory for their customers; to distinguish their store from all the others
When Johnny, a 19 year old bag boy with Down syndrome heard this, his first response was “I’m just a bag boy” – He went home to share with his mom what the consultant had said
Johnny and mom pondered how he could create a memory for his customer
He had a habit of collecting inspirational sayings he often read; decided to print out these sayings and placing one in each of his customers’ bag and say “I’ve included some of my favorite sayings in your bag in the hope they will encourage you today. Thanks for shopping with us.”
After a few weeks, an amazing thing happened. One day the store manager noticed all the customers was lined up at only one cashier station even though there were other stations open. Manager panicked, thinking other stations were broken. Actually, customers wanted to come through Johnny’s line in order to get his sayings of the day!
One woman told the manager, “I used to comes to the store once a week, but now I come every day!” Johnny’s exa,ple spread to other departments in the store – florist giving a flower to each florist customer, meat department put Snoopy stickers on each meet with special greeting – The act of one bag boy changed the entire climate of the store
Like Johnny, Jesus was all about creating memories. How can you create a memory for someone in your workplace today?


Just over at lunch, a friend of mine, who just diagnosed with a kind of heart disease telling me this - "I don't know what to give you in return, what I could give you is visible, but do you know that what you given to me is invisible?" this message has been pondering in my mind for the rest of this afternoon. I am surprised to hear this from this friend. He showed me what is appreciation, just a simple sentence that actually reminds of me that when is the last time i show my appreciation to the loved ones?

Creating a memory - i actually didn't realize how much i have been creating a memory in his life. It is just a normal friendship thing. However, when he was diagnosed with that sickness, i had been encouraging him with God's words and just hope that he will always live his life to the fullest. He ever told me that there is no one around him that actually said this kind of things to him. It all looks new to him and unique. I believe in God's work, and maybe that is the purpose why i met him and why we can get along well. Although his length of life is so much unpredictable, but I just give thanks to God and continue to pray for his strength...