: : Comments : :

Since Haloscan has been unrealiable for the past few days, am enabling the comments feature from Blogger.

Sorry that you can’t see the old comments anymore. Ah well.

: : Onion Biscuit : :

I could not believe it when one of my collegues offered me some onion biscuit! Well, more like spring onion biscuit. Seriously though, it tasted really good and also sweetish!

I used to buy this biscuit by the tin (it was a huge coffee powder tin) and put it in the office for everyone to eat. This is one addictive biscuit. If you like it, you’ll really really love it.

My collegue bought the biscuit from a local supermarket called Everrise. Well, I’m glad to be able to taste a little bit of memories from 5 years ago.

: : Gawai Celebrations : :

It’s the end of harvest celebration starting tomorrow. The celebration is known as Gawai and it will be two days of public holidays for everyone.

There is an Open House at the Kuching Civic Center tomorrow 1 June 2004 starting 10 am to 3 pm. I believe that it’s organized by the Politicians and food will be provided. I wonder whether there will be any cultural performances or not?

Anyway, do drop by. It’s an interesting and fun time. Of course, the traffic jams would be seriously bad but not too worrisome. Am planning to go early, take some pictures and get out of there really quick before the lunch crowd appears.

Cheerio!

: : IMBB No. 5 ~ Catch of the Day : :

For IMBB No. 5, we are doing the fish. Oh yes. Smelly fish. Pungent fish. Glorious fish. We are making it the dish catch of the day on THE DAY. The day is 20 June 2004.

Now, what is IMBB? An acronym for Is my Blog Burning, it started off as an idea from Alberto to have a blog cooking day where a theme is selected and everyone makes a dish centered around the theme. We’ve had soups, tartines, cakes and rice dishes from all over the world, serve in different and yet delicious ways. If there ever was a time that an ordour option where smells can be sent via the internet be invented, this would be a great time to do so. Not to mention that the last IMBB on rice saw more than 50 entries on rice alone!

So, for no. 5, let’s make something from fish. Yeah yeah, it sounds like something out of the Iron Chef series. Note that only the 4th edition and this one is based on a cooking ingredient and the previous 3 editions were more on the type of dish. Still, it’s an amazing event and the number of participants just keeps growing and growing and growing.

How to do it? Well, it’s easy. Post up a writeup with recipe on a dish where fish is one of the ingredients anywhere on your blog or website. Drop me a comment or an email to say where the link is and I will post up the links the following day. If you do not have a weblog, you can email me your pictures at myremi@gmail.com along with the writeup and I will post it up on my blog for you. Even if you would like to share a favourite recipe, I would love to hear about it and can easily post it up for you.

You can use any fish ingredient, be it fresh fish, frozen fish, canned fish, fish balls, fish cakes, fish patties, fish skin or fish soy sauce. Just be fishy as fishy as you want your dish to be. Only rule here is to use fishy fishy fish fish.

It’s fun. Do join us. We love to hear from you on how your cooking preparation and your meal went. So, let’s make it a date to have a huge even on 20 June!

Cheerio!

: : Granny’s Visit to another physician : :

Thanks to everyone who have given words of encouragement and support. It truly means a lot to hear it from all of you and Granny thanks you as well.

The morning apppointment went well. Granny has been given a set of new medication and so far, till this moment, she is feeling as she usually does : chirpy, perky and ready to roll. We will be going to have her chest X-ray done as well as a blood test to follow-up. Also, once the results are in, I’m to bring her ECG report from the other doctor to this one as well. I’m in the process of getting her medical records from that other doctor to pass to this one.

With this other doctor, I learnt a new ‘trick’ : to check the blood pressure of both arms and if there is a huge difference, something is not right. So now, the daily blood checks at home will be on both arms.

Blood test and X-ray will be done on Thursday next week because the labs are not opened during the Gawai Festival next week until 3rd June. Will be taking the morning off and going with Granny to get it done.

Anyway, we’re both happy that we met this new doctor and a lot of our worries have eased up. Although it was an expensive exercise with the previous doctor although his charges were cheaper, nothing beats getting a good doctor to ease one’s worries. And when I think of how much it costs to go and see a doctor in a Western country, the RM320 (USD84) fee that we paid for consultation, medication for a month and echo scan, it was well worth it.

Note that both doctors are not GPs but are specialists known as physicians. I was informed that a physician is one who carries out tests and investigates to why a person is sick. Not sick as in flu sick but illnesses that are difficult to diagnosed. Doctors aren’t a bad sort but like anyone who is working, some are better than others.

I’m off now to read up more on high blood pressure and geriatrics, not to mention the medication that Granny is now taking. So, cheerio!

: : Granny’s Condition : :

Today is both a good day and a bad day.

Bad Day

I know that Granny’s doctor got mad at me when I questioned him about the high-blood pressure medication he gave her was making her feeling tired and losing her appetite even though it was controlling her blood pressure. Reason is that after I told her not to talk it after feeling so bad this week, she recovered her appettite slowly but surely over the past two days.

How did the visit went? To me, I could not understand why he did not immediately give me alternative solutions until I asked him directly after much prodding. I know doctors are stressed out and all that, hence no firing or loud words. But still, I didn’t feel comfortable. Even though he could be right that the calcium blockers should not make her lose her appetite or make her feel tire and lethargic, he still could not explain why it as soon as she stop taking the medicine, she felt better. Of course, he did recommend for a full checkup as there could be another problem, which I did agree to but not at his clinic and never again will I bring her there. The only reason we went there was because she needed to have a checkup before her cataract operation and this physician was the nearest.

I should have been more suspicious when we went into his clinic and it was not jammed packed with patients. In Asia, if a specialist is very good, his clinic is so pack that you cannot see him without an appointment. If one can just easily pop by to see a specialist as easy as a normal GP, well, bears thinking a bit.

And like I said, even though he could be right, the way he dealt with Granny and myself leaves much to be desired for.

Good Day

After a phonecall to Miri to another doctor cousin, I found another physician. Another cousin in Kuching who knows this physician has so graciously made the appointment to see the doctor on Saturday morning and agreed to show us to the clinic. Even found out that my uncle doctor goes to him. I feel a lot better now.

At the same time, I bought a blood pressure monitor tonight from the pharmacy so that I can check on Granny’s blood pressure. Surprisingly, the monitor registered her at 140/86 at night compared to this morning at 180/95 at the doctor’s. Note that she has not taken any medication for the past two days. I’m getting suspicious.

We’ll see how tomorrow goes. Not feeling so good at the moment. Am thinking why didn’t I bring her earlier. Both of us thought it would not get this serious as she is getting old and suffers the occasional backpain (she had a slipped disc years ago) and leg pain. Sigh.

And reading this article about calcium blockers doesn’t help at all.

Common Blood Pressure Drug May Not Be So Useful for Heart

Blood Pressure Drug May Increase Risk of Death

Blood Pressure Meds: Pricey Isn’t Better

Popular Blood Pressure Medicine May Do More Harm Than Good

Another point to note : the brand of drug that she is taking is not even listed on WebMB which makes me suspect that it hasn’t pass approval for FDA. Not to mention that the 2nd batch of pills that she had from this doctor did not come packaged individually but loose pills. Wonder how old they are.

I’m just tired of this and so is Granny. I hope that tomorrow will be a good day and we’ll finally see the end of this whole problem.