As per title.. sigh.
And one week more to my trip too. Why does my insomnia came back, and at this time too?
Sigh……..
Update! Update!
Went for a movie “marathon” last Saturday, at the spanking new GV Paya Lebar, with “nation’s first laser projectors”. Yes, the images were really sharper than other cinemas, but to be honest, once you are immersed in the movie, you really don’t go and take note if the images are “sharper” or not. At least I don’t focus on the sharpness when I was watching the films…
We caught Geostorm (I won’t ever miss any natural disasters movies!) and Mary and The Witch’s Flower. Geostorm wasn’t as bad as what most reviews said it was. I quite enjoy the movie actually. Of course, as with all movies, just leave your brains at home and stop questioning if it’s scientific or logical or what-not. Despite all the disaster scenes to be purely CG (obviously), the state of CG really takes my breath away every time I watch such scenes.
Mary and The Witch’s Flower is very Ghibli-ish (after all the studio’s under Hayao Miyazaki’s favourite student), but the story telling direction is quite different from Ghibli. I like the colours, I like the art – there are only very few parts where the animation/expression doesn’t really fit (Ghibli really does them better), but otherwise I enjoyed the animation too.
I realise I’m easy to please – especially when it comes to movies. LOL.
We met again on Tuesday, because I had to clear my ethnic half day leave since I didn’t take it on Chinese New Year this year. So off we went for lunch at the newly opened Ramen Nagi at Suntec, and that was a bad decision. Despite only 2 hours into operation for that day, they told us they “ran out of eggs”. So um, okay. Ramen with no egg. As if that’s not bad enough, their soup is laden with MSG. I was so damn thirsty for the entire day, geez. Never again.
After lunch, Bruno accompanied me to TCM where the doc helped me adjust the medication a bit because the TCM medicine she gave me was giving me insomnia and heat flushes again. After that, we had to go down to SGH to collect extra medication for my that. A 60 tab box of medication cost me S$134.40! Geez… heart medication is freaking expensive.
After that we lingered around Chinatown for a bit, before we head to Ming San for dinner. We were celebrating our friendniversary in advance, so we were more generous in terms of the dishes we order, and honestly all their dishes taste so good!
The Aburi Salmon Maki ($11.00) is just so good! Aburi Salmon is usually partly torched (top), and bottom half is raw. I honestly have no idea how to describe the taste and texture of it, but I swear to you, it felt like I went to heaven and back whenever I put a piece of that in my mouth. That’s HOW GOOD it is.
Next, we ordered the Unagi Tamago Yaki (S$18.00). It’s grilled unagi, with some mayo, wrapped in warm half cooked omelette (almost like scrambled eggs), topped with more mayo, terayaki sauce, dried Japanese shrimps and pieces of fried fish skin. End result? A harmonious blend of tastes exploding in your mouth – allowing you to taste the unagi, the egg, the mayo, and a bit of saltiness and crunch from the dried shrimps and fish skin. I was half worried that things will fall apart when I picked up a piece with my chopsticks, but even though it looked that way, nothing dropped / fell apart while my chopsticks move it from the plate to my mouth. The chef is just so amazing at putting things (not just the tastes) together!
We were kinda worried that the above two dishes will not be enough to fill our tummies, so we ordered a grilled Ika (S$8.00). This dish, compared to the above two, is a lot more plain. Nothing much to shout about, but it’s fresh and perfectly grilled, all the way to the tip of its tentacles.
Last but not least, we ordered a garlic fried rice (S$13.00) after eating all three dishes above, because we felt that we were still a tad hungry. I really couldn’t see any pieces of garlic in it, but oh boy, the garlic taste simply exploded in your mouth with each mouthful. It’s so amazing. And the best part is there’s no garlic after taste at all! What sorcery is this?!
The total bill adds up to S$55.00 (with two drinks, not in pictures), a price which we feel is totally justifiable, considering how good ALL the dishes are. We’ll definitely be back for the Aburi Salmon Maki and Unagi Tamago Maki! =D
On a side note: 22 more days to Taipei trip! Yay!
2 more months!
To Taiwan trip!
Arrrr I need this holiday badly. Why does it still feel so far away… =(
In the mood of writing something in Chinese… maybe soon.
Just want to say…
… Thank you for being here throughout this difficult period. Thanks for coming over to spend time with me when I couldn’t go out. Thanks for being so patient and understanding even when I snapped at you because I was frustrated about other things.
Thank you. =)
Updates
So, my dad got 2 stents in his arteries, and was discharged last Saturday. Technically his heart is still very weak and operating at a very low efficiency, but since he’s a super laid back person, I think he’ll be fine. I hope so.
Coincidentally, after the TCM doctor changed my medicine again last Saturday, I was having trouble sleeping yet again (initially I was still able to doze a little on and off throughout the night) – I mean, I slept, but only for like 4 hours before I woke up and couldn’t sleep thereafter. Went to see her again on Tuesday to make some changes to the medication, and viola I was able to sleep now! Or at least I have been able to sleep from 11pm to 6am at least, throughout. And it’s deep sleep, not those dozing on and off kind. Hopefully I don’t jinx it by talking about it here, lol. Let’s hope I’m slowly getting back my sleep pattern.
Work is getting pretty boring – I’ve finished all my month end reporting for July, so I’m now litterally left with nothing to do. I’ll be on leave tomorrow and Monday, so that’s a long weekend to stay at home and play POE. Actually I’ll just probably spend the Saturday out or something alone – it’s been awhile since I have my me-time.
Crossing Fingers
So many things happened at the same time.
My insomnia is still not improving. The culprit is suspected to be from one of the chinese herbs that my TCM gave me, but it has been almost a month and the situation has not reversed yet. =(
And then my dad was hospitalized, and was found to have heart failure. He seemed to have suffered a silent heart attack two weeks back and a large portion of his heart tissue had already died, with 3 arteries blocked. The hospital deemed a heart bypass not suitable due to the dead heart tissue, and thus decided to stent two of his arteries.
I’m not sure how long he still has to live, but let’s just hope for the best…
Insomnia Update
11 sleepless nights in a week.
Only slept well the night before (Wednesday), probably because my body was really too tired from the lack of sleep.
Didn’t manage to sleep enough again last night. Drifted off to sleep at about 10:30pm, woke up at around 11:50pm. Then drifted off to sleep again and in between was conscious of my movements… but I think I still somewhat kind of power-napped in between because I wasn’t aware when my dad came home from his night shift. So I guess I was asleep between 2+am to 3+am. Woke up at around 4+am (I assumed), and I resisted the urge to reach for phone to look at the time. Tossed and turned a fair bit, trying to sneak in some sleep in between to no avail. Finally, I gave up and reached for the phone at around 5.11am or so. Was already rather awake, so no point trying to go back to sleep. Browsed some forum, read up on some insomnia articles etc… and then got ready for work.
My mental state now isn’t too bad, I’m just really tired of not being able to sleep at night. I really did try to clear my mind, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t actively thinking or panicking but somehow at some point my heartbeat will accelerate and I have no idea why. It’s actually quite mentally exhausting. To the point where I’m thinking if I should quit my job and try to find something that doesn’t require me to report to work at a fixed timing.
I wish, eh…. it’s not like I’m in the creative line…
Hey Reko, you need an artist + an admin assistant or something? Wanna hire me and Bruno? XD
Insomnia…
I’m so tired. Could hardly fall asleep on my own last two weeks – had to depend on Fedac to sleep. Sometimes if I’m lucky, I can fall into a deep sleep after taking Fedac, but most times I’d be drifting in and out of sleep even after Fedac. Body would be so warm at night that I would wake up even in a drug-induced sleep.
Geez, and I don’t even know what caused this. All I know is the anxiety of not being able to fall asleep is adding on to the insomnia.
I downloaded a sound app yesterday and tried to use it last night while staying off the pill. Not sure if it really helped or I’m just really too tired, but I think I did sleep a little. I still drifted in and out of sleep though – went to bed at around 9.30pm, tossed and turned in bed (my eyes were closed but my mind was rather awake as I can still hear the sounds from the app), drifted to sleep a little, but woke up fully at around 11.45pm because I was too hot, despite having the aircon turned on. I switched on the fan, and tried to go back to sleep again. I was even aware of the exact moment the sound app had stopped (I set timer to 4 hours), so I was apparently still drifting in and out of sleep at 1.30am (apparently my mind was awake then) since my sound app was supposed to end at that time. I was aware of every turn in the bed, even though my eyes were closed.
It was a restless “sleep” – if you would call that a sleep. But well, on the positive side, I didn’t take Fedac. However, after such fitful “sleep” for the past two weeks, I’m literally looking like a panda now, and generally feeling tired throughout the day.
I certainly hope the situation will improve. I have no idea why this is happening geez. I’m not stressed about anything either. Please just let me have a good sleep every night….
Visit to Gardens By The Bay
Went to Gardens By The Bay for their 5th year anniversary exhibit: Blue Beauties last Saturday 17/6/17. We wanted to go for The Mummy movie, but unfortunately the GV card is out of stock and I really don’t see the point of paying S$13 per person for a movie ticket when $4.50 can be saved with the movie card.
Flower Dome was crowded as usual, on a weekend. But it’s still not as bad… I took many photos, as usual lol. They had a new deer sculpture which I think is very nice!
This is what welcomed us at the Flower Dome entrance:-
There are a lot more photos, of course. Feel free to view them here in my Flickr album!
After getting Bruno his Friends of the Gardens membership (half price membership promo!), we then went to Daikokuya (Robertson Quay) for our first try at Tsukemen!
Tsukemen is a different style of ramen, where you dip the noodles in the stock instead of the noodles being served in soup form. The noodles they gave was really A LOT, and both of us couldn’t finish ours. But it’s still very nice! Now that I have tried Tsukemen, I would probably try it again in Japan. :D
BPPV
So yeah. Last Monday (5th June 2017) night, I suddenly had a bout of BPPV. While I was drifting off to sleep, I turned to my right and realised something was wrong – the room started spinning (even though my eyes were closed). So, I shifted to lie on my left again, and the spinning slowed down significantly, and off I drifted to sleep.
Fast forward one hour, my body was woken up by the extreme spinning – because I had unwittingly laid on my right again. This time, even though I shifted back to lie on my left didn’t work anymore – the whole room just kept spinning. I tried to sit up, walk, stand – it’s just the same. It just spun non stop, to the point I was feeling extremely nauseous. I was just thinking – okay should I wake my parents up to send me to the hospital?
I forced my wobbly legs to move to get to the toilet – I don’t know how I did it, but I did find myself sitting on the toilet bowl, with both my legs trembling and quivering like crazy while I was trying hard not to vomit. I finally forced my way back to the living room, and I leaned against the cabinet, debating with myself whether to wake my mom up or not. Coincidentally, my dad saved me from making the decision by coming out of his room, and subsequently got the shock of his life to find me standing there in the dark, trembling.
I kinda collapsed right there as he switched on the lights, simply because my legs wouldn’t support me anymore. He quickly moved me to the couch, and woke my mom up. After a while, I started vomiting. I think that worried the hell out of my dad, so much so that he called the ambulance to get me to the hospital.
Once I was there, the emergency staff gave me a jab to combat the giddiness, and sent me over to the waiting area to wait for a junior MO to see me. I waited for a good 2 hours, and I was still feeling very giddy at that point. So the junior MO saw me, made me explained what happened, went through all the “stroke tests”, took two big syringes of my blood and then sent me out to wait for another 2 hours. So after 4 hours, she called me in again, and I was still giddy. So she said she would ward me… and after yet ANOTHER 2 hours, the nurse finally called me over for warding registration. Geeeez.
And guess what? Right after the paperwork is done…. my BPPV somewhat recovered. Great. Thanks. /s
One hour after the paperwork was done, another MO came over to me and made me go through all the “stroke” tests again. Aaaaaand, he took another one (or two?) syringes of blood from me AGAIN. I had puked my dinner out, didn’t even had my breakfast yet, and I was having my period, and I got so much blood taken away from me. Geez. I told this MO that I did not feel giddy anymore, but he said I’d still have to stay in the hospital for at least a day, for observation.
Resigned, I just slumped on the chair. Yes, chair. Even though I was officially “warded”, the hospital had ZERO bed vacancy and even the “waiting room” was full, and I was asked to wait at the “Transit Place” (aka holding area) where there’s no beds – just armchairs. Oh, how helpful. After dozing on and off for about two hours, a senior MO finally came over to assess my condition. After I repeated my experience to her and telling her that I was okay now, she said that its just classic symptoms of BPPV and if I’m feeling all right, she sees no point in making me wait for a bed till god-knows-when. I’M SO GLAD. She made the MO write down notes to make sure the nurses didn’t send me up in case a bed is free, and she told me to stay in the holding area till lunch, and after I had lunch, she will discharge me if there’s no discomfort.
So yup, I was hospitalised, warded, and discharged – all on the same day.
The MO gave me medical leave for the entire week…. which of course, I took. I still worked from home nonetheless, but being at home also gives me time and freedom alternating between work and games and radio-ing Dota2 matches, lol.
One week after the ordeal, my thighs were suddenly aching so badly. Maybe its the post trauma kicking in to the muscles… I don’t know. Perhaps my body is just retarded, somehow…. let’s hope it’s just muscle strain or anemia, nothing serious!