Ethan's first tooth extraction

We always have a lot of issues with Ethan's teeth since young. Besides having a few decays, he had a dead tooth since he was 3 (when his cousin accidentally knocked him down and the nerves were dead since that incident). So finally, this dead tooth became shaky about 2 months back but it didn't fall out naturally after this while.

So bleeding occurred occasionally as he fiddled with this shaky dead tooth once in a while.  We decided that it's time to get this tooth extracted so he won't have any more bleeding occurrences.

But, he cried dearly when his PaPa attempted to pull out using a dental floss... to be honest, if the same approach is applied on me, I would have been terrified as well. I called up the school dentist to make an appointment for an extraction and he was so nervous with my arrangement.

Luckily, the appointment was scheduled to happen after his recess time last week, so I assigned Caden to chaperone his younger brother after they had their food to the dental clinic in school.. I heard from Ethan that Caden just dropped him to the clinic and went off to play with his classmates, so the poor boy was left alone facing his deadly task.

I think it turned out to be painless for him as the dentist applied a gel on his gums before the extraction (I remembered that it was always an injection for me during my time!). He texted me a picture of his toothless selfie once he got home:



The dentist has scheduled him for another visit today to do fillings.. I am sure this time round, it will be painful for him...

Bone Age Scan - School Holidays Day 2

On the second day of Term 1 school holidays, I brought Ethan to the clinic to do a bone age scan as suggested by our PD. Ethan has always been on the petite side since young and we were rather concerned that he's still much smaller in size when compared to his peers especially now that he is in Primary 2.

We visited our PD sometime before Chinese New Year to express our concerns over his growth rate and size in particular. He told us that Ethan was in the 3rd percentile 2 years ago when he last checked and 3rd percentile now that he's is in Primary 2. So technically, being able to maintain within the 3rd percentile range over the last 2 years goes to show that he is still growing. He suggested that we do a bone age scan for him to check his exact bone age before doing other tests to determine what caused him to be of a smaller built.

True enough, today's scan results has shown that his bone is that of a 5 to 6 year old child. This indicates that Ethan will probably have extra 2 years in his teen years, as compared to his peers, for his bones to continue growing. 

With this scan results, it just sets our mind at peace :) 

Little accident in school

Today I am officially jobless (again, haha) but had made plans to drop by the school campus to get my laptop configured before my training programme in 2 weeks time. So sometime near noon, we got a call from the school and we knew something had happened to one of the boys.

True enough,  Ethan had a minor accident in school where he was pushed by another child from different class and fell flat on his head which resulted in a big bah lu ku on his forehead.

Poor child looked like it was really painful by the time we went to general office to pick him.

Bump turning blue black by night

The school called us in the afternoon asking about ethan's condition and also told us that they found the child who knocked him down.

I think it's probably just one of the childhood accident that he will remember by..

The clinic assistant

I got a call from my clinic this Thurs morning and the conversation goes like this:

Clinic Assistant (CA): hello Miss Lim?
Me : yes speaking
CA : your test results are out
Me : oh, but I won't know how is it since Doc Eu is on leave this week right?
CA : not to worry! The test results only showed presence of bacteria.
Me : no blood trace?
CA: eh.... Hmm... (checking) .. Actually have..
Me: ( silent) *** faint****
CA: not to worry. U come on Monday and check with dr ok?

It certainly helped that the clinic assistant's voice is so assuring over the phone, I could temporary shelved this aside and peacefully enjoy this weekend before my meetup with doc on Monday. Seeing the CA in person will also cheer one up as she has a very cartoon face!

Fingers crossed

Brave

 

We caught the show Brave today since it has been a movie which I had looked forward to (being a Disney Pixar show), and heard a few good reviews.

 

The movie started with a short film 'La Luna' (aka Moon) which dictates how the crescent comes about. Interesting, they have told the story such that there was a team of 3 persons who were in charge of sweeping the moon each night. What they do is to sweep the shining stars which filled up the whole moon to one side of the moon and eventually a crescent is formed.. Ethan asked if this story is real during the short film.. This short film brings me back to the memories of reading one of the fairy tale stories.

 

Brave is a movie about the bonding between a Queen and her daughter (Merida). The Queen has been trying to groom her into a well-mannered princess while Merida is happy doing her archery on her horse. As the movie plot unfolds, Merida's mum turned into a bear due to a spell which Merida has asked a witch to do so and she eventually regrets her action. It was her repentance which eventually broke the spell and changed her mum back into human (together with her 3 other brothers).

 

Besides portraying the difference in expectations between parents and children, this show tells us about breaking the tradition, and being brave to change our destiny. One last quote from the movie is rather relevant in what I am going true now - 'Some say fate is beyond our command, but I know better.  Our destiny is within us.  You just have to be brave enough to see it'.

 

How true..

 

I have been trying not to think about the potential medical condition these days while waiting for my 2nd review to take place. What I'll probably need is the bravery to handle all that will happen when time comes.

 

 

Decisions

I realised that as I aged, the decision making process seems to have shortened. I grew up in a very independent environment since young. I made my own decision on which secondary school I wanted to attend after my PSLE exams, I made my choice of junior college after the O levels exams and made my choice of courses which I wanted to pursue in the university. Based on my impression, the decision making process seems to be done in a more conscientious manner when I made my first career choice upon graduation, before marriage, buying a house, planning the decor of the house, switching jobs, all during the period when I was in the twenties.

As I progressed now beyond mid-thirties, decisions tend to be done in a swift manner. I have shifted to the tendency of making decisions which goes with my heart, instead of being ruled by the head. Probably so, because, at this point of my life, I have learnt to accept that not all things have to fall into perfect place. There are times when things just don't happen the way you want them to and times when everything just works for you. What matters most, is whatever we choose, we hope to end up happier.

I have made up my mind on something in July and was still affirmative during the month of August. I had a moral obligation and hence decided to execute this task only in mid-Oct. A few incidents happened thereafter:
1) My recent health medical report had shown some negative indicators, which requires me to have a second review
2) personal environment was also pointing negatively to the execution idea

The recent chain of events seem to be signs for me to reconsider my earlier plan to change the route of my life. This point, I have to least have a clearance from the doctor on my current state of health, before making any changes.

Though, honestly, I was surprised with myself for being so decisive on my plan earlier, as it has been a lingering thought to do this for the last few years. There are now too many factors that seems to be stopping me and I will just have to shelf this idea aside for the next few months - next target date of execution will be scheduled to be in end March next year...

Caden came down with fever this morning, which happen on our first day back at work after a week's break. He has complained about headache ( amazing he understands what's a headache) and tummy upset. Hopefully his temperature will go down soon and recover by Sat.

Usually Caden likes to hug our pillows to sleep. When Papa offered his pillow to Caden before bedtime, Caden said he'll do with the other spare pillows instead as he was afraid to pass on his germs to Papa if he uses that pillow. So thoughtful of him.. Really sweet boy.

HFMD

It has been confirmed. Ethan is officially down with HFMD as he came down with fever on Monday and red spots rapidly appeared on his hands, base of his feet and knee cap. We also saw ulcers formed on his tongue and back of his mouth.

My heart sank. To know that he got infected with HFMD is like knowing an enemy is out there threatening your children yet as parents we were helpless to defend it from attacking. Ethan lost all appetite today, we had to ensure that he gets hydrated most importantly as the ulcers would have caused a lot of pain to the poor boy.

Caden is still cleared now.. The thing abt HFMD is that it's not a virus that one gets once in a lifetime like chickenpox. The same HFMD can recur to a person for as long as it is transmitted from another infected person.. While Ethan is easily grouchy these 2 days, we hope that the virus can be contained and stopped infecting the next person within the house..

(adding on to the agony, my flu bug worsen these 2 days)..

Battling with HFMD

For the last few days, we were all battling with the HFMD virus that is hovering in my house. Sam came over last Monday as usual after school and did not have the appetite to finish his lunch and complained sore throat. My mil finished up his food eventually not knowing that Sam is already infected with HFMD virus.

So he became the first confirmed case of HFMD on Monday after his parents brought him to the PD on that night. We offered to keep Kimi at our place so that she can be quarantined from his brother during this period and Kimi had been staying with us from Tues onwards then.

On Wed night, I was suddenly infected with high fever and vomiting. The fever and vomit persisted and kept me out of work on Thurs and Friday. Kimi did not need to attend school on Thurs and Friday (due to PSLE oral) and had also stayed at home with me. My mil asked her to let me check on herself on Friday morning as she had started to complain about sore throat as well. Using a touch light, I found some ulcers forming at the back of her mouth and confirmed to my mil that she's also infected with HFMD. I was also unsure if I myself will be infected with HFMD (although I did not have any personal contact with Sam).

At the point, my heart sank.. I thought I had seen Ethan passing a sweet to Kimi during her stay her and both of them played pretty closely. To date, Ethan had not display any signs of appetite loss nor sore throat (or maybe he doesnt know yet) but we seem to see some funny shapes forming on his tougue.. hopefully it's false alarm but we can only confirm tomorrow and see if these funny stuff will start to form into ulcers. My previous personal encounter of HFMD was only hundreds of ulcers around my lips and back of my mouth but didnt have them on my tougue. So I cant really tell if those whitish stuff are part of the HFMD..

It's really a mental battle now - worrying and hoping that both my boys are going to be kept safe from the virus. We are also hoping that my mil will have strong resistance to defend herself from HFMD since she ate up all of Sam's food.

Fatten us up!

I had 3 persons coming up to me in the last 3 days to let me know that I have lost weight. I decided to take my weight test last night to see if this is true and indeed I have shed almost 2 kg in the last 3 months although I did not deliberately work on any weight loss diet or exercise to achieve this. It's quite worrying if one loses weight for no reason.. which may imply that some disease has already started attacking you.. but then again, my loss may be a temporary issue since I have worked fairly late in the last 2 months over year end closing.

Caden on the other hand, probably has inherited the genes from his PaPa. He is not a picky eater and is adventurous to try out all types of food. We are fairly amazed with the amount of food he is able to consume at one meal - sometimes he can gobble up 6 xiao long baos + noodles + fried rice from Ding Tai Fung, or 3 slices of pizza + wings + garlic bread, or a chicken burger + chicken tenders + fries at BK. Despite the amount of food he takes, plus 3 cups of milk a day, he is still considered a very lean boy at his age. Ethan is showing the opposite behaviour, he turned out to be a very fussy eater, refusing to finish his usual meals, still a sucker for his milk.. sigh.. and obviously, his built is really small compared to other children of the same age..

must think of a safe and healthy way to fatten all of us up (including the father)..

Worry

Lately I realised I became a worry queen. I worry for Caden and Ethan almost everyday if their journey to school is safe. I worry for my ah lou if his road trip to work and back home is safe. I worry for my mother-in-law at times and hope that she doesn't have another fall again. I think the older I become, the more worries I tend to cummulate, which is not helping me.. I concluded the less sleep I have, the more worries I would start to generate.

Stye @ 2 weeks ago

these are the last 2 eye styes lingering now.. we can only put the medication on his eyes when he's asleep. Otherwise, he usually rejects the application unless it is done by his Auntie Peggy or uncle SK..

The Stye has burst

Ethan's eye styes final got burst since last sunday and this week Wed. Not sure if Dr's Sim skin infection antibiotics helped or it's just abt time that the styes got ripened and happened to burst. We were very relieved to see that happened as the final stage like really bad

this was the time that he had 2 eye styes 2 weeks back


this week Monday when the upper stye had burst and the lower stye got very big with pus formed (looked very much like a big pimple waiting to be burst)


Now he still have a small little bump and scar-like wound at the lower eyelid. Hopefully this will go off in 2 weeks time!

For this eye stye issue, we spent over $200 on Doctors' consultation!

3rd visit to the Pedi

This morning we went on a 3rd visit to the Pedi for Ethan's eye stye. It's official that his 2 styes did not become smaller and the left eye looks like it has developed a new stye. Mummy had to work late the last week and did not have a chance to have a good look at Ethan's condition since he was already asleep at night when I am back and still sleeping the next morning when we leave for work. Although my ah lou commented it was nothing when I realised it was so bad on Thurs morning, we finally get a chance to see Dr Sim today.

Dr Sim was briefed on the treatment that Ethan received from another Pedi during his absence (holidays) the week before (since Ethan had gotten high fever then) which he explained has got no relations with the eye stye. This round, Dr Sim prescibed a new eye drop which contains steriod to facilitate healing. If the styes do not go away in a week or 2, we will have to be referred to an eye specialist to get them examined. Reason why he did not want us to go at this stage was that he had come across a few cases where the stye only got smaller after a few months! And on contary, there were cases where the child had to undgergo a surgery to remove the stye! Sigh.. I hope things will be improved after administering this new eye drops, otherwise, we will have a string of worries on this.

And we were also cleared that Ethan only has a flow murmur instead of heart murmur which the other Pedi has alerted us during our visit to her clinic. But she had explained to us that sometimes when a child has high fever, the heart beat will be irregular so may not be a real case of heart murmur. Flow murmur seems like innocent heart murmur so Dr Sim has also told us not to be too worried. Thankfully, this confirmation came, as I was worried for a whole week day and night whenever I think abt the possibility of Ethan having a heart murmur.

Bad viral infection

We have been so tired since the last weekend. Ethan for no reason had an eye infection since 18th June which multiply from 1 to 3 in 5 days. And he did not heal well as he resisted to the application of eye cream prescribed by our pedi. Last Friday, Ethan developed into high fever, and we had to visit another pedi near our place cos Dr Sim was away on holiday. She gave us antibiotics as she suspected that it's a kind of virus that is causing both eye and fever at the same time since no one in the house is sick at this point. The fever hovered at 39-40deg consistently from Friday till Sun and only subsided yesterday night..

It's just one of the rare occasions that we had to go through this agony.. the last big thing I can recall doing the sponging was probably on Caden (which I believe recur more often than Ethan)..

Ethan is now plagued with cough and running nose when fever is finally gone.. these few nights, we were haunted with his loud snores!

Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease - It's Mummy!

After 2 days of viral fever and gastric flu, ulcers started to form all over my mouth. And it's really all over. This morning, I went to the Doc again for his examination and he confirmed that it's HFMD. Sigh.. I do not know how I contacted this and where the source is from, since I have always been careful with putting food into my mouth with my bare hands. Moreover, last week, most of the times, I am at home babysitting in Mil's absence so the outside contact has been greatly reduced. The only closest case will be Ethan, who had ulcers near the tonsils but Dr Sim confirmed that it's not HFMD cos there are no rash on his hands and feet.

Without knowing that I have HFMD incubated within me in the last few days, I had maintained close contacts with my 2 boys since I am on medical leave and resting at home. Hopefully they will not catch the virus from me otherwise it will be damn torturing for them to go through this virus.

This means that I am fully quarantined in my cosy bedroom with my laptop as my only mode of entertainment for the next 5 days..

Suay things that happened to myself thus far in the last 10 years:

1) HFMD
2) diagnosed with anemia and low red blood count last Dec during the full body health check
3) fake chicken pox - nest bites on my body http://my-precious-baby.blogspot.com/2008/07/seeing-them.html
4) post delivery hormone imbalance which resulted in full bodied rash (minority 5% of total preggie mums) http://my-precious-baby.blogspot.com/2007/11/mummys-complications.html
5) 2 threatened abortions, of which 1st one resulted in hospitalisation
6) extraction of 4 wisdom tooth at one go
7) broke front tooth when I fainted during shopping in year 2000

and not to mention many other incidents during my school days

I was just sharing with my ex-co that I have been trying to take a step off from work where nec, and spend more time with my kids. Knowing the personal drive in myself, she doubted and asked me is this really what I want out from the career path. I told her when she has children of her own, she will understand when there is a need to prioritise in life. I lost both my parents by teens and have been very independent since then, fairly self-driven and completed my Accountancy degree locally in NTU. Never taken any tuition lessons in my whole studying years (irony - now that I started tuition for my kids b4 they start proper sch!). Possibly it's because I have always understand you need to work hard in order to attain what you are trying to achieve. So I need to channel this energy onto my kids instead of work so that they will be guided well while they are still young before things go outside your control.

Viral fever

This is a very bad weekend for us as both our boys came down with viral fever and coupled with skin rash and throat ulcers for Ethan.

Caden has vomitted alot today and we had to forced him to take the butt medication since he is not absorbing fluid medication well..

hopefully they will be up and running soon..

Bacteria Infection

Ethan has strangely got a rare bacteria infection on his body which resulted in a really rotten state on his elbow and wrist. PaPa and Mummy thought it was just a bad blister initially and kept asking Grandma and maid if they were aware that Ethan has touched any hot stuff which resulted in that blister

The blister subsequently got deteriorated and spreaded into a big infected area on Ethan's elbow. As it happened over the long weekend on National Day, PaPa and Mummy didn't think it was too serious and left it unhealed over that 3 long days with awful pus.

When we brought the poor lil fellow to Dr Sim on Tues morning, Dr Sim told us that we should have brought him to A&E on Sat/Sun before that was spread to other parts of the body. Nontheless, it was a lesson learnt and it took Ethan abt 2 weeks to have this wound recovered (ex-pigmentation, which I think probably takes abt a few months to fade)

This is how bad it was:

the new spots on his face which haven't turn into the rotten stage

4 stitches

On Friday morning, Caden was running at the void deck downstairs with PaPa and failed to look in front as he ran. The frightful incident happened when he knocked into a corner of a wall pillar and got flew off a distance. This also resulted in a 2 cm cut and a 0.5cm depth on his forehead.

PaPa had to rush him to TMC in view that they probably have a good plastic surgeon to do the stitching. TMC actually rejected his case and referred us to KK hosipital. We waited for a long time at KK A&E dept and in the end, he was given 4 stitches for the wound. What a gift from PaPa before his 4th birthday!

This is the final pdt from KK doc.

Bad fall

Ethan has a really bad fall yesterday at home. While Mummy was having her shower, PaPa was frantically knocking on Mummy bathroom's door as Ethan was crying badly. To Mummy's shock, Ethan has blood flowing down his left eye area and it really looked bad. We were contemplating if we should bring him to KK hospital but in the end didn't because his blood got clot and Ethan seemed to have forgotten abt his cut and was playing as usual in the next 1 hour. Mummy was concerned if the knock has any impact or cut to his eyeballs.

It looked quite bruised today and we decided to bring him to the sunday pedi at Thomson, the clinic was super-crowded so we decided to give it a miss and see Dr sim tomorrow instead.
Ethan with the injury and fell asleep in the living room while waiting for Caden to finish his breakfast