Time flies

It has been some 8 months since my last post. Sorry for neglecting this blog.

We had a most wonderful Christmas in London with our daughter last year. We ended up touring parts of the UK in place of our original destination Paris, and had absolutely no regrets. We enjoyed the English country. We traveled to Bath, Cotswold, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Stonehenge - and loved every minute of time spent there. Now, I am trying to plan for our year-end vacation.

My oldest has been home since her exams ended towards the end of May, and will be here until she returns in Spetember for the next school year. Its incredibly difficult to get internships in the museums here. Last year, a friend helped put us in touch with the CEO of Heritage Board here and we were told that they would be interested to take her on. But in the end, nothing came out of it. Instead she ended up helping out at one of the museums (for no stipend even to cover her transport!!) for a couple of months. This year, another contact put her in touch with the Director of programmes at one of the museums who responded that she would have a position for her and that someone would be in touch with her. BUT, again, nothing came out of it. Not even an email to say that they are unable to take her. SAD!!!

This year saw my son starting in a new school to do his junior college (high school) years. |School hours are really long especially with Co-curricula activities, with many days ending at 8pm. In fact, for the whole of last week, he left school past 8 every night that I had to ask him when I could have dinner with him!! Teen lives are much busier than adult lives nowadays!!

As for the young one. she's preparing for her Primary School Leaving Examinations this year. This is quite a MAJOR exam here in Singapore as it determines your path based on this one exam that is going to affect your life for the next 6 years. STRESSS!! MAJOR STRESS!!! On the medical front, we are interrupting her pamidronate infusions for a dental surgery. Her small jaw is unable to accomodate all her teeth, and her canines are growing in a position that is affecting the roots of her front teeth. So the dentist says that they have to come out soon. But people on pamidronate infusions cannot have any dental surgery done as there is an effect on their jaw bone. So, infusions will have to stop for some 4-6 months before we can do the extraction.

On the infusion front, we have been told that there is new medication available that would cut her infusion time from a long 5 hours to just an hour!! She will probably start it on her next cycle, after her dental surgery.

My health hasnt been good at all this year. Have had 4 colds/flu since the start of the year, despite having taken the flu jab which each took at least a week for me to recover from. AND I had Hand, foot and mouth disease! I thought it only affected kids BUT no. Adults get it too. And I got it BAD!! Blisters on my hands and feet (none in my mouth so I could eat!! Lucky me!!) The blisters were so painful that walking felt like as if I was walking on glass shards!! And it took me 4 weeks before I thought I was back to "normal". It has been 3 months since I saw my first symptoms and you know what? MY nails are now falling off!! Initially I thought I was suffering from some deficiency when I first noticed beau's lines on my nails. But i have since researched and confirmed with the doctors that it is the result of HFMD. And my nails are falling off now. And it is so painful!!

Well, that's all for now. Please be patient with me, and I hope to update more often.