Battling With Hyperthyroidism

My last Friday's visit to my endocrinologist was a rather ecstatic one.

She showed me my latest blood test report and announced to me the good news:

I will just need to take four more pills over a period of four weeks and I won't need to see her until three or six months later!

I discovered that I had Hyperthyroidism back in March last year.

I was at my parents' place, sitting at the dining table, trying to pick up some fish with a pair of chopsticks. The tremors in my hand frustrated me and I commented to my mother casually,"My hand keep shaking."

My hands had been shaking for a number of years but I had always dismissed it as a triviality, but at times it can be irritating when some precision is required.

My elder sister heard my passing comment from her bedroom and immediately shouted,"You have Hyperthyroidism! Go see a doctor!"

From there, I knew that two other sisters had the same symptoms and were diagnosed to have Hyperthyroidism. 

I looked up 'Hyperthyroidism' on the Internet and found that I had many symptoms associated with the condition. It explained why I felt unbearably hot even with the air-conditioner switched on at full blast, why my heart raced like crazy when I was resting on a couch or bed and why I was losing weight quickly. 

I visited a GP and did a blood test and it was positively hyperthyroidism.

 

(March 2015 results)

The results showed that my indexes were very far from the normal range.

Subsequently, I searched for endocrinologists, specialists for thyroid, and decided on a female endocrinologist, Dr Yeoh, based on a few good reviews and her comparatively cheap consultation fee.

After three months of consistent medication, the indexes were better but they were still in the red:

 

(June 2015 results)

Just about every index was in the red

Sometimes I got worried as Dr Yeoh has the habit of repeating herself many times within the same session of consultation, like she has forgotten what she has said! I am not sure if it's because she has too many patients or she is genuinely forgetful. 

However, the blood test results saw improvements every four to six weeks. Gradually, my thyroid condition normalised and I was left with Graves Disease - a sub-condition of Hyperthyroidism, indicated by my poor TRAb results, to deal with.

 

(February 2016 results)

Subsequently, my TRAb results improved and after they had stabilised, Dr Yeoh decided that I no longer have Graves Disease.

 

(June 2016 results) 

I feel that not working has indeed helped me cope with and manage the condition a lot better. In Dr Yeoh's words, we need to manage the three 'S's: sleep, stress and seaweed, well. This year, I do not have to deal with work stress or get angry on a daily basis so that helps a lot. 

I hope that when I return to work, my stress level will not shoot up and affect my thyroid negatively again. Relapses for Hyperthyroidism patients are common but I hope I am one of the exceptions and don't have to be on continuous medication ever again.

Trapped!

Saw that this was saved as a 'Draft' and it never reached the stage of completion and thought it was quite a shame that an adventure of a lifetime had missed out on being published. Told you I got some posts I had saved without seeing the light of the day!

This was what I was staring at for a good 15 to 20 minutes at about 1pm on a June afternoon last year.

I was trapped in the lift! I had read tonnes of fictional stories and watched a few horror shows about being trapped in the lift, but had never imagined this could happen to me.

I entered the 14-year-old lift, of which I had been using for the past 9 years, and pressed the number indicating my floor.

To my horror, it did not stop at my floor. It just kept shooting up, up and up! Well, it wasn't exactly 'shooting' per se that threw me off my standing spot, but it was moving at a speed faster than the usual ascending speed.

I was scared stiff.

Horrifying ideas flooded my mind:

Is it a ghost making the lift going to a level that she wants me to in order to show me something to help her seek justice (like what my elder sister had shared with me about a ghost story)? Oh please don't. I am just a helpless woman who doesn't know anything!

Am I entering into a third dimension (like what many TV drama serial or movies have portrayed)?

Will the lift plunge all the way down after this?

Will I be smashed into smithereens? What should I do to minimise the damage?

Frantic as my thought process was, physically, I froze.

When it finally stopped, I realised I must have reached the maximum height the lift could go but I could not see anything from the inside.

I regained my composure and pressed the alarm, and since then, I have come to conclude that the alarm button is purely decorative. Nobody responds to the lift alarm.

My second thought was to call William for help.

His reply convinced me I should never ask him for help in future,"What's the point in calling me? I am not a technician. I can't help you."

I hung up the phone and looked for the emergency number to call on the metal button plate.

Found it!

After finding out my location, the lady on the line assured me that help was on the way in 15 minutes.

True to her word, and much to my relief, I heard some sound that resembled attempts to pull the doors apart from outside after 15 minutes.

The lobby doors were soon ajar and a maintenance guy looked up to me. I realised I was on twelve-and-a-half floor, 12th being the highest floor of the block.

He shut the doors and went away. After a while, I felt the lift jerked downwards bit by bit.

When it reached a reasonable height, the maintenance guy returned to open both the lift doors and the lobby doors for me to jump down the landing.

I was in quite a fright such that I ran all the way down the flat without thanking the man!

Things That Make Me Irrevocably Fat

I have never been a fan of Starbucks. 

I have always felt it was an overpriced coffeeshop selling exorbitantly priced coffees and teas. Of course, their cakes too!

It started on a morning when I was waiting for Coco to finish her business in school and I had nothing to do, with nowhere to go.

I settled myself at this Starbucks and naturally, it was only decent to buy something to occupy a seat at a cafe.

Classic Glazed Doughnut

I saw this through the display window. It looked pretty sitting on display and it had a name associated with 'original' and a sense of nostalgia - 'classic'. It must be some old and gold stuff at Starbucks, I thought. So I asked and paid for it.

What a disappointment. What 'classic?' I prefer the $1 doughnut sold at nameless bakeries anytime, man!

'Glazed' was right. Hard and (too) sweet indeed. Never again will I try it.

 

Blueberry Crumble Muffin

I tried this for a tunch and liked it, except the passion fruit purée (?) in the centre of the muffin. The muffin itself is nicely dried on the outside but moist on the inside. It would be perfect without the passion fruit bit.

 

Chocolate Coffee Chiffon Cake

I tried this because my limited taste bud for the sweets ran out of options amidst the myriad of choices in Starbucks.

The chocolate chiffon was acceptably sweet but the thick layer of chocolate that enveloped the cake was too sweet for my liking. 

 

White Chocolate Yuzu Chiffon Cake

I was worried this would be overly sweet when I read 'white chocolate' but I decided to take the plunge and try it as the chocolate version was too sweet for me, but it proved to be superior to its darker counterpart.

The white chocolate layer was less sweet than the original chocolate and the Yuzu zing was subtle and refreshing. It remains my favourite item on the list whenever I go to Starbucks.

 

Croque Madame Puff

I was a huge fan of Coffeebean & Tea Leaf's Croque Madame before it was removed from the breakfast menu, so I was seduced by the name although it certainly didn't look half as appetising as Coffeebean's version.

It was quite 'chewy' to pull apart and this property lent itself to the actual chewing as well - too flat and not half as hot and piping a Croque Madame should be.

Tried it once and I am done with it.

 

Rosemary Chicken & Emmental Cheese Croissant

I had this only because it was probably the best out of the worst items on the $6 breakfast menu then.

It was, at best, edible and it won't be the first thing I dived for at Starbucks.

 

Grilled Chicken, Mushroom, Spinach & Egg Sandwich (I think)

This did not leave an impression with me as I found it so awful I demanded William to eat it instead. He, on the other hand, was appalled that I had forced him to eat something so terrible.

We swore never to place an order for this again!

I have since tried other muffins and a few cheesecakes that taste nothing out of the ordinary. 

I am still not a huge fan of coffee but I usually ask for a Cuppiccino or Mocha Ice-blended at Starbucks if I need to order a drink.

Since my numerous tastebud adventures with Starbucks, I've come to realise that it's the ambience, constructed by the lighting, furniture, mood and whatnots, that entices 'fans' to stick around here. The food is acceptable most of the time but not fantastic. Of course I know 'cool to be at Starbucks' rather than a peasant's foodcourt or even Yakun is the main incentive. 

I am still not a fan of Starbucks but it's no longer a place I shun. 

Wait! I Can Explain.

I have been rather erratic in blogging especially this year, and probably the latter part of last year, because I am spending less time on the desktop computer and more time on my handphone.

During the time I appeared to have stopped blogging, I had still wanted to blog but we only have one computer at home and I didn't want my train of thought to be broken intermittently by William who uses the computer every hour, for five minutes or a few hours at a stretch.

I tried blogging via Safari on the phone but it didn't work. I would type half the post and get stuck halfway or 3/4 way because of some technical limitation - not sure what. I was not able to complete the whole post and I did not like to come back to a post to continue it after an extended period of time. The 'feel' is not the same anymore.

On top of that, I have been taking pictures with my iPhone. The technophobic in me is reluctant to learn new ways to transfer pictures from an iPhone onto the computer, and then upload them onto Blogspot. I have been getting lazy to transfer the pictures in my camera onto the computer as well. Having at least two external hard disks crashing on me and turning a few years of my photo-taking to ashes was a huge disincentive to saving pictures on external devices, and the computer gets slowed down to turtle pace when I save them on the desktop.

However, recently, I downloaded an app, Blog Touch, that allows me to blog on the phone, upload pictures directly from the phone (yay!), and save my posts as 'Draft' before I 'Publish' it from the computer.

It's a free app and I would have to pay for the app if I want to publish my posts directly from my phone, but coming to the computer to press the 'Publish' button is not that troublesome, and typing on the phone blinds us to glaring errors, so I save what I can and get to preview what I type before I click 'Publish'.

Technically speaking, I did consciously stop blogging for a while because I did not like what I had typed. I did not like the limited, pathetic and insipid vocabulary and sentences I was using. I felt like I was writing P2 or P3 compositions that had simple sentence structures like 'I went to the zoo. I saw the lion. I saw the giraffe. I was very happy. I went home.'

I felt discouraged and of course, stupid like hell. So I took a hiatus from blogging to see if I would get out of my insipid phase, but it became quite a long break. 

Another reason I didn't blog much was because I was going through a very difficult period in my life. Coco was a very difficult teenager last year. The situation was so bad I broke down a few times at work, suffered insomnia, cried every night before I went to sleep and cried in the morning when I woke up. Kind friends told me I had given my best and should not blame myself for what had happened, but it was too hard not to feel guilty for not doing more as a mother. Many times, I started to blog, but decided to stop halfway, or delete the posts, or simply save the posts as drafts, as I didn't think such posts would be edifying for Coco if she had read them. 

She has changed a lot for the better and taken responsibility for her own learning this year so I am able to focus my energy on the betterment of my physical and emotional being these few months and that's why I am able to blog more.

I am also blogging more because I am inspired by a blogger-mother who blogged every single day for a year, with a photo per day no less. I know that is a tall order. I wish I could say 'Hey, I am going to do just that: blog every single day.' but being too free-spirited a person I am, I might not be able to live up to that, but I will try to blog more frequently. When I read back on some of the stuff I had written, I would be surprised I had certain insights I don't remember having and sometimes, I would go 'Did that really happen?' or 'Did I really say that?'

It's fun!

Universal Studio in Hot June Summer

This is probably our third or fourth visit to the Universal Studio Singapore but because I don't take many (close to 'any', actually) rides, I find USS quite a bore except for the photography opportunities. 

We last went in the last week of the June holidays. The girls have been home most of the time so a USS was in order.

The pudgy me finally having a photo with the Universal Globe!

My only comfort is taking a picture with someone fatter than I!

While waiting for the man of the house to purchase the tickets

Usually, our trip to USS would start from Madagascar, but this time, we started our fun from the other spectrum and it happened to be Sesame Street, something that had been new for some time but we had never tried.

We queued in the dark 

It was a safe and slow roller coaster that was just right for me

I seriously can't remember what we saw

But there were some gentle turns and bumps along the way, that I am sure

Next, we watched a Steven Spielberg's production at 'Lights Camera Action' which Baby had not watched.  

 Baby was astounded at how real it felt

A glorious showcase of my double chin, flabby arm, protruding tummy and thunder thighs against the trim and fit Fast and Furious star 

We went on this 3D ride

3D glasses are in order

I thought I would die from the constant silly shaking and dizzying vibration

As usual, the dare devil had to ride on both Human and Cyclon at Battlestar Galactica

I can never understand why she doesn't fear that she might get thrown out of her seat and die a horrifying death,"These people who buckle you are not your loved ones. They are only strangers. They may not check properly and you may get flung out and hit something or fall from great heights and die!"

For the first time, we didn't take my favourite ride at the theme park

I demanded to know why she flew low with her father while she had insisted on flying 'as high as possible' with me!

'Should we eat here?'

'I remember the food was awful.'

'Ya, look at the leftovers. They must be terrible.'

Spicy food at the Ancient Egypt was a no-no

We had our meal at Star-Bot Cafe at Sci-Fi City

Fried rice with salmon 

Not my dish of rice 

Chicken with coconut rice

The chicken was, surprisingly, more tender than it looked

We enjoyed this the last time we came, so we had to go again

We came out all wet so we slot a $5 note into the drying machine and dried ourselves in the oven-like human dryer.

I was scared of taking the Canopy Flyer the last time but Baby enjoyed it so William had to join her on the ride

Then I waited as the three brave souls took this children's roller coaster at Enchanted Airways

The turns still looked terrifying to me. How can it be a 'children's roller coaster'? It's illegal!

 

Almost her favourite ride at the USS: Revenge of the Mummy

The girls insisted on having a 'moody shot' under a little arch

How is it moody? Only they know!

Eating Ben & Jerry's like a king!

They never got sick of watching the Shrek's 4D Adventure movie

But I sat on a seat that didn't have the spiders tickling my legs again! 

Hmm ... I think I look better in this one. Leg bent, tummy covered up and hand 'naturally' placed over the protruding object. My double chin though!

 The girls cam-whored at the frog prince fountain.

Not sure why  

Maybe all girls have this hidden desire to meet their frog prince, regardless the ages?

A final picture in front of the Shrek's Castle before we left for the night

'Hey, we missed out Madagascar this time round!'

How do you like my thunder thighs and flabby calves?