Bye Bye NZ, Hello Spore and Hand Surgery

I know I have been missing for a long long time...but guess what?? I am BACK again!!! For the past month, I have been busy with exams and after exams, I was busy with playing and preparing for my trip back to Spore. And when I am back here, I was busy with my hand surgery and now I have finally settled at home and am recovering well =)

Okie, some of you may be wondering why do I need to do a hand surgery? Well, its a long long story... I had a clinical attachment at an Autism Resource Centre in Penang in May and was bitten on the wrist by my client. Why did she bite me? Well, its not because I am meaty and juicy but because she was angry with me for not allowing her to do something dangerous. Being autistic, she had difficulty expressing her anger in a socially appropriate manner so she bit me on my right wrist instead. After the incident, I experienced constant numbness and loss of sensation of my first 3 fingers and palm area. Her bite compressed my nerve and the doctor said that it would take a few months for the sensation to return. However, the recovery process was slow and another doctor in Sydney advised me to return to Spore for a surgery to release the compression on the nerve asap as any delay would compromise on my chances of full recovery which means that there is a possibility that the numbness would be permanent if I do not do anything about it soon.

I struggled with making the decision to return to Spore as it meant that I had to give up my travel plans to New Zealand and Melbourne (I have already purchased the air tixs!!). My family finally convinced me that my hand is more important than 'play'...haha. Of course I know it is! But I was living in denial lah...was really reluctant to give up the trip of my lifetime in NZ!! Sigh. Well, I have been telling myself that at least I have somewhere to go for my honeymoon in the future...hahaha.

On hindsight, I am glad to be back home celebrating christmas and new year with my family and friends. At least they would be there to support me after my surgery and all. All I am praying now is for my sensation to return and that irritating numbness to go away.

I want to have my right hand back...

I want to know how it feels like to feel the world with it again.

Photo Updates!

13th Oct- Surry Hills Festival, Paddington Market

Zhen, Sil, Wan Ru and I went to the Surry Hills Festival and Paddington market on a nice Saturday morning! Paddington market is a church which transforms into a market place over the weekends and it sells manyy arty farty stuff which are pretty but expensive!! Well, here are the photos!

These are the yummy Harry's pies we had for lunch! I had the beef pie with mashed peas on the top...never knew that mashed peas tasted so so good! It was definitely worth the $4 as there were huge chunks of beef with thick brown sauce oozing out of the pie...mmmmm...mama-mia!

My beef pie with mashed peas!
Sil's chicken pie with mashed potatoes and tomato sauce!

The pies and us! (I know I look horrendous here and that is because I 'sacrificed' and volunteered to be the photographer okie...)

22nd Oct- Fish Market with Zhen

Zhen and I went to the main campus at Glebe to settle our vaccination and all for our clinical placement. We decided to drop by the fish market again to have our fish feast!! This marks the beginning of our binge eating sprees as the two of us LOVE good food and do not mind splurging on them. So we started reading this food blog on Sydney's good food and hunting down the stuff that they recommend. I will post more photos on more of our piggy experiences later! haha.

This is our grilled seafood platter with fresh salad! There were prawns, sotong, baby octopus, swordfish and the greens of course!

Looking really hungry....

Us with our grilled platter!
At the park outside University of Sydney...Nice purple flowers- spring is here!

23rd Oct- Pediatrics Seminar at Westmead Hospital

We attended a Peds seminar at Westmead hospital. We were totally impressed by the quality of the presentations and how advance their peds OT is! They really do provide a wide range of comprehensive OT services. It would be nice to have a clinical placement here because there is so much to learn! I wonder why we did not take a photo of ourselves, here are just some shots of the hospital and delicious cupcakes that we had. Btw, did I mention that their refreshments and lunch were really really good?? In Spore, we are usually served beehoon, fishballs, etc. but in an ang mo country, they serve wraps, sandwiches, cheese with water crackers, nuts, dried fruits, cakes, raw veges with dips....NICE!! Basically, the kind of food that I love lah... haha. So it became a buffet outing for us too...muhaha.

27th Oct- PDCN AGM and Breakfast with Zhen

Zhen and I volunteered to help out at the PDCN AGM again. We started the day early with a good brekkie at a cafe named Badde Manors (sounds like Bad Manners eh? haha. But the service there is actually quite bad!) along Glebe Street. We took quite a long time to decide on which cafe to invest our money in and decided on this as it has the largest crowd. Boy did we not regret out choice! The brekkie was ooooooommmppphhh!! (Dunno what kind of expression is that but I have ran out of ideas lah)

The Macchiato- we decided to be adventurous and ordered some kind of exotic-never-heard-before coffee. When it was served, we was shocked to see a super mini cup that was half filled! I could finish in a mouth lor! But it was quite pretty lah...so we started taking photos of it. Tried a sip and nearly puke cos it was super bitter- i think its something like espresso. No wonder when we told the waitress that we wanted to share this, she gave us THE look. Nevertheless, we finished it up in many many many and did I say many? sips...No more adventure for me next time.. will stick to plain old latter, mocha or cappucino...

Eggs Florentine- Poached eggs on English muffin and a bed of steamed spinach, topped with double cheese sauce, served with chad potatoes. I loved the creamy double cheese sauce! Never knew that cheese could taste so goood with eggs and spinach!

The BIG Vegan Breakfast- Roasted pumpkins, grilled tomatoes and mushroom, spinach, baked beans, avocado with bread. This was the highlight of the day! Definitely my favourite cos it has all my favourite food! Each was done with the correct amount of flavour and texture...it was simply heavenly.. ahhh... really enjoyed each mouth of it... I will definitely return for this again!!

Us and the food! We could not stop photo-whoring with the food and the waitresses were so amused with us. Anyway, we really had a slow leisurely brekkie as we enjoyed our food and talked for about 2 hours.. haha. Now we know why Aussies like to have a good big brekkie with their friends during the weekends! We wanna try other stuff on the menu as well so I guess we will be back pretty soon! After the AGM, we went to the Glebe market where I bought 2 summer dresses and a top for a good bargain of $35! Not bad sia...Hopefully I will have the guts to wear the summer dresses though.. haha. As you can see, the good brekkie and shopping made me really happy that day! =)