Our electricity bills for the past 3 months have been soaring high. This is usually the case during the hot season when the air conditioner will be turned on throughout the night in the girls’ room and ours. While hubby isn’t really complaining yet, I find that paying over RM400 a month just on electricity bill is throwing our budget off. I told the girls that very soon the air conditioner will be turned off after 2 hours once their room is sufficiently cooled. Thereafter the ceiling fan will be turned on. Air conditioners are really eating into our electricity bill. But we need to get the ceiling fan in the girls’ room fixed as it’s now not in proper working condition The ceiling fan is only slightly over a year and it’s already conking out. If it is irreparable, we may look for some Minka Aire fans to replace it.
I have been feeding psyllium husk to Baby for over 2 weeks to relief her constipation and it’s working. She can now move her bowels almost everyday and her stools are no longer rock hard. I am going to continue feeding her with psyllium husk and only plan to stop feeding her with it when she learns to eat fruits. This child of mine does not like fruits and it’s a torture to get her to swallow fruits. She will chew any fruit given to her but will spit everything out minutes later. She is also starting to reject green leafy veggie. She once loved green leafy veggie but now she will single out all the green stuff in her bowl of food. The only veggie she loves now is cherry tomatoes, though they may sometimes taste sour. She can easily chomp down 10 small cherry tomatoes in a sitting.
Cheerios is finally in Malaysia! Nestle Malaysia has introduced its breakfast cereals, Multi Grain Cheerios, to Malaysian consumers. Multi Grain Cheerios is lightly sweetened and has a combination of five nutritious grains — rice, corn, wheat, oats and barley, as well as 10 vitamins and minerals.
I bought a pack of Nestle Cheerios on the day of Baby’s eye surgery to cheer her up and it indeed brought cheer to her. She survived only on Cheerios, soup and milk after the eye surgery. If you want to sample the new Nestle Cheerios, you can head over to Jaya Jusco @ Mid Valley. They are giving free samples for Cheerios as well as their other new product, a corn flakes for the weight watchers.
This is Baby about 5 hours after her Chalazion eye surgery on Thursday. She recovered pretty well this time – no vomiting and no post-op grogginess. She slept for about 2 hours after the surgery coz that was her usual nap time and she had woken up very early that day to get ready to go to the eye centre. She wasn’t crabby and wasn’t in pain either. Thank God for that!
When she got back from the eye centre after the surgery, she was already back to her usual self – jumping and climbing like a monkey, crawling under the table and driving me up the wall. But that’s ok. I thank God that He had brought Baby back to me safely for the 3rd time. Yes, this is her 3rd surgery in less than a year.
Eating Cheerios under the table. Baby survived on Cheerios, mummy’s milkie, a little soy bean milk and a little formula milk on that day. She appetite was pathetic that day.
My hubs and I almost choked on the surgery bill on Thursday. The Chalazion surgery, which is a very minor surgery only took 5 minutes. The ophthalmologist removed a lot of pus and other jelly-like liquid from under Baby’s eyelid. Though the surgery was minor and short, it was a choking, whopping close to RM2k bill!!
This is Baby, minutes after the Chalazion surgery. I thank God that Baby did not complain of any pain after the surgery. No oral antibiotics were prescribed, only an eye drop for the eye, which has to be dropped onto the eye 4x a day for a week. The bandaged was removed before she was discharged from daycare at the eye specialist centre. No bandage was needed thereafter, though there was a little watery blood oozing out from under the eye where the incision was made.
This is Baby about 2 hours post surgery yesterday. In this picture, she was pointing to daddy’s Big Mac bun. On normal days, she would push the rather bland sesame bun away but yesterday, she was really famished! She just stuffed the bun into her mouth and with the bun still in her mouth, she was asking for more. However, she did not appear thirsty though. I had expected her to chug down a gallon of water when she could finally drink but I was wrong. She only wanted my milkie. My helper and I had to force her drink lots of fluids. I was also worried that the lack of fluids in her body will pave way for the pesky bacteria to wreck havoc in her urinary system again. Sigh…. this child of mine has so many health issues!
When we were at the specialist eye centre yesterday for Baby’s eye surgery to remove the pus from a Chalazion on her lower eyelid, there were many patients there who had undergone a lazer surgery to fix their Cataract problem. A lazer surgery to fix a Cataract costs between RM3,000 – RM4,000. I wonder if those patients had a medical insurance to cover the cost of the lazer eye surgery. I think it is essential that everyone has a medical insurance and life insurance to protect oneself against the unforeseen. If you haven’t already had one, it’s high time you obtain life insurance rate and medical rate from some insurers.
Remember my earlier post on the swollen bump under Baby’s right eyelid? It has turned bigger plus it looks like there is pus inside the boil / stye. Yesterday we brought Baby to our regular paed and he has referred us to an ophthalmologist. He told us that a minor surgery may be required to remove the pus inside the boil like stye.
We had just returned from our appointment with the ophthalmologist at ISEC. He did an eye examination on Baby and told us that she has a condition called Chalazion. A chalazion is a lump of the lid that is caused by obstruction of an oil gland within the upper or lower eyelid. This lump may increase in size over days to weeks and may occasionally become red, warm, or painful.
The gland involved in the formation of a chalazion is a modified oil gland that lies within the eyelid. There are about 40 of these glands within each of the upper and lower lids. These glands secrete oil into the tears. When one of these glands becomes blocked, it can increase in size and cause a visible lump.
So the treatment is that Baby has to undergo a minor operation and we were actually prepared / expected to hear that from the doctor. It is going to be a very minor operation which lasts about 5 minutes. However, it sounds major as Baby has to be given GA (gas) and completed knocked out. This will be Baby’s third surgery in a year! Poor baby! Though we were told that there would be very little pain after the operation, I am still worried. My poor baby… and poor me for I have to relive the nightmare of putting Baby on the OT table again for the 3rd time! Please pray that all will go well tomorrow morning without any complication. And please pray that this time our insurer will reimburse us this bill. Our insurer did not reimburse our claims totaling to almost RM60k incurred during Baby’s surgeries last year. It’s going to cost us a whopping RM1k++ for this eye surgery this time!
Baby’s paed and surgeon had warned us many times that one of the causes of UTI is constipation. Constipation will put pressure on the bladder and the unmoved wastes in the guts contain bacteria. Thus it’s very important that she moves her bowels everyday. Unfortunately, Baby has been suffering from constipation for the past few months. I suspect that this is one of the causes of the bacteria in her urine lately. I would not say that she had a UTI coz she has no fever, no vomiting and is well. Only her urine looked cloudy and smelled foul.
Last week when we brought Baby to the paed, he prescribed her with these stuff to help regulate Baby’s bowel movement:
Restore probiotics (which is freaking costly!), Lactulose syrup, Novalac formula for constipated toddlers and enema. So far, I have not used this enema on Baby. I have been feeding Baby with psyllium husk twice a day (1/2 teaspoon each time) and thank God, her bowel movement is quite regular now. I may continue Baby on Novalac (skimmed cow’s milk) since she is accepting it quite well.
First, Baby’s right eye was reddish. The same day the eye turned reddish, she had a fall from the chair and landed face down on the cold hard floor. The lower right eye (the part that’s above the cheek and just below the eyes) hit the floor. It was bruised. Several days later, there was a bump on that part. Several days later after my mil cleaned that part with warm water + sea salt, it became red. It looked as if there’s pus inside the bump. I had asked our paed if it’s pus-filled but he said it does not look like it as there is no ‘boil head’. Since yesterday, the bump looked as though it’s going to erupt.
I wonder what caused the boil-like bump. Is it caused by blood clot resulting from the fall or from an infection of the eye?
We will bring Baby to the paed’s office if the bump is still red, hard and appears as if the pus is trying to find its way out. Check out the red hard bump under Baby’s right eye. It looks painful but when we asked her if it’s “pain pain”, she said no.
I am a WFHM with 3 beautiful girls - Alycia, Sherilyn and Cassandra. I quit the job that I love to stay home with my 3 angels as that's what I've always wanted to do. I am a health freak, fitness freak and a clean freak too. I love to eat and live the clean and healthy way; I want my kids and hubby to do the same too.
I always believe that your health is your wealth and if you have good health, that's the best gift you can ever ask for from God.
I have been writing product reviews, food reviews / restaurant reviews and product advertorials since 2007. Please email Shireen at shireenyong@gmail.com to inquire if you are interested to place an advertorial or review in this blog.
