A very interesting thing happened yesterday. I am not gonna talk about the energizer rabbit and her problems because it is just too time consuming and silly.
As you can see from the vid, my baby girl is now laughing out loud. So a few close frens asked me which would I prefer... My baby to say papa first or mama first? I deadpan straight faced told them, it does not matter... Because even if she does not know how to say "papa" or "daddy" now, she will be the master of saying it in the future. Imagine... little bundle of joy... now a growing child or a young woman... if she needs something or wants money... she will come calling with her hand outstretched!!!! So no need to wonder or feel bad if the baby does not say my name... She will be able to say it and to say it with all sweetness and love... when she wants something.
Further to this, I am also not overly concerned that she will not recognize me or even want me now, because she will definitely recognize me and want me in the future!! Muahahaha... and I got a scolding from all my frens there. But like I said, I am a frank guy, I tells it like I sees it.
Just had a conversation with my sis.. She was asking me to come back from Japan with my family earlier so that she could take a holiday with her own family.... Uuuhhhhhh.... Not trying to be cold or funny, but, we have to follow our plan too you know... Baby has to be at least 6 mths for her to travel overseas... Next is that my wife is gonna have her hands full with baby and she has to look after my mom??? Baby will help to carry mom perhaps? Or since wife is wiping shit for my baby, she can also help to wipe shit for my mom??? Like I said, people say things without thinking, promise things without thinking... Looking after my mom will be a long problem and it will be painful and costly... So chicken little shit wants a holiday??? Where is the money coming from? Oh yea... I forgot, we are in the money printing business...
So that was why I have always advised that whatever we do, we gotta think about it. If not, seriously shit will happen and when it does, then how are we gonna react?
Here are some new and latest pics of my baby... she is literally my baby mah... hehehehehe.... But seriously, it does pain me not to be with my family as my child grows up, I am not there to experience many of the firsts. Her first crawl will also most probably be over by the time I see her in Dec. I already missed her first yabber and her first flip... But like I predicted, she is really like T-rex, so she can flip herself from back to lie on her stomach, but her arms are too weak and she cannot flip herself back.
As for other parts of my life... well... how can I put it??? I have a run of bad luck...First, on Sat, my sis and mom dropped a bombshell on me... They went to the TCM physician mom was consulting for her breast cancer many years ago... As mentioned before, each time she goes, she will have to pay $150 and she has to go every week... Dooommmmm on me..... She went for a length of 1.5years at least... so dats gonna be a big hole in our expenses because she will have to go for chemo and also for other stuff inclusive of her trips to Bangkok and or other places.... Hey... its ok... we are printing money and like my sis said... it is small money.... as compared to a life... I don't mind living a life of slavery and also being in debt man... after all, if mom needs a total of 100k a year for the treatment, its only 8.3k a month right? If it is like one guy's blog where he lemants that he needs to pay 300k a yr just to keep him alive... we will be able to handle that too... My house is 280k and if I sell it and not put it back into CPF, I can pay for one whole year man!!! Yeaaaaa!!!
Lets not talk about my own survival here hor...
Further to this, I think my run of bad luck really got so much worse... I washed my kitchen like I always try to do on weekends... I was pretty happy with it because not many guys will take the effort to clean their homes... So I was about to take out something I had bought earlier... a pack of satay bee hoon.... The plastic bag holding the satay sauce dropped and splattered all over the floor... Thank goodness I washed my floor and kitchen... I had to scoop up what I could so that I could have something to eat for supper.... (Thank god I cleaned my floor period)... but then the mess has to be cleaned again as it was oily and dirty and there was peanut all over... So I cleaned the kitchen a second time... and guess what ladies and gents??? Yesterday... I was so unhappy about not being able to enjoy the satay bee hoon that I bought another pack... This time.. I said that I would eat it immediately so that it would have no chance of dropping.. But while I was trying to cut the top to pour it out... it slipped and the satay sauce came pouring out... S**T!!!!!!!!! first... lucky my floor was still clean... scoop scoop scoop... grumble mumble... scoop scoop... then after dat came... F***... S**t.... gotta clean my floor a third bloody time.... I swear... I will not eat satay bee hoon for a while man....
But then ladies and gents... like I said.. when life gives u lemons... u make lemonade... for me... Drop satay sauce... scoop scoop curse curse....
This may seem very intriquing as a title, but it is true. I take the example of my family.. My mom has dementia and is therefore quite unable to make rational decisions some times.I was speaking to her about Dr. Simon Ong, who my cousin is using for his father's cancer and she kept repeating, "I don't want... I only want doctors with a doctorate"... Uuhhhh if you do not have a doctorate, no one can call you doctor hor.... If you mean a professorship... come one!! Are you trying to buy the fountain of youth? In fact, at 71, what else are you looking forward to? What else do you want? Even without going for chemo, she is already planning to go to Thailand in November. I did not know we were in the money printing business man.!!..
And my sister is no better... her response is.. how much can a trip like this cost? Come one man... we have not even gone for the chemo yet... do we know how much it will cost? If we say ok... we have X amount and will use Y amount for the chemo and then save the rest for her trips.. I have no qualms... we are signing blank cheques on the basis of keeping an old and demented person happy? I wud rather spend the money on a coconut husk man. What happens is the treatment is 100k? Where will we find the money? Sell our houses and give away our children? My sister says.."as children, we have no say and if mom can live till 100, we will support her". Ok... fine... when her dementia flares up and she starts to accuse my sister of trying to murder her and so on, it will bite her so badly in her asse. Future planning is important... Not living just for the now and hoping that the future will solve itself. Whatever we do now is and will be a direct result of our future.
And then the chairman of John Hopkins called and asked how my mom is and now they will go back to see him. Uhhhhh... that place has oil shieks for customers... We cannot afford it... Yet they claim... "Ohhh just to see see only lor"!!!??? If the guy claims that a golden horn of the purple rhino will cure my mother... I can bet my bottom dollar that they will grab a gun and kill all the rhinos in Africa and those in captivity.
Death cannot be avoided. Cure the cancer but you will still not avoid dying. If we go into this thinking that we have card blanche, we will be so screwed. My sister has a lot of insecurities and does not and will not handle the passing of my mom. And my mom being demented and probably fearing for the shit my dad will heap on her when she passes does not want to go. So they will be on the search of the golden horn and the purple rhino. I will only say one thing. I have 50k and 20k... if it is used up... they can do their own hunting because I will be out of it. Most old people will know that they need to help the living to live. But you see dear readers, my mom is not normal any more... There was a time when she was recieveing 1.5k a mth from the repayment of a loan and it was still not enough. She kept asking for money from me and sis. This resulted in me not being able to pay my credit card bills and the credit cards companies initiated bankruptcy proceedings. She does not understand that fact. All she thinks is that she helped me... Yea how the bloody hell did I end up in such a wonderful mess unless she was the one who initiated it?
So she will burn up all our family resources without even considering the right or the wrong and or the good or the bad. I am not trying to condemn her to death. I want her to live and also to be well. But then I will not allow her and or my sister to chase the purple rhino just to appease their own petty insecurities and consciences. This is where I have to make myself clear. Full blown chemo will most probably stop the aggressive spread of the disease. But it will be bad in the sense that mom's hair will fall and she will wish she were dead. Chemo is a toxin and you can die from it.. So how would we feel if we spent all our money and then had nothing for mom's funeral? Why would she want to live till she is 80 and be a stark raving coconut husk?
So as you can see my gentle reader.. this is where I am really in a quandry... I am looking like a bad guy because both mother and sister are in lala land. How will sister feel if mom bites her again? So why go through the hassle?
Any doctor can come up and say.. lets give 250k of chemo and treatment and see hor.... I can have the choice of going into heavy debt to do so... but will it be worth it? To give a person a few more years is important. To show your love for your parent is important. But where will it end? Why not also consider cryogenics, where you freeze someone till a cure is found? We cannot escape death... the moment we are born, we are all bound to die... So that is why... we are all dead... it is only whether we know it or not.
Hi Ho... After all the trials and tribulations at least my daughter is 100 days plus old. She had a simple ceremony, (well we sorta fell in one swoop into the "poor" people's category when my energizer got her cancer and that is still without treatment yet hor) and she was fed a small fish and other savouries. This is symbloic to show that she will have all she wants and needs to eat during her life time.
Don't worry, I do not come from the side of the family that spends a lot of money so my wife made sure that baby got small and cheap food... hmmmm... wonder if this is gonna bite me in the asse some time in the future??? Maybe because we stinged on the food, she will get hungry and come back and complain to me and wife that we did not bother to give her good food for her 100day ceremony???
Well no choice lah... She is still too young to take solids anyway. And the thing is, I also need to save every damn cent I can.
So as you can see from her vid, she definitely does not enjoy her grandad's company and was therefore quite obviously trying not to look at him or the food he is giving to her... Again.. I am wondering if this will bite me in the asse again in the future.
I truly believe though that no matter what happens, what will be will be. My mom keeps on saying that she is so poor thing and that she has fallen on hard times... Boy, she does not know what is hard times yet man... Imagine if we were to all go into bankruptcy because of her treatment. In fact, I am now considering trying to down grade myself and my op so that I can save some money. I have a stone in my prostate and it is a biatch!!! Now I am considering a shared room and also a quick short and sharp op. No choice lah... if it is gonna recur and it will, then I will have to pay for it by myself the next time round.
Anyway, mom asked me what will happen if I were to get cancer and so on and my truthful answer is... I will pop myself. Why go through the agony and put my own relatives through the agony? We are already poor and will not be able to afford another round of serious or chronic illnesses. So I will take it like a man and opt to go. If it does not kill me fast enough, then I will kill myself. My dear readers, if you have been following my blog, you will know that I am dead serious. I do not want to be a bother to anyone. I find that to have anyone saying that I am "so poor thing" and insult to me and my family. We do not need and neither do we want anyone's pity. (To be frank, I am only saying this for me, my wife and kid hor)
So like I said, that is why I title this thread "Life goes on". We as living people must think of how we are to bring our families and our dependants on. So if in leaving, we open the chances to the others, I will do so. It may just be me, but I will not want to spend horrendous amounts of money and put my wife and daughter in the poor house and or to spend what they cannot afford. I am also really scared that if energizer lives on, she will want to go for this and that trip and who gets to foot the bill? Me!!! I cannot depend on my sis to pay for it and so who gets to clear the shit? Me!! Will she be a good girl and not spend money.... well looking at the previous year's blogs... I really doubt so... Will she get better and climb out of lala land.... In my dreams perhaps...
But life goes on... Even if the gahmen does not help... Life will still have to go on... I just hope that they will put into law that we children must look after our parents and I will be the first in line in the meet the people's sessions to ask the gahmen how they will help us to look after our parents?? Onco treatments.... based on the class we checked her into... If she is private paying patient... no hope of downgrading... (yea... the dr was swearing himself blind that it was not cancer and that was why we put her in a private ward!!!) So now who will allow us to dowgrade? If she gets better and wants to go with her rich frens to here and there... who's gonna pay for it??? So as you can see dear readers, you have a very very frustrated little bunny here... and it is not my wife and or the energizer rabbit hor..
YOu know something boys and girls??? A leader is not one who inherits a position or claims a title. Being the oldest does not also allow one to say he or she is a leader. So when the energizer said that she was the leader of the family, I sorta allowed her to be one, but I was trying to hold things together from the back. The reason? If you feel you have nothing, are nothing and have nothing to look forward to, then you will waste away very fast.
That being said, I have now firmly insisted that I am the leader and that all matters will now be under my purview and I will make decisions. The reason?? Neither my sister nor mom are able to and should not even be asked to make any rational decisions. They just can't do it!!!
Imagine, mom asked me to transfer 20k to my sis because she helped pay for her hospitalisation. I know she is worried about my sis and also that she does not want to seem to owe her, but hey.... has she thought about where the bloody hell the money will come from for her chemo? If she kicks off soon and does not need chemo and so on, I will gladly start to share what little remains, but if not, I will have to be careful as usual and make sure that everything is well taken care of. Being a leader is not just giving instructions and feeling big or gud. It is taking responsiblity to ensure that things are done for the better of not one individual but the whole family. And that is where the real pain and headache is for me.
Old energizer is 71. She has no savings. Her medical will still be pretty heavy and will be so till she dies. When she dies, she will need to have a proper funeral too. So where is all the money coming from? She was saying that there are chemo drugs that will not make her feel sick and make her hair fall off. Many say that chemo will make her feel like dying. So now as the son and the default leader... what choice will you make? Whack the family reserves to give her a few more years? How many years does she have even without the cancer? If it is all used up, where will the money come from? And that is the bug bear that I have with the gahmen of our great society. They say that there are safety nets.... Where??? They say that people are living till older age... These are old women who have been housewives and have brought up the children of Singapore and they are not allowed any care from the state. And to top it all off, because of a few bad apples, there will be a law telling us to look after our parents... I have been screaming for help of an alzheimer's demented mom who now has cancer. If she loses more of her mind, will she even know that we are doing our best to treat her?
Her cancer has spread, so now is how to make the last years... or no matter how many years as comfortable for her. If she wants expensive chemo and so on... I do not know how comfortable I can make her... I will be dead broke and she will still be stark raving cuckoos.
And to top it all off.. Guess what, even for parental care, only 1 child in each family being allowed to get tax relief for looking after a parent... So my question is this... where am I left now? No tax relief, having to pay through my nose and yet having no support. How many of other people here have the same problems?
So brothers and sisters... I would say only one thing... This really sucks.. I am in a world of shit and pain and yet there is no way out.
