Snake

13/02/13 Chinese Lunar New Year's Fourth day (Year of Snake).

It was a test of courage, planning and teamwork I supposed.

I was sleeping when my second eldest sister woke me up and told me that she saw a snake moving towards to the living room. She woke up her husband as well as our auntie Kim. The snake was hiding in a gap between a cupboard and the wall. After spotting the snake, my brother-in-law had got a long plier, a long ruler and a broom. I'd got a magazine. The magazine was used to block the exit of the gap so that the snake has to come out by the entrance and thus allows my brother-in-law to catch it by using the plier. So, auntie Kim was assigned to block the exit of the gap, I was assigned to hold the broom (to press down the snake whenever I can) and my brother-in-law was responsible to hoe out the snake and catch it with the long plier. However, the snake was able to escape from the exit because the magazine can't cover the exit fully. The snake wasn't very big though. It was approximately 1 ft long and 1/2" in width. Luckily the snake was heading out from the cupboard and I was able to press down the snake by using the broom. Eventually, we were able to remove the snake from the house without harming it.

It was fun but indeed very frightening, especially when the snake was able to escape from the exit. It was something that we didn't expect. Like I said before, it was a test of courage, planning and teamwork. But sometimes, it just won't go according to the plan. When it didn't go according to the plan, you can only react (keep calm!) with you instincts because it was happening too fast and you had no time to think and plan ahead. I was so glad that none of us were bitten by the snake and we were braver against snake.

Lastly, Gong Xi Fa Chai.    

Sickness

NUH Blood Bank called my on Friday to ask me if I’m able to donate plasma and platelet on Monday because they have a patient who is going to have a liver transplantation on 31/01/13 and the patient needs AB+ platelet for the operation. So, I had the donation done today and everything was smooth and ok. However, at around 4.30pm, suddenly I have had a ‘vision distortion” and I can hardly read the text from the iMac. I gave my eyes a rest, looking at far objects and it took me approximately 30 minutes to “restore” my eyesight. Right after having back my eyesight, I have had a very painful headache on my left brain. I started to breath faster and deeper, and suddenly I felt very cold. I mildly felt like to throw up and my knees were weak. I was having a headache and fever at the same time I guess. Hence, I decided to take a walk in the hope that it would help and erase the headache. The walk does help to reduce the headache though I guess but it wasn’t an immediate one. The pain was still the same after the walk (in fact, every symptoms remain the same) and I wasn’t so sure should I ride my bike home or not. Anyway, I decided to ride my bike home and I told myself that I have to be 100% focus on the road and temporarily forget about the pain. Surprisingly, not so far form Bedok while on the way home, the pain started to reduce and I started to feel warm a bit. Fortunately, all the symptoms were gone after a hot shower.

 I was so worried about myself when the headache persisted for more than 2 hours. It was the first time that I have had a side-effect after a donation. I had never experienced any sickness which consisted of headache and fever before today. I was worried that something might go wrong during the donation and caused any contaminations in my blood. The consequences might be unimaginable. Now, I’m relief. I have no idea what the root-cause was but, after the hot shower, I highly doubted that it was the donation that causing the problem. Perhaps it was merely a random out-of-the-blue sickness that just happened for the sake of itself.

 Lastly, the moon tonight is big and indeed, very bright.