Birthday Treat - Cambodia

Besides my usual day at the spa on my birthday, I decided to go away in my birthday month. The destination.....Cambodia!

This trip is 10 years overdue. I first booked to visit Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in May 2002. It was cancelled at the last minute as my grandmother was ill then. Despite always wanting to go see Angkor Wat, the trip never materialized.

So I finally decided to just do it end of last year. I asked around my friends to see who would be interested and found 2 friends who were equally keen.

And 10 years later, I will finally get to see Angkor Wat in all its glory this weekend. It will be a short trip as I am only covering Siem Reap. Maybe it is also good that I am going now instead of in 2002. It seemed like it is much more tourist-friendly and has more things and activities now.

We shall see. I am so excited to explore somewhere new and to soak in the culture and history of Cambodia.

2012 Birthday at The Fat Cat

I have heard a lot about The Fat Cat over at Jalan Riang and I always wanted to try, especially after I went to Jules Cafe which is just next door. The concept is similar to Bar Bar Black Sheep at Bukit Timah area where it served 3 types of cuisines - Indian, Thai and Western (French/Italian) - from 3 different stalls.

I decided to go with healthy as I had Indian food for 2 consecutive days and I really needed to stay off the rich gravy and fatty stuff. I ordered the baked sea bass with balsamic sauce and roasted potatoes and broccoli. I also had French Onion soup.

The soup was a light clear broth with slices of cooked onions and a slice of bread topped with cheese. It was so-so, not the best I had. The sea bass was fabulous. The meat was fresh, moist and sweet. It went very well with the buttery broccoli and roast potatoes.

I cheated on the diet (well with the super sweet tequila sunrise, I had cheated) and tried the butter prawn and butter chicken with garlic naan (pinched from friends' orders) and also had tastings of the duck red curry, rojan josh and basil chicken and tealeave salad. All pretty good.

I actually went to work in the morning instead of taking the whole day off. I had the afternoon off and spent it at the spa and hair salon. No birthday lunch with cousin as I was counting calories, plus I still could not chew much, so the food would be wasted if we went for our usual Japanese food.

After spending over 3 hours at the spa, I felt too kneaded and tired to do that. I don't think I want to do so much treatments in a day now - massage, steam bath, facial and then foot massage were too tiring at the end of it :p

I tried a new salon to perm my hair. The result was pretty good. The stylist did side parting for me, back to what I used to have when I was a teenager. It made quite a big difference. The curls were softer and he did inner texturizing of my hair so that it would not be too big at the bottom. So far most of my friends love it :)

A new look for the new year and birthday. Fantastic!

A Kilo A Week

The surgery was on Wednesday and it went well enough. The roots were curved which explained why it was not that possible to extract using conventional methods. The pain was extreme once the anaesthesia wore off and it took a while for the painkillers to kick in.

The wound was bleeding and it took 4 gauze change before I decided to just remove it and try to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to find my tongue pushed against the wound and swallowed a bit of the blood. But I found out the tongue and saliva were natural wound healer. It stopped the bleeding and created blood clot more effectively than the gauze. The human body is a wonderful work of God.

I also realized now why saliva can heal. I have read about using saliva to as a salve when getting paper cuts, that it is a natural healing agent. It did not occur to me that it is necessary until now, with my surgery. Saliva will help any wound in the gum to heal faster, plus it is also a natural antiseptic.

I am not in that much pain now, but that could be due to me taking the painkiller religiously every 6 hours. I did not want to let the pain set in at all.

The silver lining for this teeth stuff is that maybe I can finally lose some weight. The excess weight I have been carrying around for the last few years. As the gum is healing (still soft gooey), I am taking extra care not to have food at that area. So it has been a soft diet of yogurt and porridge and some other soft food. I can still chew but need to do so in small bites and very slowly.

So far I have lost 2 kgs since the first tooth pain in early January. I did not eat much during CNY and I am also doing calorie counting. Calorie counting really helps to create awareness of the food I am taking in. So hopefully I can continue with this weight loss. My goal is 1 kg a week.

I know I will hit a plateau after a while, then I will need to step up on the exercises. But in the meantime, reducing calories is helping.

Not a great 2012

I don't think 2012 has gotten off to a great start for me. I think getting old is really the pits and it is also when the body starts to break down.

Earlier in January, I thought my filling came out of the tooth or something as there was a sharp sudden pain which did not go away. I could not sleep and panadol did not work. Finally went to see the dentist a few days later for emergency check up. Turned out it was a root canal problem, the nerve pain was common and painkiller would not work.

The dentist said my tooth was cracked (worn out teeth from grinding) and bacteria from food probably got down to the root canal and infected it. So he performed a root canal treatment to remove the infected area. Shocker! I was so not prepared at all. Then he set me the options of treatments to arrest the problem.

1. See the root canal specialist to remove the last root canal (usually 4 root canals in the molar, and the 4th one is microscopic) and to check if the tooth can be saved.

2. If tooth can be saved, then I can do a crowning and then get mouth guard to protect the other teeth from future chips and cracks.

3. If tooth cannot be saved, extraction is need. Then I have a choice to get a) implant, b) bridging or c) denture.

Denture is not recommended as it is uncomfortable and not suitable for my age as I am still young.

Bridging will affect the other 2 neighboring teeth and 3 crowns are needed.

Implant is the best recommended solution for long term care, plus I still need to get my grinding under control.

So I was scheduled to see the root canal specialist yesterday. When I was in there, it turned out the crack had fractured the tooth. The specialist told me I would need to remove the fractured bit so that he could assess the tooth and how deep the crack was.

After the removal (just 1/4 of the molar and it left quite a big gap), he thought the tooth could be saved. But my dentist would need to reduce the gum space via surgery so that the crown could fit over the section. However when my dentist saw the damage and did his assessment, he said it was best not to save the tooth. Reason being he would need to shave a considerable amount of gum and expose the bone. There would be a gap between teeth which would be hard to brush and bacteria would infect the area in the long run. Plus it would also affect the neighboring teeth and might affect the bone density. So he recommended to extract the tooth.

What a blow. I was stunned to hear that and could barely think. So I was shuttled off to another dentist who specialized in extraction and implant. I could never deal with pain and everyone could tell I was really nervous and scared and tense.

I really did not want to extract my tooth as it is relatively healthy. The dentist tried to extract, I could feel him pulling and tugging with all his might. Every time he pulled, I thought he managed to get it out or loose, but he did not. In the end, he said the roots are too deep in and he would need to do a surgery to remove it.

He said I could do it then or do it another day. I opted for another day as I was just not prepared for it.

Thank God for the topical anaesthesia and 3 injections that I did not really feel the pain when the fractured bit was extracted and when the tugging was done. I could not imagine what the pain would be like without anaesthesia.

But once the anaesthesia wore off, the pain was unbearable. A dull throbbing pain and ache. To make matter worse, I lost the strong painkiller I was given. I had to go back to the clinic to get more arcoxia. Luckily someone was still around when I called as it was after office hours by then. I managed to get the painkiller and spoke to my regular dentist.

We decided to do a temporary mouth guard too as the implant will take 4-9 months to complete and I want something to protect my other worn out teeth after the extraction. With a big hole (the molar is super big), chewing will be tough as I will likely be using only 1 side of teeth to eat as per what I am doing now.

So yes, my dental work is going to occupy at least half the year for me.

Bottomline: Wear a mouth guard. I sure did not expect this to happen and it is like the worst thing to happen to me now.

Besides teeth, I think my eyesight is also getting worse. It could be due to work where I looked at computer screen whole day or from my ipad. I just feel I cannot see as well now.

The warning sign came when I realized I cannot see the signboards when I drove at night. What a danger it was. Thank God I managed to make it home ok, but after making some wrong turns.

So after the teeth, I will need to make an appointment with an eye specialist to check if my eyes are ok. I am so not looking forward to it.

The optometrist I went to for my last prescription said I could not see sharply because of my aging eyes. I am not sure I buy that theory but since I could still see with my old pair of glasses, I ignored it. Until now.

More cost to follow.

I wonder what other problems will start to surface too. It is just so terrible....to know the body is kinda falling apart after 30. And I thought getting grey hair was the pits after 30 :(

MIA

I know I have been "MIA" or sporadic in posting now. Somehow time just gets away from me, plus my camera was not taking sharp images. I finally bought a new Canon Ixus 220 and it is fabulous. Pictures are sharper and the auto-detection is very useful.

Hopefully I can set aside more time to post at least once a week, if not more often. Until then...