Back On The Saddle

It's been a long time.

Since my last post, we've migrated to a new country, got pregnant again, went through the vomiting shit again (this time, alone in a foreign country), gave birth again and breastfeeding again. This time, we're going to avoid the stuff that made J1 reactionary and very likely caused his ASD. That decision was a hard one, and it comes with a whole host of other worries.

But yeah, I'm back and it's high time I started writing again to get rid of the gray clouds hanging over my head, thanks to all the life changes above.

Vomiting with the 2nd pregnancy

It's been a while since I've had the time to update this, since the birth of my first son has kept me pretty damned busy for the first year, after which I got a job for another year, and got pregnant again during that time, and gave birth to my second son 5 months ago, after which I quit my job to take care of both of them ... for now.

The bad news is that the vomiting I wrote about with my first pregnancy was also present during my second one. That was how I knew to buy the pregnancy test kit. I drank a Coke and felt the familliar burping / vomiting sensations I learned to dread for 9 months.

The good news was that the vomiting was greatly minimised because I knew the food to avoid, and the food I could keep down. There was still vomiting, though. But for 7 months, instead of the 9 months I had with my first son.

So for fellow sufferers out there, the symptoms seem to get better with subsequent children. That said, I will still kill my husband if I get pregnant again. :)

Pregnant Peeves

There are several things that pissed me off no-end during my pregnancy (aside from all the stupid and embarassing bodily functions that come with it). Here they are :

1. SMOKERS
I hate going out during this pregnancy because of these motherfuckers. Be it at a mamak or at a Starbucks, there's always a shithead sitting nearby with a fucking cancer stick.

Don't get me wrong, I've got smoker friends who are VERY considerate and are very aware of where their smoke goes. When they smoke, I sometimes don't even notice that they're doing it - so discreet and considerate are they. Either that, or they move somewhere else to get their fix, and I really appreciate it.

But most of the assholes in public don't care where their smoke goes. They just puff away, and the smoke always, ALWAYS finds me. It's like they instinctively know where the non-smokers and pregnant women are sitting and position themselves upwind of us. Motherfuckers.

Today, I was having lunch outside, and a Chinese SALESMAN was sitting at the table next to me. He was reading a stupid book filled with stupid Chinese characters, having just finished his food. After I sat down, he took out his cancer stick and kept blowing the smoke RIGHT AT ME! There were a million places he could have blown it, but he aimed it dead centre at me.

After a few not-so-subtle waves of my hand and crinkling of my nose, he still continued. So I finally asked him nicely if he could blow his smoke in another direction, and not at me, because I'm pregnant. Being CHINESE, and a SALESMAN, he obviously didn't understand my request and thought I was asking him to put out the cancer stick.

Instead of being sorry about blowing smoke at me all this while, he actually retorted back, "There are so many empty places here what. Why do you have to sit here??" I couldn't believe my ears. For the sake of my baby, I restrained myself from kicking the table up into his ugly, yellow face.

(In another place, I'd asked an Indonesian worker if he could blow smoke elsewhere, he had the decency to look chagrined, and apologised profusely before complying happily with my request. Malaysians should be ashamed of themselves)

I repeated to the Chinese fucker that he could just blow his smoke away from me, and that would be fine. Piece of shit. He didn't stay long after that. Wish I got a photo of his stupid face. He even had the typical Chinese flat ass. Bloody Chinese SALESMAN.

To all the smokers, if you want to end your life, do it to yourself and don't take me and my baby with you. Assholes.

I hope the government stops in-fighting enough to ban smoking in public places. It's a disgusting habit. And NONE of you look cool doing it. Dumbasses.

"Lookit me. I'm so hawwwt when I smoke ..."

(Pic from http://www.welaf.com/)

2. PEOPLE WHO RUSH INTO THE LIFT BEFORE LETTING YOU OUT FIRST
Self explanatory. Usually, these are Chinese people, too. Hmm. Maybe I should just change my entire list to "CHINESE PEOPLE". Then again, try taking an LRT around town and you'll find this applies to all races and walks of life. Stupid assholes.

I mean, were you born in a barn? If you don't have the brains for common courtesy, common sense at least dictates that you should let the occupants out first, so you'll have enough space to get in, hence avoiding all the squeezing and struggling which will impede your progress into said lift in the first place!

Not to mention that they don't care if you're pregnant. They'll just push their way in, bumping against your poor belly without a second thought. That's when I normally shoulder them roughly out of the way. Good thing I'm bigger than the average scrawny Malaysian male. Assholes.

3. PARENTS WITH DESIGNER PRAMS
Gone are the days when the prams are small, petite little things. They have transformed into a 10-in-1, multifunctional contraption that not only houses drooling infants, but can be used as a car seat, shopping trolley, armoured vehicle or spaceship.

As a result, these parents take up unneccessary amounts of room in shopping complexes and lifts. But what I really hate is that they usually do not watch where they're going because they assume everyone is going to make way for their little prince / princess in their mini Humvees.

I usually don't bother changing direction and walk right into their path. If I get to kick the stupid pram in the process, that's a bonus.

4. OTHER PREGNANT WOMEN
I don't know why. I should be more sympathetic since I am also pregnant, but I find pregnant women very messy looking and clumsy. The stomach is like everywhere, they walk funny, all their joints are ungainly and swollen, they look really sickly and either wear tents or something tight and short because they think it's fashionable to show off their bellies (yuck).

Also, they tend to be grumpier than normal human beings. I had my fair share of unfortunate run ins with grumpy preggos (one of whom was the shampoo girl at my mom's regular salon who tried to rip the hair out of my scalp while washing it), and it's probably conditioned me to hate the very sight of them.

So grumpy

I don't know if it's the weather or if it's my pregnancy hormones.

I'm just so damned grumpy these last few days. I hate everyone: every race, creed, colour, religion ... including my own. Everything is pissing me off.

Moving out of the apartment is really tiring, especially in the 3rd trimester. Feel exhausted from just a small, bit of exertion. And as though I'm not grumpy enough, I'm discovering how shitty it is to live in a condo.

Management won't let me move out at my convenience. It has to be at THEIR convenience. Weekdays, or Sat up to 1pm. I mean, WTF?? Just so happens I can only move out on Sat afternoon. Instead of providing a solution to this problem, they just keep repeating how their bosses won't budge and they must "follow procedure". The 2 exact words that make me want to vomit boiling acid on the face of the motherfucker who said them to me.

Rarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! DIEeee MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRS!

Am so glad I'm moving out of this stupid apartment, with it's stupid rules and it's stupid Building Management who insist on perpetuating flame wars with its residents instead of doing their jobs in making this a safe and pleasant place to LIVE.

Poor, Poor Ovaries

This post has been a long time in the making.

Back in October 2007, I went for an Executive Screening programme at a hospital which shall remain unnamed (you never know who's reading this), just to see how bad a shape my body was in given all the stress it was exposed to at work.

I didn't actually expect them to find anything serious, because I wasn't suffering from any symptoms other than tension headaches and mental burnout. But shit, a chance ultrasound discovered a cyst in my ovaries. Quite a big one, about 4cm in diameter

Some X-Rays and MRIs later, I was scheduled for a laproscopy to remove it. They made 3 little punctures in my tummy and demonstrated just how skilled you have to be to be a surgeon. Not to mention how strong a constitution you must have.

They took a video of the whole thing. But ... but ... I managed to get the video of some other patient to illustrate what happens during the operation. Yes. This is not mine. No. Nope.

So, here's some screen captures of the action. The video starts with them just having made a hole in the belly button and shoving a metal pipe through it so the camera can go through :


Then, another hole is being made by skewering something sharp throgh the right side of the belly. Observe how hard it is to poke through the skin. Argh :


Another metal pipe is shoved through the new hole, to let more implements slide through :

This cool clamp thingy come through the pipe and grabs at the gigantic ovary. You can see the normal-sized one on the right :

OMFG! The cystic ovary is bigger than the damned uterus (the pink, round thing dangling to the right like a testicle down there)!!

A healthy ovary looks like an ugly shrivelled white raisin - ala the small puckered thing on the right. Observe the frightening difference :

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA :

The surgeon uses this cool tool that can clamp things as well as BURN them. He burns a hole in the ovary containing the cyst and yellow puss stuff spews out :


He uses the other clamp to rip open the ovary skin, and more toxic yellow puss oozes out :

More ripping occurs :

The ovary is peeled open like a Mandarin orange. The red lump inside is the cyst, covered in a fleshy bleeding skin :
As the cyst is being pulled out, yellow puss SPURTS out like a fountain :

50% done now, just gotta fully pull apart that "orange" :

The cyst is now out and left to reside in the body cavity, which is now a pool of poisonous yellow puss:

The poor ovary is still bleeding, so the implement is used to cauterise the weeping wounds :


They stuff in a bag to contain the cyst and it's juices when they pop it. Because in case the cyst was cancerous, they can't afford to have any cancerous cells spilling all over the intestines :
Up, up and away. The cyst is deflated and a sample is taken out for a fast biopsy :

They pump in water to clean all the organs of the yellow gunk and blood that came out during the whole process. Meanwhile the biopsy is being done. If the biopsy shows the cyst is cancerous, the whole ovary has to come off !!!
The biopsy shows that the cyst is benign, so the surgeon proceeds to patch up the poor ravaged ovary with a needle and thread :

The thread is purple! My favourite colour! Coooooool :

In such a small space, accidents do happen. The needle stabs the uterus by accident :

After 3 knots, the ovary is left to its own devices to heal : The left ovary is now normal and raisin-like again!

The cyst is cut open, and to my disappointment, there are no teeth inside (which is normally what you find in a Dermoid cyst). Just a clump of hair that you'd find in your shower after not cleaning the drain out for a few months :

Yucky yucky.

Go get yourself checked-up with an ultrasound today! Don't wait for symptoms to show, because usually when Dermoid Cysts are discovered, it's when they get so big it twists the ovary (you're in a lot of pain) and you lose the ovary anyway.

Pool Adventures

Chris was taking shots of the solar eclipse that happened a few weeks ago, and accompanied me for a swim, since the pool afforded a relatively unobstructed view of the sun.

While waiting for the clouds to bugger off, he focused his attention on a more interesting subject. His whale-wife doing laps in the pool.

The tranquility of the blue water was occasionally interrupted by two fingers

Doing the breaststroke & surprising Chris with poses each time I came up for air

Sometimes, shark infested oceans are safer than apartment pools

Pissed off with some inconsiderate Korean kids who threw their slipper into the pool as I was swimming. Waiting for them to fall into the water so I can drown them

"ANYUNGHASEYOO you motherfucking brats!!!!"

Pukey Bear Strikes Again

Lord.

I just wrote a long entry about the things to avoid eating while I'm pregnant, and the minute I decide to break any of my rules, my stomach reminds me why I wrote those them.

One cup of bloody teh tarik (made with MILK of course) and my dinner came out in a big brown mess.

It started with burping out acidic bubbles, and a few minutes later, PUUUUUKE!!!

At least I can eat more now. Even though it's the same stuff day in and day out.

The day of fattening has come ...

How To Avoid Vomiting During Pregnancy

This article is copyright of The Phoenix

My theory is that the strange all-day long vomiting I've been experiencing is caused by bad chemistry between the food and my juices when they mix in my stomach.

Either the chemistry is so bad it upsets the stomach and forces my body to expunge the offending mixture, OR, the chemistry creates so much gas that it pushes the food out before peristalsis has a chance to push it safely down.

A sample of my pain. This is actually the most pleasant looking puke pile I've photographed since this ordeal started

This type of vomiting is not to be confused with regular morning sickness or regular nausea which can be alleviated by keeping your blood sugar levels up. This is NOT the same thing, so it does NOT go away after the 1st trimester.

I am 6 months pregnant now, and it's still here. The vomiting, the nausea, the migraines. Only now, I've learned what the triggers are and how to avoid them.

It's definitely caused by the ever mysterious rise in hormones which plague pregnant women. We then have to listen to helpful statements from everyone like, "No one knows what causes it. Just hang on till 2nd trimester."

Well, what if the vomiting and nausea doesn't stop after entering the 2nd trimester? What then? Same answer. Wait and see. In fact, you become one of the statistics. One of the "1 in 1,000 women" who vomit till they deliver.

Fuck that. Being a statistic doesn't soothe me, or make the experience any better! I have to fucking live with this every hour of every fucking day. There is no reprieve for sufferers. And while it's easy for everyone to say I should wait it out, or it'll be over before I know it, lemme tell you something : You try going through this and see if you can continue to be so fucking dismissive!!

The repeated reflux of acid was affecting my throat and my voice. I was starting to lose weight. I was literally scared to look at food. I'm supposed to enjoy the guilt-free eating that comes with pregnancy, not cringe in a corner at every mealtime. I couldn't even skip meals because an empty stomach would make me vomit, too - but this is more painful because it involves regurgitating sizzling gastric juices.

None of the books I've read helps. There's nothing on the web. And unless you're so sick you need to be put on drip, doctors can't help either. Solutions from modern medicine always involve some form of drugs (which I admit, I would rather continue vomiting than take) or medical equipment, as these solutions are ingrained in them by the bloody greedy drug companies. Forget about natural, nutritional solutions.

So far, I've managed to avoid being admitted to hospital by making sure I experimented, documented and theorised what caused the vomiting. I've not touched any anti-nausea medication or anything synthetic from modern medicine - as long as I'm not vomiting blood, I don't want anything from the drug companies to come near me.

The only reason I'm putting on weight again is because after 4 months of terrified eating-then-vomiting, I've figured out how to minimise my exposure to the Vomit Triggers.

I've actually got it down to a science now. But it's exhausting to keep this up everyday, especially when people around you complain that you're being too anal about it, or that it's all in your head ... until I vomit in front of them. They leave me alone after that.

Now, please note that the following is by no means an exhaustive list, but it's all the stuff I've experimented with and learned the hard way during my pregnancy. I may add to it as I find out more. Feel free to send me suggestions based on your own experiences.

These may or may not work for you, but I figured I'd document this anyway so I'll remember what to do if / when I get pregnant again.

GENERAL TIPS
- Eat a cracker the moment you wake up. Nothing else can keep the empty stomach puking at bay.
- Do not drink any water / liquids while you are eating. Leave the gastric juices undiluted so they can do their work more efficiently. I have vomited out food that I had eaten 6 hours ago, still sitting in my stomach because my diluted juices made digestion even slower.
- Drink very hot or very cold water only 1 - 2 hours after food.
- Allow up to 4 hours to digest the food, depending on what you ate. The digestive tract works much slower during pregnancy.
- Keep yourself upright for as long as possible after eating. Do not lie flat on your back. Side is sometimes ok. During this time, do not bend, double over, lean forward, squat or twist at the waist to do things. Avoid doing anything that twists the digestive tract and might squeeze the food back out.
- Be aware of your stomach for 30min - 1 hour after eating, as the stomach often doesn't get upset immediately and the vomiting usually starts later. You want to be near a toilet when it does.
- Pop a stick of Spearmint or Peppermint chewing gum after food. Literature says it's the mint that helps, but from experience I'd say it's the chewing and production of alkalitic saliva that helps calm and keep down my gastric acids. I go thru a 5-stick pack of gum a day. I've tried taking actual mint sweets (e.g. Eclipse), but they cause more gas to be released, and my food comes up again with the constant burping. It's horrible because you never know which one is going to be a burp, and which one is going to be regurgitated food. (EDIT 19 SEPT 2012: Only chew full flavour gum. NO SUGARFREE. I discovered during my 2nd pregnancy that ASPARTAME makes the nausea and gas and vomiting worse)
- Do not eat fruits right before or after meals. If you must eat, eat one or two pieces after a meal. It creates a lot of gas and uncomfortable acid reflux, and sometimes leads to vomiting. (EDIT 27 OCT 2016 : I'm on my 3rd pregnancy now. I never learned my lesson. This baby is totally different, and a lot of the food I could eat with my earlier 2 pregnancies now make me sick, but meat and steamed or boiled veggies go down pretty well still. No raw veggies! Still no fruits. Fruits are puke and gas city)

FOOD YOU CAN'T EAT
- Pork (roast pork, suckling pig, sweet meat) (EDIT 27 OCT 2016 : 3rd baby survived on roast pork, it was one of the only foods I could eat! But I'm in a different country now, so I suspect it was the seasoning on the pork that made me vomit for the 1st 2 pregnancies .... the pork I'm eating now is only seasoned with salt and brown sauce, none of the Chinese 5 spice seasoning and MSG)
- Chicken. Sometimes ok, but you'll experience a very acidic feeling in your stomach. You will burp sour acid and you will feel sick the whole time it's digesting.
- Beef. Same reason as chicken. (EDIT 27 OCT 2016 : Same as above. Seasoning with salt is fine, goes down well)
- Venison. Similar effects as beef and chicken, but slightly milder.
- Lamb. Apparently Chinese believe this is toxic and no good for the baby. Also, my new superhuman pregnancy nose can't stand the stinky smell.
- Vegetables- Dairy products (Milk or anything containing milk)
- Ice cream
- Milk chocolates
- Cheese (cheddar)
- Coconut or anything containing coconut and all its by-products (e.g. santan). This one feels the worst when being vomited out.
- Nasi Lemak- Sour plums / sum boi. For some strange reason this makes me puke. I suspect it's the body's reaction to too much salt.
- Garlic or anything that contains garlic (Thai Chilli sauce, Nando's Peri Peri sauce, chicken rice from various shops etc...). It leaves a horrible taste in your mouth for a day or so after you bite into a small, diced piece, making the nausea worse.
- Onions. Similar effect as garlic, but not as extreme if eaten raw or pan fried.
- Fried Onions. The type used to garnish or add flavour to porridge and chinese dishes. Very similar effect to garlic.
- Any form of nuts (peanuts, almonds, etc...) - (EDIT 27 OCT 2016 : I survived on peanuts and macadamias on this 3rd pregnancy)
- Fried Sesame seeds
- Bread (white, wholemeal). Causes acidic roiling in stomach.
- Homemade Chicken essence soup
- Chinese food. Usually because of all the MSG and garlic used in preparation. Yuck.
- Oranges
- Apples- Guavas
- Pears. This is intermittent.
- (EDIT 19 SEPT 2012) Anything sugarfree that contains ASPARTAME.

DRINKS YOU CAN'T DRINK
 - Carbonated drinks (Coke, Sprite, Root Beer, Ginger Beer etc ...)
- Coffee
- Milo
- Milk
- Orange juice
- Carrot juice with milk
- Lemon / Lime juice. This causes a lot of gas. (EDIT 19 SEPT 2012) But drinking a small amount, pure & super concentrated, after a meal, tends to help digestion. No sugar.
- Lukewarm water. This seems to join with the bile and unite in volume to expedite the climb out of my throat.


FOOD YOU CAN EAT
- Jacob's high-calcium crackers. Other types of crackers either make me puke or doesn't keep the gastric vomiting at bay.
- Eggs (in any form, but sparingly)
- Potatoes (baked, fried)
- Potato salad (with macaroni & eggs & mayonnaise)
- Chips (especially with tomato sauce)
- Tuna (in water & mayonnaise)
- Fish (steamed, fried)
- Chillis & Tabasco sauce. This includes spicy food made with chilli padi or dried chilli (very spicy & dry char kuey teow, Kin Kin chilli pan mee, Domino's Beef Pepperoni pizza drowned in Tabasco sauce). I was told by a doctor friend that chillis are actually good for upset stomachs as it has been found that chilli blocks acid production and increases blood flow to the stomach tissue which can aid both prevention and healing of ulcers. Epidemiological studies show (don't quote me on this) the incidence of stomach ulceration is three times lower in countries with a high intake of chilli compared with those that don't. Just make sure there is no santan or any form of milk mixed in there, or you'll vomit anyway.
- Selected fruits in small quantities (One persimmon per seating, very sour mangoes, one small banana --- not all at the same time!)
- Selected vegetables (long beans, cauliflower, broccoli)
- Clear soup (Carrot soup, clear Tom Yam soup)
- Campbells' canned mushroom soup (with water, not milk)
- Campbells' canned New England Clam Chowder soup (with water, but sometimes milk is ok too. Go figure)
- Sweet pastries (sponge cake, suji cake, chocolate cake, cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies)

DRINKS YOU CAN DRINK
- Ice cold or boiling hot water. But only in one or two mouthfuls, in between meals. Any more, and you'll puke it out.
- Cold Ribena (not the sparkling type
- (EDIT 27 OCT 2016 : Mineral water. Only certain brands, like Mount Franklin. Spritzer made me puke, makes me wonder if it even IS mineral water. I could not handle anything from the tap, everything made me sick even when filtered or boiled - which now makes me believe that the water I've been drinking all this while is actually not good for my body, since the fetus rejected it)


I'll add more to this list as I remember it.


DISCLAIMER : Given the high amount of search hits for this post (and the number of people who apparently don't know how to READ), I repeat : This is what worked for ME, to stop my vomiting and help me put on weight during pregnancy. This is not an optimal pregnancy diet, and it may not work for you. You should check everything with your own doctor (d-uh).

EDIT 1 July 2015 : My son, Condor 1, whom I was pregnant with in this article, has been diagnosed with mild autism. Now, I do not know whether the autism has external causes (it's a sensitive topic that I won't go into here, but I am sure that it was external causes), or whether the lack of nutrition he got during pregnancy had a hand in it. It's unlikely to be the lack of nutrition, as my own doctor said that the fetus takes all it needs from the mother, and my vomiting hurt ME more than the baby (cuz all my nutrition stores had gone to the baby, and I had none for myself).

BUT .... I think about it all the time, and I want whomever that reads this to have this information so they can make their own choices. 

To balance out this info, my second son, whom I also used this diet for, got a hell lot more nutrition cuz this time I wasn't puking everything out in the first trimester, and I actually gained 7kg, instead of the 2kg I gained with my first son. And my 2nd son does NOT have autism, and is in fact highly intelligent and naughty as hell.

EDIT 27 Oct 2016 : I just had my 3rd child. What the fuck, right? Why am I allowing myself to suffer like this again for the THIRD time?!?! Anyway, a lot of the food I could eat, is now food I can't eat, so I had to test and start all over. I made ammendments above where they were different. This pregnancy made me realise a lot of the vomiting isn't just the food, but also what's been added to it! So keep your food as natural and wholesome as possible (i.e. don't add too many sauces, seasonings etc) and make sure it's all cooked, cuz raw stuff like veggies are harder to digest and upset your tummy more at this stage.

It's still early days, but Condor 3 appears to be neurotypical and doesn't have the markers that Condor 1 had at his age, so here's hoping he's fine.