30 June 2011

Neurosuit 

Charlene was awake for her physiotherapy in KKH today. As Dez is around, I told the physiotherapist to try the neurosuit (http://www.neurosuitasia.com/) for Charlene again. The first time we tried on a sleeping Charlene, she was extremely upset and cried loudly...

But today, the wide awake Charlene was receptive to the neurosuit and was willing to try to lift her head and did quite a bit of head and neck control exercises. Will try to upload video...   

27 June 2011

School reopens!
Thank God for answering all my prayers!
We took the school bus that went round the whole of Yishun and Charlene was smiling non-stop throughout the 30min bumpy ride... Nothing eventful (such as vomitting) happened, cos Charlene has motion sickness.
Charlene joined a new class with 5 other classmates. Previously, she was alone in the class. She is obviously happy to have new friends with her as she smiled happily for the first 25 mins. She also chose the spider over the flurry star once again.
But, perhaps due to 25 mins of sitting on the chair (with me supporting her neck and back), she was tired out and had fits. After that she was tired out and slept. She slept through the whole of hydrotherapy again and only woke up during bathing. Though there are difficulties, I am still thankful that I was able to manage Charlene by myself. Will pray and look forward to the day that Charlene is able to sit up by herself and hold her head up so that I can give her a ride on the bicycle to school....

21st June 2011

I never thought that we would be able to meet anyone in the online MPEI support group in real life and in Singapore! 

It is really great to meet up with Andrew Mhyre - father of Katelyn and to update each other of our daughters' progress. It is just so good to be able to connect with each other, to understand and know what we as well as our daughters are going through! 

Thank you to everyone on the MPEI support group. Your support, comments and advice are greatly appreciated. :)

19 June 2011

19 June was a special day for us.

It's Dez's birthday and his first father day.

It's also our YMM membership reception day, declaring that we will grow strong in faith in YMM.

This is also our first time attending YMM's family day... an outdoor event!

It was a hectic day, bec we weren't sure how long it would take to go to YMM from our house... so we reached  earlier than usual. After that membership reception, we have to rushed home to feed Charlene. Thank God that Rus and Thomas gave us a ride back. and we were able to reach the event on time!

The event was held at a park in Woodlands. It was super hot... but our dear Charlene was able to sleep through the event. Probably was too hot, so her energy was sapped. Nonetheless we were happy to be able to bring charlene out for an outdoor event. It's a first for us! Praise God!

17 - 18 Jun 2011 - The Unpacking

The next 2 days were spent on unpacking our belongings, putting them in the appropriate place, sorting out the logistics arrangement, etc etc...

My mother came and brought us some utensils. She also helped out in some of the cleaning of the bowls and stuffs... After she left, we continued to do the sweeping, moping... 

work work work.

Now that we have our new place, we have to do everything by ourselves. It can be time-consuming, but its a cheerful price to pay for our personal space. We are kinda proud that the move and the unpacking was done by mainly the 2 of us. =)

And throughout the 2 days, Charlene was sleeping in the afternoon. She seems to be aware that we needed to do household chores, and she decided to help us by giving us time to do so. Smart girl... =)

though that means that she was awake at night (3 pm)... making us all more tired... 

16 Jun 2011 - The Move

We engaged a professional mover (Shalom Movers) for the move.

Thank God that the company didn't have a slot for the 8am slot. Because we wanted that slot actually, but it was not available. On hind sight, we would not have been able to finish the preparation by 8am. God must have guided us on this.

They came puncutally at 2pm. They were very, very efficient. They shifted all the 20boxes within 1 hour, including dismantling the bed, and wrapping the big furniture pieces. Dez was in charge of overseeing their job, while I waited with a sleeping Charlene in our soon-to-be-old home.

Everything was shifted into our new house by 4pm. We were very impressed and felt that it was the right decision to do so. Not only did it saved us time, it saved us a lot of effort. We were able to do the shifting with only 2 us involved... if we have gotten our friends, we probably need a lot more ppl.

After we pushed Charlene to our new home, Dez and I quickly worked out a system for Charlene's milk preparation and medicine preparation. 

We also quickly unpack the boxes for essential stuffs...

In the end, we slept very late at around 10 plus.

And our dear Charlene decided to wake up at 3 plus demanding our attention... we were exhausted.

But it's a fruitful day, because its a day that the Lord has made for us... and we have our new home!

8 Jun - 15 Jun 2011 - Packing for the shift

After much packing, and coordinating between our ID (repairing stuff) and our movers, we finally fix a move-in date on 16 Jun.

It took me 2 weeks to do the necessary packing.  Dez helped out during the weekends. All together we have about 20 boxes of stuffs to shift. We were very surprised with the amount of things that we accumulated over 3 years...

Besides the packing, we also have to shop for the necessary miscellaneous stuff such as utensils, containers (to keep charlene's med), detergent, mop, etc.... We also have to allocate time to clean the house, buy a new laptop (so that I can do work in the room when Charlene's sleeping), purchase the broadband plan, test out the modem, etc.... It was tiring and draining to do all these by ourselves (mostly, cos Dez's bro helped out in searching for the best laptop and broadband pricing). We often have to split up to maximise time.

We could have got help from my parents or parents-in-law. We could have got help from our cell-members or our friends, who had volunteered their services. But we choose not to... because we want to learn to be independent. And in a way, it was fulfilling to see our house being prepared by us step-by-step.

Besides independence, we also learnt to trust in the Lord... because we depend on Him for his guidance and energy level to tide us through this busy period.

With God, all things are possible!

P.S. We apologise for the long delay in updating the blog... we were so busy with the packing and shifting that we didn't have time to sit down and update the blog.

Renovation Completed!

We thank God that we found a reliable and responsible contractor whose quote is reasonable.

Our renovation work is almost completed. The color feature walls are good. The bomb shelter is outstanding. And the lights are pretty, bright and reasonably priced!

We also thank God that my friends Cady and Huishan recommended places that sell cheap electrical appliances; Ban Kim Chuan and Maximum Credit.

We thank God that we got a dining table that we are very happy with. A wooden dining table with a tempered glass top, which is small, compact and kawaii.

We also thank our cell group for buying us nice crosses so that we can hang them during house blessings!

7 June 2011

Dez and I went to Rainbow School to attend hydrotherapy enrichment session with Charlene. During the theory session, Charlene was smiling happily. As it was the holidays, the pool was not heated up and was as cold as the public pool. Charlene was clearly unhappy with the cold water and was whining... We did a few simple exercises in the water with her. And about an hour later (when everyone else was still in the water), Charlene shivered so much that we have to bring her to bathe. Once she gets the warm water, she stops whining immediately. And when bath ended, she started again till she got dressed and wrapped up snugly in her pram.

6 June 2011

Charlene broke her uncle's heart by sneezing and turning her head away from him when he greeted her. He was so hurt that he dashed into the bathroom to bathe immediately!

Dear Charlene had only done that to her Daddy previously especially when he comes home after work (drenched in sweat and smelly). Uncle used to laugh at Daddy that he was smelly.

Haha, this is a rather good and simple method to get Charlene to turn to her left (which she normally will not do so willingly).

Our Baptism

Our Baptism

Do u believe in spiritual forces?
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In the morning, we attended service and had holy communion. It was raining heavily before worship and service. That made it more difficult for us to travel to worship/service and to rush back home to feed charlene, before we can go to baptism. Timing was very tight... but God is good! The rain stopped when we were going home after service. Once we reached home, the rain resumed almost immediately.

There was some issue that cropped up from our family side which could have prevented us from going to the baptism. But God is good, cos he helped us resolve the issue!

Then while changing Charlene into her new clothes (to signify a new life in Christ), she vomited. Charlene seldom vomits these days. We spent additional time cleaning her up. Thank God that we have spare new clothes to change her into.

When we reached the pick-up location, there was no sight of the bus. We knew it has left. Pastor Tim called and said they have arranged for people to pick us up. Dez was quite anxious and was contemplating to take cab. But I told him that the church has made arrangements so let's just wait. To our surprise, Rev Ngiam and Pastor Cynthia appeared to pick us up. As the 2 of them were key persons for the baptism ceremony, we would definitely be on time =)

Considering the fact that Bukit Timah was flooding and that baptism location was at 6th Avenue, we weren't sure whether the roads would be blocked. But Rev Ngiam and Pastor Cynthia managed to get advanced notice of the roads that were flooded. Thank God for YMM!

Charlene vomitted again in the car, we were able to use the cloth to prevent Charlene's vomit from damaging Pastor Cynthia's car. Two vomiting within a short span of 1 hour... its very rare for Charlene now. But the 2 of us took it in our stride, because this is the day that the Lord has made, and we choose to rejoice in it!

We thank God that the Holy Spirit broke down the defensive walls of Des's parents and they decided to witness the baptism ceremony. They were initially reluctant, but Des prayed hard and God must have intervened to open their hearts. We will continue to pray for our family and that they will come to know God our Redeemer!

We like to thank God for his wonderful grace and mercy today. We faced numerous obstacles today before our baptism, but through God's grace and the support of YMM members, we are able to complete this important ceremony.

To end it off, we are attaching 2 pictures of the t-shirts that we wore after baptism... Rev Ngiam asked us to wear a new t-shirt to signify a new beginning... and we took her guidance seriously =P

3 June 2011

3 June 2011
Charlene was smiling happily at Dr Natalie throughout the whole visit. Dr Natalie kept telling Charlene how special she is. She is very happy and pleased to see Charlene's progress. Charlene can smile now. Charlene can make noise. And Charlene shows awareness and will make purposeful action such as 'calling' for attention when she is neglected. Dr Natalie also commented that Charlene's tracking has improved!

She said that I do not know how rare it is for children with severe disability to be growing well and having a weight within the 50th percentile. She said that it is a testament of how much care Charlene is getting. I said that it is because God sustains her. So Dr Natalie told Charlene that Jesus loves her!

Then Dr Natalie told us that she is leaving the hospital. However, she kept reassuring me that she is not deserting us and gave me her private mobile number. She also said that I am her friend and can continue to call and SMS her whenever I need medical help! Thank you Lord Jesus for sending Dr Natalie who has been a great blessing in our lives!

Charlene went on the MRT to and back. She was wide awake on the journey and was listening and processing info on the MRT. Thank you Lord Jesus!