Today (27th Nov), I went for my 2nd review for my Lasik surgery. The review was by a senior optometrist. According to her, my power is about 25 on each side. My left eye is healing slower than my right eye, thus the blurness in my left eye. But she said it should get well in about 2 months time. The flaps are healing, so there's not risk of infection. I still have to avoid contact sport for about a month though. Even for swimming, I can only do it after around 14th Dec.
In any case, I must say that I'm having good vision when I use both eyes anyway. The constant irritation in my left eye has died down for quite a few days now. I must say I'm quite happy with the Lasik surgery.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Feeling down
Have you ever felt down without even knowing why? I've been feeling that the whole day. Maybe it's exams stress... But I don't really know what is it. Feeling so down that I can't really bring myself to study. Sigh... Hopefully it'll blow away soon.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Screwed up
My first attempt at conducting was... well... screwed up. I kept losing the beat/count/tempo/whatever you call it, and had to keep trying to catch it back. One of the songs, I even missed out a repeat part and just ended it without the repetition.
Of course, this doesn't mean that I'll just give up on conducting. Like it or not, I've stepped up to this role, and I can only go forward. Messed up once, I'll just have to try again lor... Messed up many times, also like that lor... I'll just have to practice on my own more, I guess. I can only believe in the Chinese saying: 先天不足 後天努力.
Well... Many more weeks of conducting to go. Hopefully I'll be able to get the hang of it soon enough.
Of course, this doesn't mean that I'll just give up on conducting. Like it or not, I've stepped up to this role, and I can only go forward. Messed up once, I'll just have to try again lor... Messed up many times, also like that lor... I'll just have to practice on my own more, I guess. I can only believe in the Chinese saying: 先天不足 後天努力.
Well... Many more weeks of conducting to go. Hopefully I'll be able to get the hang of it soon enough.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Backup Conductor? Me?
For those of you who don't know this, I'm actually in one of the choir groups in my church. We have a few choirs, one for each mass timing.
Not too recently, there have been some news of the possibility of our current conductor (Roland) leaving us to take up his old role as conductor of another choir. But no one stepped up to learn from the current conductor to take up the role in the case of Roland leaving. Even if Roland do not leave us (and I do hope he'll stay), he'll need some backup conductors. In our current situation, he's so indispensible, I was saying that he can't even fall sick.
While there were small talks about who can be conductor if Roland leaves, there were no concrete meetings/discussions etc. Then Roland comes and ask me to conduct! What?!?! Me?!?! No musical background, no formal training, newbie to music. Ask me to conduct?!?! And Gladys second-ed him some more. Maybe I should have just shut my mouth and had that quick chat with him about having backup conductors.
Luckily, after I decided to send out an email to ask for people to step forward, another girl (Jo), joined the league of conducting. She actually has some musical background, since she was in a school band before. Maybe if Roland had approached her earlier, then I wouldn't have been asked, and I wouldn't be in this situation! Then again, maybe it was because of my talking to Roland that spurred Roland to ask her. I don't know which came first.
Well... Since there is Jo to help out too, with her musical background, maybe I can quietly push for her to do more and disappear quietly into the background. WAHAHA. (P.S. Jo, if you actually read this, please ignore the above sentence. Take it as you didn't see it. Haha).
Something else I just realised. Both Jo and I are born in the year of the pig. So are we the pigs to be sent to be slaughtered? Roland is not born in the year of the pig, or we'll end up having the choir being conducted by "The Three (Little) Pigs".
Not too recently, there have been some news of the possibility of our current conductor (Roland) leaving us to take up his old role as conductor of another choir. But no one stepped up to learn from the current conductor to take up the role in the case of Roland leaving. Even if Roland do not leave us (and I do hope he'll stay), he'll need some backup conductors. In our current situation, he's so indispensible, I was saying that he can't even fall sick.
While there were small talks about who can be conductor if Roland leaves, there were no concrete meetings/discussions etc. Then Roland comes and ask me to conduct! What?!?! Me?!?! No musical background, no formal training, newbie to music. Ask me to conduct?!?! And Gladys second-ed him some more. Maybe I should have just shut my mouth and had that quick chat with him about having backup conductors.
Luckily, after I decided to send out an email to ask for people to step forward, another girl (Jo), joined the league of conducting. She actually has some musical background, since she was in a school band before. Maybe if Roland had approached her earlier, then I wouldn't have been asked, and I wouldn't be in this situation! Then again, maybe it was because of my talking to Roland that spurred Roland to ask her. I don't know which came first.
Well... Since there is Jo to help out too, with her musical background, maybe I can quietly push for her to do more and disappear quietly into the background. WAHAHA. (P.S. Jo, if you actually read this, please ignore the above sentence. Take it as you didn't see it. Haha).
Something else I just realised. Both Jo and I are born in the year of the pig. So are we the pigs to be sent to be slaughtered? Roland is not born in the year of the pig, or we'll end up having the choir being conducted by "The Three (Little) Pigs".
Saturday, November 17, 2007
5th day of Lasik
Just realised that this is our 100th post! Wow. Anyway, my left eye is still irritated even after these few days. So this afternoon, when Gladys went for her 1st review, I asked Dr Marc Tay to take a quick look at my left eye. He said that it's because the edges of the flap are a bit rough. Sometimes it happens while it's healing because of the cut. It's like scarring, but he assured that it's OK and it'll go away after some time when it heals up. But I must say that Dr Tay was really nice to take a look at my eye. And he really took quite a good look at it. Cheryl was quite concerned when I told her (before seeing Dr Tay) that my eye had the irritated feeling consistently. She also suggested that I ask Dr Tay.
Gladys just pointed out something. Our near vision is actually now affected. We can't see clearly things that are very close to our eyes. I wonder if it's a permanent effect from Lasik. But it doesn't affect our reading or daily life. If it's about a finger length away from my eyes, I still can see it. Any nearer, it'll get blurred. Hopefully won't affect our "lao hua" next time.
OK. Gladys told me that normal eyesight SHOULDN'T be able to see so upclose. So that means it's actually because we were myopic that we were able to see so upclose, and now we can't see so upclose with our corrected eyesight.
Gladys just pointed out something. Our near vision is actually now affected. We can't see clearly things that are very close to our eyes. I wonder if it's a permanent effect from Lasik. But it doesn't affect our reading or daily life. If it's about a finger length away from my eyes, I still can see it. Any nearer, it'll get blurred. Hopefully won't affect our "lao hua" next time.
OK. Gladys told me that normal eyesight SHOULDN'T be able to see so upclose. So that means it's actually because we were myopic that we were able to see so upclose, and now we can't see so upclose with our corrected eyesight.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Worried about my left eye
OK. Now I'm worried about my left eye. Just read a post by someone else about her left eye. She kept having blurred vision in her left eye. Apparently her cornea didn't heal evenly on the surface, and she had to go for Wave-Front to correct it. Additional money for the op as well. Scary... Some more it was by Dr Marc Tay as well. Praying hard...
http://sunnysideup24.blogspot.com/search/label/LASIK%202007
http://sunnysideup24.blogspot.com/search/label/LASIK%202007
Lasik - David
OK. We told very few people about this, simply because it came very suddenly anyway. I had Lasik done on Tuesday! And Gladys is doing hers this coming Friday.
What happened was that we had been planning to go for Lasik some time in December, so we decided to go for a pre-evaluation at this Lasik Surgery Centre at Paragon on Monday. Little did we know that the surgery is supposed to be best done ASAP after the pre-evaluation when the data they have is still fresh, just in case the eyes might have changed slightly after weeks. So, if it was to be done before my exams, of cos the earlier the better, so that I'll have time to rest before my exams. My exams are about 2 weeks later, and the CEO (a German Chinese) assured me that it should be fine by then. So, I just booked the surgery for the very next day, which was Tuesday.
As for Gladys, as SGH requires her to give the diagnosis for any MC, she couldn't go for the op and rest based on MC. So she had to arrange it on this Fri after work as she's off on Sat, and then go back to work on Sun.
During the evaluation, we were put through a whole lot of tests. Look into this machine, hold still there blah blah. Test eyesight blah blah. There was even this part where they put some dilation eye drops and our near-sightedness was affected. After all the tests, we had a consultation with the doctor who would advise us on which kind of operation to go for, as there was the standard one (cheapest, S$2400 before GST), the Wave-front (a.k.a. customised) one (S$3500 before GST) and Epi-Lasik (most expensive, S$3788 before GST).
Gladys did some research before booking, and asked for Dr Marc Tay, supposed to be the best among the 3 surgeons there. He's a very nice guy. And indeed, he was the medical director, so should be the most senior among the three. And he IS a very nice guy. He looks Eurasian, quite handsome. He suggested standard to both of us. He explained to me that although Wave-front would get rid of my astig better, it would clear more of my cornea away, not leaving any space for me. Standard one would allow me to do Lasik in the future again in case I want to do the Lau Hua Lasik etc. Of course, I would like to do the standard one due to the "space" (as he put it) and the price.
So, anyway, Tuesday 2pm was my appointment time for the operation. My mom wasn't working and went with me. I went to the preparation room at 2pm, got ready and just waited. Was I scared or what. I was fidgeting around in my seat. The nurses were quite nice though. I should type another entry about the place itself.
Finally my turn came at about 3:30pm. I was asked to go into the operating theatre and lie down on those chair that's like those in dental clinics except it's flatter. The doctor first dropped some eye drops into my eyes, and then dropped the anaesthetic eye drops. He then started the operation on the right eye. He covered my left eye and put a plastic sheet over my right eye to pull back the eye lashes. He then put an instrument to hold my eye lids open, during which he kept apologising for the discomfort (such a nice guy). He put this suction thingy over my right eye to suck up the cornea flap, I think, and my vision blacked out. Then there was this buzzing sound, which I have no idea what was it. Perhaps cutting my cornea flap? Before I know it, he was pulling back my cornea flap. I could see it happening as he brushed the flap, but I couldn't feel a thing. After which, I was told to focus on a red light and the laser started. It lasted about 40 seconds or so, during which he kept assuring me. There was a burning smell and some tapping sounds, which he already mentioned before the op. In fact, he let me hear the sound of the laser before the op started. Soon, he was covering my cornea flap back and put a piece of zero-degree contact lense over my eye to protect the flap. Then it was on to my left eye!
I must say that it was much faster and less scarier than I thought. My left eye was more problematic though. The anaesthetic was starting to wear off and I could feel a slight pain when he put the instrument to hold my eye lids open. He apologised, asked me to bear with it just a little while and loosened the grip of the instrument. During the putting back of the flap, he took a much longer time than with my right eye. Well... My left eye was still feeling discomfort as of yesterday, whereas my right eye was feeling perfectly fine the morning after the op.
The procedure ended at about 3:45pm and I was out! I was given eye shields to cover my eyes, which I had to use for the whole of that day and whenever I sleep for the first 3 days to prevent me from rubbing my eyes. When I was out, my eyes were very uncomfortable, went red, and kept tearng. Somehow, I was the only one like that whereas the other patients seemed OK. Perhaps my eyes were really sensitive or Dr Tay didn't put that much anaesthetic eye drops as compared to others. Cheryl (the CEO), who attended to Gladys and me asked after me and passed me tissue paper. By the time Gladys arrived (at almost 5pm), I was much better already. After Gladys booked her appointment, we went off to take a cab back.
For the first day, I had to drop this anti-biotics eye drops hourly whenever I was awake, and 4 times a day for the first 10 days. And I also had to drop this Refresh Plus eyedrops every 2 hoursly for the first month or so. I think I'll do so for the first 2 weeks, and reduce from then on. The eyedrops are very expensive!
After dinner, I took a sleeping pill (we were given 3 to help us sleep for the first day as we were supposed to sleep as much as possible, and discomfort might prevent us from sleeping). I really slept quite well till about 2+am when I woke up just for a while before falling asleep again. Woke up at 6am to prepare to go for my 1st review at 8am. By then, I could see without my specs, although not to say very clear. Dr Tay removed the contact lenses, looked at my eyes and told me that there were no problems with my flaps. First day was supposed to have only about 75% vision, which I found to be not bad already.
Today, my vision is still slightly blurred, but much improved. It's supposed to get up to 90% over 2 to 3 days, and slowly recover in about a week. The fact that I could use the computer yesterday already shows that my vision is not bad already. But my left eye was still slightly uncomfortable up to this morning. It's getting better though, so hopefully nothing wrong with it. Just that it's taking longer than my right eye to heal. My right eye's got perfect vision already. Just my left eye.
Here's a pic of me on the first day when I got home after my op. The Ultraman eyes:
Here's the stuff I had to use for my eyes.
If anyone's interested in Lasik, let us know and we can share our experience.
What happened was that we had been planning to go for Lasik some time in December, so we decided to go for a pre-evaluation at this Lasik Surgery Centre at Paragon on Monday. Little did we know that the surgery is supposed to be best done ASAP after the pre-evaluation when the data they have is still fresh, just in case the eyes might have changed slightly after weeks. So, if it was to be done before my exams, of cos the earlier the better, so that I'll have time to rest before my exams. My exams are about 2 weeks later, and the CEO (a German Chinese) assured me that it should be fine by then. So, I just booked the surgery for the very next day, which was Tuesday.
As for Gladys, as SGH requires her to give the diagnosis for any MC, she couldn't go for the op and rest based on MC. So she had to arrange it on this Fri after work as she's off on Sat, and then go back to work on Sun.
During the evaluation, we were put through a whole lot of tests. Look into this machine, hold still there blah blah. Test eyesight blah blah. There was even this part where they put some dilation eye drops and our near-sightedness was affected. After all the tests, we had a consultation with the doctor who would advise us on which kind of operation to go for, as there was the standard one (cheapest, S$2400 before GST), the Wave-front (a.k.a. customised) one (S$3500 before GST) and Epi-Lasik (most expensive, S$3788 before GST).
Gladys did some research before booking, and asked for Dr Marc Tay, supposed to be the best among the 3 surgeons there. He's a very nice guy. And indeed, he was the medical director, so should be the most senior among the three. And he IS a very nice guy. He looks Eurasian, quite handsome. He suggested standard to both of us. He explained to me that although Wave-front would get rid of my astig better, it would clear more of my cornea away, not leaving any space for me. Standard one would allow me to do Lasik in the future again in case I want to do the Lau Hua Lasik etc. Of course, I would like to do the standard one due to the "space" (as he put it) and the price.
So, anyway, Tuesday 2pm was my appointment time for the operation. My mom wasn't working and went with me. I went to the preparation room at 2pm, got ready and just waited. Was I scared or what. I was fidgeting around in my seat. The nurses were quite nice though. I should type another entry about the place itself.
Finally my turn came at about 3:30pm. I was asked to go into the operating theatre and lie down on those chair that's like those in dental clinics except it's flatter. The doctor first dropped some eye drops into my eyes, and then dropped the anaesthetic eye drops. He then started the operation on the right eye. He covered my left eye and put a plastic sheet over my right eye to pull back the eye lashes. He then put an instrument to hold my eye lids open, during which he kept apologising for the discomfort (such a nice guy). He put this suction thingy over my right eye to suck up the cornea flap, I think, and my vision blacked out. Then there was this buzzing sound, which I have no idea what was it. Perhaps cutting my cornea flap? Before I know it, he was pulling back my cornea flap. I could see it happening as he brushed the flap, but I couldn't feel a thing. After which, I was told to focus on a red light and the laser started. It lasted about 40 seconds or so, during which he kept assuring me. There was a burning smell and some tapping sounds, which he already mentioned before the op. In fact, he let me hear the sound of the laser before the op started. Soon, he was covering my cornea flap back and put a piece of zero-degree contact lense over my eye to protect the flap. Then it was on to my left eye!
I must say that it was much faster and less scarier than I thought. My left eye was more problematic though. The anaesthetic was starting to wear off and I could feel a slight pain when he put the instrument to hold my eye lids open. He apologised, asked me to bear with it just a little while and loosened the grip of the instrument. During the putting back of the flap, he took a much longer time than with my right eye. Well... My left eye was still feeling discomfort as of yesterday, whereas my right eye was feeling perfectly fine the morning after the op.
The procedure ended at about 3:45pm and I was out! I was given eye shields to cover my eyes, which I had to use for the whole of that day and whenever I sleep for the first 3 days to prevent me from rubbing my eyes. When I was out, my eyes were very uncomfortable, went red, and kept tearng. Somehow, I was the only one like that whereas the other patients seemed OK. Perhaps my eyes were really sensitive or Dr Tay didn't put that much anaesthetic eye drops as compared to others. Cheryl (the CEO), who attended to Gladys and me asked after me and passed me tissue paper. By the time Gladys arrived (at almost 5pm), I was much better already. After Gladys booked her appointment, we went off to take a cab back.
For the first day, I had to drop this anti-biotics eye drops hourly whenever I was awake, and 4 times a day for the first 10 days. And I also had to drop this Refresh Plus eyedrops every 2 hoursly for the first month or so. I think I'll do so for the first 2 weeks, and reduce from then on. The eyedrops are very expensive!
After dinner, I took a sleeping pill (we were given 3 to help us sleep for the first day as we were supposed to sleep as much as possible, and discomfort might prevent us from sleeping). I really slept quite well till about 2+am when I woke up just for a while before falling asleep again. Woke up at 6am to prepare to go for my 1st review at 8am. By then, I could see without my specs, although not to say very clear. Dr Tay removed the contact lenses, looked at my eyes and told me that there were no problems with my flaps. First day was supposed to have only about 75% vision, which I found to be not bad already.
Today, my vision is still slightly blurred, but much improved. It's supposed to get up to 90% over 2 to 3 days, and slowly recover in about a week. The fact that I could use the computer yesterday already shows that my vision is not bad already. But my left eye was still slightly uncomfortable up to this morning. It's getting better though, so hopefully nothing wrong with it. Just that it's taking longer than my right eye to heal. My right eye's got perfect vision already. Just my left eye.
Here's a pic of me on the first day when I got home after my op. The Ultraman eyes:
Here's the stuff I had to use for my eyes.
If anyone's interested in Lasik, let us know and we can share our experience.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Comex 2007
I realised that I haven't posted the photos I took during Comex 2007, which was way back in beginning of Sep. SITEX is coming soon beginning of Dec. Maybe I'll take some photos then too.
These are not all the photos I took. I'm just feeling too lazy to post more up, and I don't really want to bombard you with photos.
If you happen to be one of the people featured in the photos I took and would like me to remove your photo for whatever reason, just contact me. Or perhaps if you would like to get the original copy of the photo without the watermark, or you believe that I must have taken a photo of you that day and would like to get the photo, you can contact me too. Just click on my name under the Contributors section (on the right under the Blog Archive) and you'll find my email address there.
Some of the interesting stuff I saw includes this set of hard disk enclosures from Ranger. I think girls will like them. It makes carrying hard disks around less "geeky", I guess.
And of course, my current "toy" in a new colour. HTC Touch Wasabi Green:
We signed up for this WowTV at one of the booths. WowTV is a Internet TV website, with some free channels, and some channels that you need to pay to watch. Although we signed up for it, we haven't really looked at the shows. I browsed through it roughly and didn't find anything really nice in the free channels. And I'm not about to pay for watching the other shows:
Other than the gadgets, the other highlight of IT shows must be the IT show girls, so here are some of the other IT show girls:
And of course, my current "toy" in a new colour. HTC Touch Wasabi Green:
We signed up for this WowTV at one of the booths. WowTV is a Internet TV website, with some free channels, and some channels that you need to pay to watch. Although we signed up for it, we haven't really looked at the shows. I browsed through it roughly and didn't find anything really nice in the free channels. And I'm not about to pay for watching the other shows:
Other than the gadgets, the other highlight of IT shows must be the IT show girls, so here are some of the other IT show girls:
These are not all the photos I took. I'm just feeling too lazy to post more up, and I don't really want to bombard you with photos.If you happen to be one of the people featured in the photos I took and would like me to remove your photo for whatever reason, just contact me. Or perhaps if you would like to get the original copy of the photo without the watermark, or you believe that I must have taken a photo of you that day and would like to get the photo, you can contact me too. Just click on my name under the Contributors section (on the right under the Blog Archive) and you'll find my email address there.
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