Last Kawasaki checkup 2010

Praise Point: Niel's Update

As part of Niel’s post-Kawasaki care, these last 4 months have been filled with frequent hospital visits to monitor his health and heart condition.

Earlier this month, Niel had his routine check up and heart scan (echocardiogram and ECG) at the Children’s hospital. This check-up is a “big” milestone for Niel.

The Cardiologist found his heart condition normal with no signs of inflammation! We truly acknowledge God for this!! We were advised to continue keeping a very close eye on his physical activities, habits, and nutrition, and the doctor also assured us that the risk is quite low for Niel to develop a heart-related-condition and/or educational and developmental delays in the future.

Niel can now stop taking his medications relating the Kawasaki disease, however, there is a need for longterm maintenance to avoid atherosclerotic risk factors. From now on, his routine check- up will be every 2-3 years (instead of every 3 weeks).

We are extremely grateful to God and know that this is all through prayers and the support our friends and family have given us.

2 March 2010

**Atherosclerotic: Pertaining to atherosclerosis, the process of progressive thickening and hardening of the walls of arteries from fat deposits on their inner lining.

Favorite spot in Melbourne

It was a hot day, after a smooth dealing with the immigration department in the morning; I was in high spirits and in the mood for outdoors. Driving around the streets of Melbourne, we have somehow made our way into the Melbourne Zoo. With the blazing sun stinging at our skins and the toddlers whining for a nap, at first it seems to be an unwise decision. Then we discovered the Penguin and Seals enclosure. It is indoors, darkened, decorated with beautiful lighting effects, and blissfully air-conditioned. I found a spot on the bench just after the ramps. The toddlers are quietly asleep in their stroller behind me. There I sat for over an hour looking into a massive aquarium glass pane where the seals are kept. The water filtered sunlight danced on the seal’s body as they moved effortlessly in the water. It was beautiful, serene, mesmerizing and inspiring.

I remembered watching my mum when I was a little girl. She used to sit down in front of our self-made aquarium at home for hours. She would smile while watching her tiny fishes swimming about, sometimes she talks to them, and also talks to the plants in the aquarium as well. I thought she was peculiar when she explained her calm feeling watching this creatures move about. Now I am here doing the same thing. I certainly can’t wait to bring her here.

I can come back here any day. It is now my favorite spot in Melbourne. The benches near the ramps at the Seal’s enclosure. Yeay! Glad to be a FOTZ member!

Niel's 1st Step

Power of Bubbles...


One of my twins, Niel, wasn’t walking at 16 months old. He didn’t seem to be too interested in standing up, or learning how to walk. He didn’t enjoy being assisted to walk or held up by the hands.

Twin brother Ethan has started to walk months before. He has gone through the standard stages of cruising by 12 months old, standing alone from a pull up position, standing alone from a squat, standing to observe, taking the first step on his own, and progressively increase the number of steps before losing balance. The process was months from the first time he stands on his own to being called officially a ‘toddler’, but we can see progress every week.

It’s a lot of pressure being a twin, one is continuously compared to the sibling for development, performance, and physical achievements. Though I vowed not to do this to them before they were born, it is certainly hard not to benchmark each other as they progress.

I was never worried about my little Niel before. He is always the bright one, always showing interest, alert and responsive his surroundings. He has always been the first to reach his developmental milestones before he contracted Kawasaki disease. Now Ethan seems to be months ahead of Niel; Niel is yet to toddle, repeat words from a book, able to nod and say ‘no’ in response to a question. Now I have valid reasons of getting quite worried about Niel. He was breech, and some statistics show breech twins may have hips problems. He had Kawasaki, and statistics also shows that kids that contracted Kawasaki may have developmental and learning delays.

My concern about Niel’s lack of interest in standing up, lead our GP to order a hip scan for Niel. The scan turns out normal, so the doctor assured me that it is certainly too early to worry at this stage; many children starts to walk at 18 months. Children will walk when they are ready, certainly right that is.

It was Thursday morning, and its library rhyme time for my kids. Niel loves Rhyme Time sessions, he is too young to join in the action, but would happily sit through book reading and watch others sing action rhymes. When the session is over, the cheerful librarian gave out bottles of bubbles for everyone to blow indoors. Niel squealed in excitement as he watched bubbles fill the room. He quickly crawled to find a good spot, kneeled and stretched his hands up to catch the floating bubbles. And then it happened: in his excitement, he stood up and took 3 steps toddling to catch a flying bubble. I held back tears, I am so thankful not to miss this, to be able to see his first steps in the midst of a crowd of energized children. He stood up again, this time I got Malakai to witness his baby brother’s first steps, and we counted together: 1…2…3…4…5…6, “Niel, you’re walking!!!” I shouted to him. He stopped in his tracks, turned around, saw us watching him, he looked down on his feet, realize that he’s standing up, and quickly get down on the floor and crawled back to us with a biggest grin on his face.

Three days later, Niel has officially become a toddler by performance. He would always stand and toddle to move around the house. True, he didn’t go through the traditional phases. My little Niel has lead me to believe he’s not interested in standing, and unexpectedly, in his own time, he just stood up and walk. That’s my Niel. Yes, children will walk in their own time. When they do, there’s no way of stopping them!

"Beyond Here..." graphic design

Beyond Here… is a promo material requested by the local church’s Music and Creative Ministry to advertise their Vision Night event. The creative requirement includes a visual that portrays something deeper, somewhere beyond our world, with the feeling of strong and forceful.

I approached this with a visual concept of beneath the ocean’s surface: to show places so deep, mysterious, calls for exploration, something beautiful. yet strong and forceful.

Created in Adobe Photoshop and Freehand.

Graphic Design

Missing my Creative juice...

A year ago, when Malakai was just 2 years old and joined a local playgroup, I was dumbstruck when I found that I felt quite exasperated, when I could not get my son to be interested in a paint brush. How could he be content just by dabbing a little dot on the big sheet of paper and think he’s done?! At his age, I was surely doing a lot more than that.

Do I dare to call myself a graphic designer, a web designer, or an artist anymore. They were once a title given to me, a job description, and even something I do in my spare time, something I loved… a long time ago. When was the last time I held a sketch pad? I can’t even remember anymore. Funny, ever since I was a little girl right up to Uni, all I wanted to do was draw, doddle, decorate, and make craftworks. I make my own colouring pages when I was little, made dolls for my little brother when he was little, and I knew how sew my own clothes and dresses at high school. Whatever happened to that person?

I has been a very long time since I feel the thrill of designing. I am a bit rusty, no doubt about that, but I am proud of myself to pull these out of Photoshop. What's next?

Plagiocephaly: Before and After

Almost perfect....

At his 3 months follow-up check, we can already see great improvements to the shape of his head. It is still not rounded, but I was already happy with the shape of his head. The September weather has started to get warmer, and Niel’s sweat collated inside his helmet made his head releases an odour similar to those of smelly feet. We decided to discontinue the therapy then. We realize that his head shape put probably stay pretty much as it is when we decided to take the helmet off, but I hope he’ll have more hair than his dad, and that would cover up any imperfections.

The photo on the top is taken before the helmet therapy at 7 months old. On the left is Niel at 15 months old. Not too bad for 3 months worth of helmet wearing… I personally think that he is gorgeous, but then, I am his mom. :)

Kawasaki Disease

Promise to be better...

One of the most heartbreaking event in my life is when my little Niel was diagnosed with a rare Kawasaki disease, which is an inflammation of blood vessels. For those of you with babies experiencing fevers longer than 3 days, despite what your GP advises, I would surely urge that you take them directly to the hospital for emergency care.

A week after his 12months immunization, Niel experienced a fever, which is quite a normal experience for most children. After 3 days, instead of getting better, the rim of his eyes turned blot-shot red. Our GP decided to give medication for conjunctivitis and antibiotics to treat his fever and eyes. 2 days passed without any improvement, his fever was constantly well above 39’c, the whites of his eyes turned pink, and now the knuckles of his hands are also reddish. Niel has stopped eating or taking his bottles all together. The only way we can get fluid into him was through a medicine dropper. He has grown so weak, that as soon as we sit him up, he topples and fall on his side with no effort on getting back up.

We then took him to the Children’s Hospital (5 days of fever), where he was put on a drip straight away to keep his fluids up. His lips were chapping and turned blood red as well. His eye lids are sore and swollen, the skin on it starts to chaff. It was a very miserable sight.

All I can feel was remorse and guilt that this happen to him. This is the little boy that still wakes me up at night, this is the boy that demands constant supervision, this is the boy that takes over an hour to feed. I felt very guilty for the times that I was impatient with him, the times when I wouldn’t get out of my bed for the fourth time in the night, the times I let him cry in his cot, the times I would yell at him out of anger, and most of all- for all the times that I wanted to quit. As I spend my teary nights in the ward, I kept praying to God to preserve His life, heal him completely, and give me the chance to be a better Mum for him.

November 2009