Tribute to two Doris'

I have been very amazed and touched by two ladies both named Doris, who have fought with cancer, one herself and one as spouse, in the past few years and particularly the past few months.

Doris, a psychology colleague, wife of a reverend, and a devoted minister herself, was diagnosed of cancer a few years back. She fought it with courage and had been in remission for a couple of years until the recent reoccurrence. When she first had cancer, I was already very impressed by how she took it, shared it, and got through it so gracefully. She was so generous in sharing her thoughts and learning and so honest in sharing her struggles and pain. I was encouraged every time I read her emails and blog (http://goodfightdoris.blogspot.com/).
She has more strength and stronger will than most healthy persons and also lives a fuller life than most even in her sickness.
Doris, whether you're fighting or finishing the race, I'm cheering for you!

Doris, a graduating psychologist, wife of a police officer, who fought with cancer bravely and just passed away several weeks ago. Everyone is sad for Doris but she's the only one who still smiles. They knew the cancer was aggressive and the treatment was not effective, but they chose not to complain but to do everything they could, enjoy every moment they had together, and face it with humility and persistence.
Doris got married right before she started her clinical psychology training two years ago. Her husband's cancer was diagnosed a few months later, when she was in a very demanding phase of the training. - in the middle of courses, placements, thesis and everything. Doris had to defer her studies for 9 months as she took the time to take care of her husband with a more spread-out workload. I actually wanted to exempt her from a few things but she insisted to fulfill all the course requirements just like her classmates did. That makes you wonder why some students (and myself sometimes!) find every excuse in the world to do less, to be late in submission of assignments, and to miss training opportunities. I admire Doris as a person with integrity and am honored to be her teacher in the past two years and nine months.
Doris, I pray that God will bless you immensely as you continue your life journey until the day of reunion with your beloved.

Doris and Doris, you both show me how God is beyond our understanding and His grace and power are beyond the pain, the fear, and the tears. I praise the Lord and thank you for your living testimony. 

Warm and cool at the same time

I am amazed how accurate estimations of the timing of some pregnancy markers are. They said you would feel the movements of your baby around the 18-20th week. And yes, here it came at the 20th week! Kaz was so excited the first time he felt it. Now he asks for it every night. :)

From desperation to hopefulness

The thought of writing a pregnancy journal has been on my mind early in the pregnancy. But then the nausea and the tiredness demotivated me. I actually could not think of anything good to write about pregnancy at that point. Yes, this is undoubtedly one of the greatest joy in our lives but the day-to-day symptoms were really not so interesting. Now that my energy level is better and the nausea is gone, I do want to write a mid-term summary of the pregnancy. 

I can still vividly remember the day when I received the phone call from the dr, confirming our pregnancy. All of us have waited for important news before - news about scholarship, news about admission to academic programs, news about jobs, etc but nothing compared to this. When I hung up the phone, Kaz came out from the study room, and I told him we were pregnant. Tears of joy came down our cheeks. I have not seen Kaz crying for a very long time.

That was Feb 8, 2013.

Just for my own memory sake, let me recap the first few months of pregnancy. The first few weeks were all about being careful, moving less, and resting a lot. I avoided transportation as much as possible and stayed home most of the time. There were not much symptoms though so you always wonder, "is the baby still there?". Reading all the pregnancy books was kind of interesting for a bit but then they are all kind of repetitive after the first one. And sometimes you get contradictory information from the different books - whether one should bed-rest as much as possible in the beginning stage, whether once has to be careful about certain foods. Anyhow, I have to admit that I find those books quite boring after a while and did not manage to get through many of them. Thanks to my sister, Jasmine who gave me all these books. Having them around is comforting anyways.

Nausea kicked in sometime around the 5-6 weeks. It was like having been on a roller-coaster constantly, or travelling back to Mainland China on a bumpy road for 10 hours twenty years ago.  The only difference was that you do not want to eat when having nausea normally but the nausea in pregnancy gets worse when your stomach is empty (and for me, also when my mouth tasted kind of blend (口淡淡). So I needed to eat/drink constantly to avoid the feeling of nausea.  I got frowned upon eating my favorite preserved fruits （e.g.,話梅) for they contain too much bad stuff so lemon water (sometimes with honey) was kind of a more legitimate choice. In addition to the nausea, stomach gas bothered me the most. My GI system was never good but with the slowing down of intestines during pregnancy, bloating and gas were constantly there throughout the day. So to eat, or not to eat, became a dilemma. It's nausea vs. gas. 

The legendary 2nd trimester has not been as awesome as I had hoped. The nausea did go away but the gastric reflux actually got more serious. I am at the 21st week now and I feel like burping the whole day, except for the half an hour after waking up and before breakfast. I really need to manage my food intake more carefully.

Ok, that is all for the "not so glamorous". 

To document the most memorable part of our pregnancy, I need to start from our struggles last year. The year 2012 was a very difficult year for us. I were really busy at work facing difference challenges. Even though I put in a lot of time and effort, I were not effective and were constantly frustrated. In a nutshell, I were quite burned out. Kaz's work was also full of uncertainties and we couldn't really see how it might progress. We were feeling alienated from church, and our brothers and sisters. And I were also having all sorts of health issues......

Last summer, I went through a surgery for investigation of some problems and suffered from a serious infection on the 6th day after the surgery. Not only did the physician have the worse patient manner, her medical knowledge/patient management skills were also kind of outdated. Despite repeated recommendations of the microbiologist (also our friend) that I definitely needed a surgery to tackle the infection, the physician refused to do so and said I should just be on anti-biotics, even though it did not seem to work and it would take months for the infection to settle even if the anti-biotics controlled the infection. Our microbiologist friend was very worried and said that the abscess in me could be very dangerous (life-threatening) and I should leave immediately and seek treatment elsewhere. I actually had two hypothermia episodes. My microbiologist friend said that I could have died in those episodes if I were not attended immediately (I was put on oxygen). We finally decided to be discharged against medical advice, and went through another surgery that removed the infected structures in another hospital.

Some people thought that we shouldn't have gone through the first surgery as it's not necessary and it caused the infection. But the fact was that the infected tissues were pretty swollen in the first place and the removal was good for my health.

During the two months' of sick leave, we had a lot of thoughts and prayers and our faith was distilled and renewed. We thought about all the blessings that God had given us in the past and during that time. And while the challenges and suffering seemed so meaningless, we felt that God was teaching us to be patient and to trust in His timing and His ways. 

I had some bad allergies and ulcers a couple of months after resuming work. I was told by the dr that's because my immunity was compromised with the infections, the surgeries, and the prolonged use of strong anti-biotics. The dr told me to learn to manage my stress, my workload as well as my self-expectation! We then realized that we really need a drastic lifestyle change and mentality change. I attended a talk for HKU staff given by a prof from Regent College and finally realized that I was indeed a workaholic (a small digression: a friend, Josh once said I was workaholic years back but I totally disagreed because I thought workaholics are people who put their career before other people/tasks in life; then I learned that this is actually careerism, and workaholics are people who get anxious and guilty when they're not working and that's definitely me!).

Over Nov and Dec last year, we gradually felt that things were getting back on track (not the old tracks though). We felt the hope and joy from God and we're more connected to people. Our faith was revived over Christmas as we once again were reminded of what Jesus has done for us and how much He cares about us.

After Christmas, as the dr said that I was in a good condition for pregnancy and that the removal of the bad structures would actually help increase the chance of success, we decided to give it a try. Then you know the rest of the story......

God is awesome, isn't He? He really turned a curse into a blessing.

Duck Yee Bee (DEB) at 13th week

New beginning

I have been thinking about starting a blog for so long but kept on debating about the idea. An obvious reason was of course, I have no time for it. The second biggest reservation was whether the sharing would affect my privacy. But I know deep down, it is more my doubts - would my blog be good enough or good at all? 

While the first two concerns are still valid, I am learning to overcome my self-consciousness. The topic of "self" is a big one. A professor once said to me it is a life-long struggle, one of the biggest one. It is so true. It is probably a blog post itself for another day. For now, I just reckon that writing a blog is not to show the world how good I am, that my experiences and my thoughts are worth sharing. It is in fact quite the opposite. It is the realization that I am small, weak, powerless, constantly changing and failing, and most important of all, that my life is nothing but a vapor that will fade without a trace one day. It is merely a short journey before I return to the Father's place. I write this blog to remind myself what I have learned in this life, to share my lessons with others who may be struggling, and to praise my Lord for His wondrous love and amazing grace.

Today is not a special date but I somehow feel that I have a new beginning. First, I have just passed half of my pregnancy! Second, we have moved out from our place (having it renovated for a month) and settled at my sister's at Tai Po (big thanks to my sister for all the help and for accommodating us for a month!). Third, I have taken today off to organize my thoughts by starting this blog and by replying emails to some friends who wrote to ask how we have been. I decided not to work at all even I am on my computer. Well, I have failed a bit as I replied to a few work emails but will stop doing that! Anyhow, this is THE DAY to get started.

Where I wrote my first blog.