January 2017 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Trip To Dentist

Someone has been complaining of painful and bleeding gums. After school yesterday, off we went to the dentist. Mr dentist checked the gums and said that the second permanent molar is cutting out soon. The gums surrounding the tooth are a tad inflamed plus she really needs a good dental scaling done too… with numbing spray.

And the total cost of damage for the 15-20 minute procedure was RM180!

What a way to end the year of the cheeky monkey. Within a short span of 1.5 weeks, I spent over RM2,000 on medical bills.

Never mind, I am positive the year of the rooster will be a better one for me 🙏🙏😊

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Khind Soup Cooker

I am a sucker for home cooked dishes and soups. They are the best! Cooking my own meals affords me the peace of mind that goes along with having complete control over the type and quality of ingredients in my meals and the degree of cleanliness that goes into their preparation. I am fortunate that I am a work-from-home mum who have the ‘luxury’ to dish up home cooked meals for my girls.

Soups are an important item on the dining table for the Chinese. A comforting bowl of hot soup is not only nourishing but delicious. Soups are easy to prepare and it can be treated as a one-pot complete dish with meat and vegetables cooked together.

Traditional Chinese soups are gentle tonics made from fresh vegetables, different types of meat or fish and flavored only by natural ingredients. One distinguishing element about traditional Chinese soups is that oil, cream and butter are hardly used – making the soups naturally low fat, low calorie and low sodium. We hardly ever add salt into our soups.

Not all parents have the time to prepare home cooked dishes or soup on a daily basis. Wouldn’t it be good it there was a soup cooker with pre-set digital timer that you can rely on to cook a pot of nourishing soup or a stew just on time for dinner for your family? With the revolutionary Khind Soup Cooker, you can now come home to a pot of hot soup or hot stew ready to be served! Just blanch some vegetables and dinner is ready!

Features of the Khind Soup Cooker:

Stew soups at simmering heat to breakdown meat and at the same time infuse flavours of the spices suggested in the recipes.
Pre-set for delayed cooking. Stewing is available.
Wide variety of menu available with special double stew function.
Large capacity to cook whole chicken.

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The main cooking functions of the Khind Soup Cooker are as follows:

Double Stew
This function uses ‘three quarter power” of Fast Stew function. Stew soups at simmering heat for 4 hours to breakdown meat and at the same time infuse flavours of the spices suggested in the recipes to cook delicious and aromatic soups.

Fast Stew
Faster cooking time. Higher heat input, 2 hours pre-programmed stewing time.

Intense Heat
For meals that require high heat to extract flavors and essence for example:

1）Nutritious Soup – ABC Soup, Lotus Root Soup where vegetables, roots and fruits
form the main ingredients.

2）Rib Soup – Suitable for soup consisting mainly of rib meat.

3）Chicken Soup – Soup with poultry as the main ingredient.

4）Bean Soup – For beans that need more time and high cooking temperature to achieve desired softness and flavor.

5）Thick Soup – chicken mushroom stew, lamb / beef radish stew.

Mild Heat
This menu groups the type of ingredients that need longer time to stew while using lower heat to preserve the flavours and its essence. Examples: tendon and big bones soup, knuckle soup, stewing brown rice and multi grain porridge, white rice porridge with meat and desserts like lotus seeds and lily pear, etc

For working mummies and also daddies, this soup cooker could save you money and time as you can now prepare wholesome home cooked soups and stews everyday for your family. This saves you money from eating outside, not to mention how much more healthier it is for your loved ones to eat nutritious food that is not laced with salt, oil, sugar and food additives. When only good food goes into your body, you are bound to feel the difference to your health and waist line too! Remember, less salt, less oil and less sugar equal less FAT.

This is my hearty bowl of double stew free-range chicken soup. It is rich in taste, full of chicken flavor (nothing else is added besides one whole chicken), not to mention incredibly nutritious.

Discount For Health Freak Mommy Readers!

Are you tempted already to get a Khind Soup Cooker? Good news! Make this year of the rooster a healthier year for you and your family. For readers of Health Freak Mommy, you will be entitled to an exclusive offer of RM40 off the retail price of RM360.40! Wait there’s more! You will also get a FREE kitchen towel set when you purchase a Khind Soup Cooker model SC680C. This deal is only for the Khind Soup Cooker.

How To Get The Discount and Free Gift?

Go to www.khindonline.com and purchase the Khind Soup Cooker online. During checkout, key in the promo code BSC680

For list of authorized outlets, you may check via http://www.khind.com.my/product_wheretobuy.asp?cat1ID=18&cat2ID=23&cat3ID=164&id=822

Promotion is only valid from 3 January – 28 February 2017.

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Iron Rich Foods

Ever since I was told by my doctors that I am severely anemic (reading of 6 g/dL), I have been pumping iron rich foods into my body. Every. single. day. I feel like I am on a blood chase marathon where time is limited and I have to stuff myself with iron rich foods to build up red blood cells before my next menstrual cycle begins! The days are ticking away and I have only a few days left before the next war of blood begins. I don’t feel woozy actually and only short of breath when I run. Brisk walking, swimming and shopping for 10 hours don’t make me breathless though 😀 And my heart flutters too. That’s because red blood cells (RBC) carry oxygen to the rest of the body and being short of RBC, I have a feeling that I lack oxygen when I exert myself physically. It is also highly dangerous when the RCB drops to a very low level as my heart may fail me!

My breakfast would consist of an egg each day now. I used to eat an egg a day (sometimes two) but have since stopped when blood works showed an elevated cholesterol level a year ago. Now that my cholesterol level has dropped to 4.9, I have the ‘allowance’ to indulge in an egg a day again 🙂

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I add a teaspoon of organic and unsulphured blackstrap molasses to my egg as blackstrap molasses is rich in iron. This gooey liquid is not the tastiest of food and I cannot bring myself to down in with a glass of water. Think swallowing a spoonful of dark soy sauce. Yup, that’s how it actually tastes. I need savory food to help mask the texture and taste of the molasses. Or mix it with a bowl of plain vermicelli.

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I try to include beef in my diet each week, though beef is not my favorite type of meat. And lots of spinach too.

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My diet these days make me feel like I am in confinement😊 The smell of boiling red dates water wafting in the air at home each day reminds me of my confinement days. My mil would boil red dates soup with chicken or a plain concoction of red dates + black dates water everyday. On some days, she would double boil chicken essence for me. Bless her for all her TLC 🙂

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I would also chew about 2-3 organic dried red dates each day.

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And chew on organic goji berries too. Goji berries or wolfberries or gei jie is rich in iron and are good for the eyes too.

Superfoodies Organic Goji Berries

As well as graze on nori seaweed sheets (plain ones with no salt, no sugar and no oil) like a cow. Did you know that not only is nori high in iodin, calcium, protein and fiber, it is also high in iron and your bones love it?Nori lowers cholesterol too.

Stock image of 'Nori sheet of edible seaweed species of the red algae genus Porphyra, isolated over white background'

With such rich and nutritious food pumped into my body for the past one week, I feel more energetic, my lips are starting to turn reddish again and my heart has stopped fluttering. Oh and I forgot to mention that I pop 2 Sangobion iron tabs each day.

Ladies, if you feel like you lack stamina, feel tired, have heart palpitations and have heavy menstruation, it’s good that you have a total blood count done. It can be life saving.

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Medical Check-Up And Blood Tests

My medical check-up and blood works this year have shown favorable and non-favorable results.

I’ll start with the non-favorable ones first.

The fibroid in my uterus is still there and is still causing me heavy periods with blood clots every month. The pattern of blood flow will be one month heavy, the next month super heavy and the following month mildly heavy. The position of the fibroid sitting in my uterus is causing all the heavy bleeding. The fibroid is also splitting the uterus into half. Red flag 🔺

The moment I stepped into my gynae’s clinic, her first comment to me was my very pale complexion. She ordered me to have a total blood count test carried out urgently.

Next is the breast ultrasound scan which shows a cyst in each breast. They do not look malignant. Anyhow, I have been referred to a doctor specializing in breast for monitoring. Again, breast lumps in my case is genetic, as with fibroids, as my mum is also very prone to getting them.

As the total blood count report only came in 2 hours later, I had to make another trip to the hospital to see my doctor after 2 days. My total blood count is 6g/dL. Normal range is 12 – 16. A reading of 5 is near death in some cases. Can you see how low it is now?!! My doctor is very concerned that after my next period, I may collapse and require a blood transfusion! In fact, she asked if I’d like to do a blood transfusion like NOW! Big red flag!! 🔻

The doctor wants me to have a keyhole surgery done to have the fibroid removed, albeit this procedure only allows about 90% of the fibroid to be removed. Moreover, there is high chance that the fibroid will grow again. The only way to stop the growth of the fibroid is the onset of menopause. Yeah, blame it on the hormones. I have never looked forward to reaching menopause but now I am having a change of mind 😱

The other option that my gynae proposed is for me to start on Esmya. Esmya is used to treat moderate to severe symptoms of uterine fibroids, which are benign tumors of the uterus, in adult women who have not yet reached the menopause. Cost aside (over RM600 a box), I am not keen on taking this drug due to its side effects, one of which is a slightly increased risk of ovarian, uterine or cervical cancer.

My doctor has referred me to another gynae specializing in fibroids and I will be seeing him in 2 days.

The good news is that my cholesterol level has gone down! From 6.4 mmol/L in February 2016, it went down to 5.8 mmol/L in August 2016. The latest reading (January 2017) shows 4.9 mmol/L. I am so happy that my altered diet, exercise and continued consumption of Izumio and Super Lutein have helped to bring the reading down. My doctors had previously warned me that it would be very hard to bring the cholesterol reading down as I have genetic high cholesterol but I did it! Praise the Lord! Thank goodness I did not listen to their advice to start on a course of Statin.

I now have about 2 weeks before my next period starts and I feel like Count Dracula – busy gorging down on red meat, red dates (organic ones), cockles, goji berries, black strap molasses, eggs, spinach, beet root, red beans, iron tabs and everything red to shore up my red blood cells before the next war of blood begins! Survive I must!!

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Medical Check-Up Tuesday – 10 January 2017

I went for my yearly ‘woman check-up’ at Pantai Medical Center two days ago. This is the second time I am seeing this gynae, who looks like a Bollywood star – pretty, elegant and cool! Many expatriates see her and I can see why they like her so much.

I reached the hospital at 9am, registered myself and found out that I was the 5th in queue. After the nurse had done the routine blood pressure and weight check, I went to have breakfast with my man at a popular coffee shop in Bangsar.

Hubs who always has eyes bigger than his tummy ordered all these…

Pork noodles and fish fillet in seaweed and veggie soup…

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Ipoh chicken hor fun with bean sprouts…

…and also a plate of wanton mee. By the time the wanton mee arrived, he had to ask for the noodles to be tapau-ed 🙈

After breakfast, he dropped me back at the hospital and he went off to work. I spent over 4 frigging hours at the hospital to see my gynae to do a scan of my uterus, did a full blood count test and did a breast scan at the Imaging Dept. I spent close to RM700 for all these tests including a separate cholesterol and blood sugar profile which I did the next day at a clinic in my neighborhood.

I waited for almost 2 hours at the Imaging Dept to get my breast scanned. At the dept, I heard the nurses calling out names of several Tan Sris and Datuks. One Tan Sri was an ex Menteri Besar of one of the states up North. He was on a wheel chair. Another Tan Sri came with some bodyguards. He went in to do either a CT Scan / MRI. You could be a Menteri Besar or a CEO, but the minute you are in the hospital in dire need of medical help, your position does not matter anymore. All the money in the world means squat.

While waiting for my turn to do the breast ultrasound scan, I went across the next block to have a quick lunch at Secret Recipe. I ordered a vegetarian lasagna and I didn’t like it a wee bit.

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If you think that Government hospitals require a longer wait, let me tell you that it’s the same at private hospitals. I have been to many hospitals – both private and government and the waiting time is the same. This goes to show just how many people are unwell everyday and need medical treatment. Our health is so precious and once you start to lose it, you are willing to spend a fortune to gain it back. Never ever gamble with your health by neglecting it. I know it’s easier said than done and I am guilty as charged too. I need to get more sleep and manage my stress / anger better 😔. I have mentioned before that lack of sleep, stress and anger create free radicals rapidly in the body. But once you are told you have a certain condition, don’t you wish you had taken care of your body earlier and loved it more? Work can wait. Anger and stress can be blocked off your mind if you know how to tackle it. Don’t wait till it’s too. You only have one life and one body. Love it and nurture it with only good stuff it needs.

On the results of my tests, well I have good and bad news to share. That will be for my next blog posting, so stay tuned…

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Samo The Samoyed

Cass looks forward to Saturdays. After piano lesson in the evening, it is now a norm that we walk to the pet shop next door to visit Samo, the Samoyed dog. We have named this pup Samo 🙂 At less than a year old, Samo is already as tall and probably heavier than Cass when standing on her hind legs. We both adore Samo so very much as she’s such a charmer – so cute, so smart and so friendly. And oh yes, she’s a fluff ball with thick white fur like snow.

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Samo loves to play with Cass, though they are separated by a glass panel.

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Samo is such a beauty and this is why she is with a price tag of almost RM8,000!! And this is why even after more than half a year, she is still an item in the pet shop. Had she been priced half the cost of what she is now, I am pretty sure some dog lovers would have brought her home to spoil her rotten. I would too if we weren’t staying in a condo. Would you spend RM8k on an imported pedigree dog?

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Cass always tells me that her ambition is to earn lots of money (we’ll see!), buy a big house with spacious land and buy three dogs for us- a Samoyed, a Golden Retriever and a Siberian Husky. She says my job will be to care for the dogs when she’s at work. We love talking about her dreams and ambition together in the car after piano lesson on our way home every Saturday evening 🙂

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Almost Burnt The House Down!

I almost got a major heart attack this morning, thanks to the hubs who just LOVES to pull my leg all the time!! Honey, I know you secretly read all my blog posts daily though you deny it vehemently. Go have a good laugh ok, that you succeeded this time -you almost killed me OK! You know I have a weak heart and can’t take shitty news 😡😡

Here’s his Whatsapp message to me, which I only got to read later while driving back from school. My heart zoomed to my mouth after reading the message and I really thought I burnt the kitchen down. Feeling thunderstruck, I almost crashed my car.

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I am retyping our conversation here for ease of reading:

Hubs – honey, u boiling something at home? Cleaner said smoke coming from our kitchen window

Me – Don’t know (was driving and could not type more).

Just after reading the Whatsapp message, his car passed my car. We were about a few hundred meters away from home. I thought he had gone home to check on our burnt down kitchen!! I felt like I had lost my marbles. I called him on the phone immediately.

This morning, I had left the house hurriedly. In the morning, after my usual morning exercise, I sent the mil to the park to buy some fish. Then went to pack some breakfast and rushed home where I gobbled my breakfast down hurriedly. Then did laundry and boiled water.

Yes I boiled water but the darn whistling kettle recently stopped whistling and in the haste to rush off to school to beat the morning traffic jam (to pay school fees), I had forgotten all about the kettle on the stove. Hubs was still in bed at home. We busy mummies have so many chores to accomplish every single minute and while at them, we have to think of the next 101 things on our ‘to-do list’ and what to ask the teachers when we meet them. No one would understand what we go through everyday unless they have been there.

And the hubs just had to pull a fast one on me! When I called him on the phone, he continued pulling my leg, probably laughing his ass off imagining how horrid I had looked and felt. He didn’t give a rat’s patootie how awful I was feeling. He told me to go home to check out the situation, wtf 😡

I rushed home and as I approached our unit, I felt slightly better that I didn’t smell anything nasty. Yay, no burnt smell. Kitchen from the outside still looks good. And the Whatsapp message from him did NOT sound urgent or serious. Had there been a fire at home, he would have called me to return home ASAP where he would have strangled me or I would probably have gotten an earful from him on the phone. But all these didn’t happen.

Nothing was burnt, except that the kettle had almost no more water left inside. And the kitchen had a good steam sterilization for a good 1.5 hours or so 😥

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New Year’ Eve and Happy 2017

Our New Year’s Eve on 31.12.2016 was a peaceful and quiet one at our cozy home, unlike previous years where we would either be counting down in a hotel or be gallivanting the streets of Bukit Bintang joining other rowdy revelers. Our girls and I prefer a quiet New Year’s Eve where we could watch fireworks display from KLCC, Mid Valley and other parts of KL at the comforts of our own home in our jammies. Two families from our usual group of friends had some emergencies at home, thus we didn’t have our usual New Year’s Eve count down. Nonetheless, we had a sumptuous lunch at Overseas Restaurant, Jalan Imbi on that day.

Below – backdrop of KLCC and KL Tower taken just before the fireworks were released at the stroke of midnight.

On 1.1.2017, we were at the Gardens Mall. Hubs, the mil and the girls watched Rogue One: A Star Wars Story at the premium cinema at Gardens while I did what I loved most – retail therapy 🙂

Below – Cass enthralled by her favorite author, killing time while waiting for the movie to start…

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On 2.1.2017, we hung out with our usual group of buddies. After a light lunch at The School, we adjourned to a Japanese eatery and German pub and snacked on grilled saba and pork knuckles with crackling skin while sipping on beer and sake – chatting and laughing over everything.

2.1.2017 marked the end of the girls’ 6 weeks of school holidays. Today we are back to reality, back to structured days and me, I started the first day of ‘work’ feeling zombified and crabby, no thanks to my Aunt Flow. My darn alarm clock died down on me this morning. Thankfully I had my phone alarm as back-up!

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