Freaked

Went for scans yesterday. Exhausting day started at 930 am at the Cancer Centre being the first stop. The one-prick wonder nurse (my fav) took 2 vials of blood from me. i got her to set the plug as well, so that i do not need to be pricked again by some inexperienced nurses.

i am just so thankful for the nurses at the Cancer Centre, who has such amazing skills, especially when it comes to looking for almost non-existent veins. i didn't think much of nursing as a career of choice, but having gone through what i am going through, i have certain level of respect for them. To be a nurse in the cancer centre, I applaud them for their compassion, patience, and strength of character to be able to treat a patient, who may not be able to make it through for the next round of treatment. I do wonder what sort of emotions go through their mind when they hear that a patient they have been treating for x number of years has passed on. And here i digress again

Anyway, next stop was Nuclear Medicine, where i was to have my bone scans done. They injected me with some substance, and while waiting for the dye to take effect, i had my mammogram done. Something i hate doing. Doing the mammogram often put me to tears. Not only was it really painful, but often than not, it often brought back so much painful memories. i had to do the mammogram twice. Not sure why, but the nurses claim that they want to have clearer scans. Sigh...thats what they told me when i was first diagnosed. ?Didn't the final results come back positive. I was just so overwhelmed with emotions when they told me that i need to do it the second time round.

Bone scans seems to take an extra long time to complete as well. i have been having some aches and pains which i am attributing to the new drugs i am taking. One of the side effects listed was bone pain. i' often feel extreme sadness when i need to do these scans. I shed quiet tears when i was lying on these large forboding machines which is gonna determine my fate. During these moments, I often wondered why i need to go through what i am going through

The CT scan was sort of uneventful, in a way, thankfully. It was a quickie compared to the previous two tests. However, what greeted me at the waiting area was a bald little girl sleeping on a trolley bed, waiting to be scanned, her anxious parents waiting by her side. She is not much older than Nic. I remebered in 2003, when I was waiting for the results of my scans, before my actual diagnosis, Nic, not even 2 years of age, was admitted to the hospital as she had a burning fever that just wouldn't go away for a whole week. She was admitted for observation, for suspected Kawasaki disease, which could be deadly. I remembered being by her bedside, very afraid, and praying: Lord, let it be me. i can take the suffering better than her. I am just so grateful the fever went away, Nic recovered, and was discharged shortly after.

So here i am waiting anxiously for the phone call, which i prayed will not come. Its pretty irritating how they tell you that if you are ok, they will not call you, and that they will only call you if they need to examine you further. Anyway, I have an appointment with my oncologist next monday. Note to self: Need to ask her about doing a CEA

Scans

Due for my check up again tomorrow. Has it been 3 months yet? Time just flew by so quickly

• Gonna subject myself to be pricked so that they could extract blood from my veins just so that they can be sure that my kidneys and liver are functioning well.
• Gonna have radioactive liquid that looks like mercury pumped into my veins for the bone scans.
• Gonna drown myself with some yellow yucky drink just so that they can see my insides
• Gonna have my breast squashed by some huge merciless machine, just to be extra sure that the cancer hasn't found ite way there

Gonna be a long tiring day. Send me good vibes, please

Warm Fuzzy Feeling

While having dinner yesterday, Nic asked how I am feeling. I have been nursing a cough the past few days. I told her i am feeling a better, why? She replied that she knows why. She had told her Sunday School teacher about it, and they have prayed for me to get better. God hear the prayers of little children :)

Malacca / Kuala Lumpur Escapade

We are just back from our short vacation to Malaysia. It was a short trip, but a nice refreshing one. We decided to make a road trip to Malaysia, after failing to get our hands on air tickets to Hong Kong, which is sort of a blessing in disguise. Imagine our surprise when we came back from our trip, and we hear news about the flu like virus doing its round in Hong Kong *gulp*

We departed on the 09 March. We decided to beat the crowd, and start our journey really early at 7.00 am. We breezed through Customs and Immigration, and started on a 2 hour drive to Malacca. The journey was uneventful, almost a straight road. We reached Malacca at around 11 am. Its been almost 20 years since I last visited the town. The little town is quaint, and has retained many of its old world charm. There were many small shops selling antiques, like records, peranankan tiles, iron.

Anyway, we made our first stop, we stop by Formosa Restaurant, a coffee shop like eatery for chicken rice. Check out the Rice balls! Look like fishballs. We had a lot more food, but was too hungry to take any more shots.

Anyway, we check into our hotel at Equatorial right after lunch. Nice clean hotel, that fit our needs. We didn't do much there, other than shopping at the large megamalls there.

We also check out this newly opened spa outlet near the hotel " Scent and Senses". Fantastic prices!!! The kids enjoyed the swimming pool, and the adults, we had our fun too.

Ramblings

Guess I have to maintain this blog on a more regular basis.

It was my wedding anniversary yesterday. I just can't imagine that the years has just flew by us so very quickly. But than again those 8 years has been filled with so much joy, and so much sorrow as well. Those years are precious to me, and I prayed really hard that I will have many more years of wedded bliss to enjoy. Through these years, i have learned to live with another individual with a totally different kind of family background, upbringing and lifestyle needs. He is a child of the 60s, and me of the 70s. Not too sure how we ended up together but I guess fate and destiny played their part.

I remembered my wedding vows said a good 8 years ago, but only really felt the significance during the last 5 years.

" To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part"

We made a "deal" with each other when we first got married. We promised each other 40 years together. Sometimes, i just feel so sad that I am shortchanging him now that I am stricken with this damn sickness.

There is just no certainty. Even if i am gonna die from this disease, i wish it would just hit me, and not linger. Than again, I am always praying that I will have a couple more years, just so I can be there for Nic. I am full of contradictions...I read somewhere that cancer allows you the chance to say your goodbyes. Well, hopefully it continues to linger on and on till i am 50 something. i guess thats when i will be ready to say goodbye.

Feeling of Bliss

Feeling of quiet bliss. Haven't felt this way for a long long time.

There has been many changes, upheavals, bad news after bad news one after the other over the past 6, 7 months. News of my relapse was traumatic. Accepting the truth was difficult. Holding my chin high and moved on was even tougher, but I have done so. Taking baby steps one at the time, setting milestone for myself, milestones that many would take for granted, but mean so much to me. Glad I have the chance to see Nic graduated from kindergarten and entering Primary 1 at my alma mata :)

Next milestone - Seeing Nic complete her Primary education. I will be there.

On another note, this song has been ringing in my head after hearing over the radio. Love the simplicity of the music.

Ebay Grouses

I received this email. i had been a seller on Ebay for the pst 3 uears, and over this period, Ebay has been increasing their listing the fees progressively. They have the biggest market share and are pioneers in this field of auctions, but statistics has proven otherwise.

Auction site count, Keep track of the number of listings on auction sites

I don't wish to see its downfall, but hope that more can be done

This is a long post, but this email basicially sums it all up.

This post is a really serious topic about Ebay. I'm posting this everywhere I know how to get the word out. If you're not in a good mood,come back to it later.

I'm not sure if everyone is aware of this, but Ebay is making drasticchanges for people who sell and buy on Ebay. If one looks at it from thesurface, the changes don't seem too bad. But if you look a littledeeper, they're really very scarey. Many sellers and buyers are going to be having a strike on February 11ththrough February 25 that includes no buying, no listing, no selling, no auctions on those days. If possible, if you are an Ebay buyer andseller, I would really appreciate it if you could honor those dates, fornothing else, then on MY behalf because the changes have the possibilityto really hurt me as a seller.

Right now, the Ebay marketing machine is billing these changes as "feereductions" and that is what the media initally reported because theyway the changes were announced were quite deceptive. But, for those ofyou who aren't really super active on Ebay and are wondering what allthe changes entail, a summary of them follows. First, they are reducing the listing fee by 5 cents and making Galleryfree. On the surface this looks great and this is how they are marketingthe change - as a "fee reduction". However, if you read the fine printyou'll find that they are slyly raising Final Value Fees (The fee theseller pays when the item sells at auction) by as much as 33% to 66% forsme sellers. The percentage of increase differs by seller because allsellers sell items with different values and the Final Value Fee isbased on the dollar amount of the item. So we save a nickel to list anitem, but pay 33% more after the auction is over. This first part of thechanges, while quite disgusting, IS bearable.

Second, they are removing the ability for sellers to leave feedback forbuyers. Now, Ebay has always been successful on the basis of both buyerand seller being able to rate each other based on the success of asingle transaction. They are removing this for sellers. This is veryscarey for the seller population because as sellers, we already are heldhostage by what we call "Feedback Extortionist Buyers". These are thebuyers that buy something in an auction and then send an email that says"You send me the item free or I will leave you a negative and ruin yourEbay reputation!". While people like this are quite few and far between,they do exist. I've got over 792 transactions nd I've come across 4 difficult buyers who no matter what I couldn't please them. I managed toscrape by without a negative because they were booted from Ebay, but thepoint of the matter is that while most buyers are wonderful, thesepsycho types of buyers DO exist. Now with this new feedback system, ONErogue buyer (and even my selling competition) could ruin my reputationvery easily. Even if I provided a 100% perfect transaction and the itemwas received the very same day and all was perfect with the world, thatone person could ruin me if they wanted to. All they would need to do isbuy 5 or 10 items from me and leave five feedbacks separately - because each and every negative will count against the seller. This would mean the end of my store and my business on Ebay over one rogue buyer. Why? Read the next section.

Third, as if one and two weren't bad enough, if a seller has below a 95%satisfaction rating on Ebay, Ebay will not display your auctions in thesearch engine. For example, if I sell20 items one month and 1 of themhas a neutral or negative left for it by a buyer (deserved or not), Ican no longer list auctions on Ebay and have them be seen in the searchengine. Yes, thats right. I can list, Ebay will take my money, but allof my auctions will be on page 857 of the listing and never be seen byany buyers. So once I get one negative, it is virtually impossible torecover from that by selling additional items becuase non of my items will be seen to be purchased by another buyer later. Its a no winsituation for a seller.

Fourth, as if all of this wasn't the most horrific thing you've everheard, they're making changes to Pay Pal - which is the method mostpeople use to accept payment over Ebay. From now on, if you have lessthan 100 feedback and you sell an item Pay Pal will not give you yourmoney for 21 (TWENTY ONE DAYS!). Yes, you read that right. Say, Susie sells a 50 dollar item and the buyer pays through Pay Pal. Susie is thenforced to ship the item FREE without any paymen. After 21 days haspassed, THEN Pay Pal will forward Susie her money. This folks is justhorrible. Do you know anywhere else on the planet where you can demandthat someone selling you an item give you the item FREE and ship it toyou FREE while you hold on to your money for 21 entire days? I suredon't. On top of this "under 100 feedback" thing, again if I have lessthan a 95% rating or get one negative or get one neutral - again - PayPal will hold my money for 21 days. Imagine how must interest Pay Paland Ebay will accumulate on billions of dollars being held in 21 dayincriments - yet another disguesting way for them to squeeze MORE moneyout of the system.

Fifth, they instituted "Seller Rewards". Essentially, if you meetcertain criteria as a seller you can earn 15% credit on your account.The catch is that you have to sell 1,000 dollars or more on your accountevery month and have to have a 4.8 rating on all your "stars". I feelthat these guidelines are impossible to reach and that they wer designedto be impossible to reach on purpose so that Ebay, yet again, would nothave to actually pay out the discounts. To give you an example of howhard these are to reach, out of Ebay's top 500 Powersellers (Thesepeople are the creme of the crop on Ebay and make lilke $100,000 a monthon Ebay)...anyway out of tje top 500 of them, only SEVEN qualify for the15% discount. SEVEN. And finally, when all these changes were announced, the Ebay sellerswent ballistic. The response from Ebay management? We were told that ourcomplaints and nager and frustration and tears were - and I quote -"NOISE!". Yes, we are nothing but "noise" to the Ebay management, yet they are making million dollar salaries off of us. I know I am so mad, myself. I have 100% positive feedback and I've completed almost 800 transactions. I'm not a bad seller and I bend overbackwards to make a buyer happy. I have a very good record. But ALL THATHARD WORK and ONE rogue person could ruin it for me. Or even someone whocomptes against me can very easily get a new nick, by stuff from me,leave negs - and take my listings right out the search engine!!). It's not fair at all. Not to mention, if somehow I do screw up or get a roguebuyer, Pay Pal won't even let me have my money for 21 days. When you dothis type of work full time, that is a terrifying thought.

So I'm here to beg you guys, if possible, and even if you don'tunderstand all the ins and outs of Ebay and what a seller has to go through to sell on Ebay - PLEASE RESPECT THE STRIKE we are organizing.Please! Please don't buy or sell on Ebay from Feb 18th through Feb 25th. Please tell your friends and family members to do the same. We know thatnot everyone can respect it - some people make ends meet by selling onEbay. But for those of you who can, us sellers would very much appreciate it if you could respect the strike on those days. Also - if you are an Ebay seller - and you are angry like the rest ofus, CNN and FORBES is quite interested in how we fee. Quite a fewpeople, including myself have flocked to CNN MONEY to get theirattention. So far, the comments and anger and speaking out are actuallyworking - the media is starting to pay attention and Ebay has stepped uptheir marketing tactics. We feel that they're getting a little worried over all the outrage.

Busy Busy Busy

The new stocks arrived, and I have been so busy packing and sorting out the sizes. These are really nice RL hoodies, that is still retailing on their online store. They are so nice that Mike got to keep 2 of these hoodies So much for being priviledged :)

I guess I will be even busier in the coming weeks, as more of the stocks I ordered will be coming in. Some Carter's, Striped RL polos and solid coloured RL polos. My tiny office space is getting crowded as it is right now.