Monday 22 March 2010

Before Midnight

The funny thing is that I have no specific topic to blog about on. I have been contemplating several issues and events but somehow they got around to becoming important or massive enough to blog about. A shame really I guess because I really should just put fingers to keyboard and regardless of written length, just pen words to my blog. I have an iPhone and clearly have not utilized it adequately for this purpose, though I have restarted adding content in my other blog, The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten. Did 3 stories in 3 train journeys to work. A productive use of the time.

Let's see, how shall this go on? Randomly seems best.

The Northeast Line trains do not have hand grips above and along the rows of seats. So people don't want to move in to the centre of the car for fear falling over. It's a dumb situation easily fixed with a bit of welding. We're supposed to pack ourselves in at peak hour but some help with stability would be good, dear MRT gods. Some trains on the other SMRT lines have such rows of handgrips but the smart designers removed the handgrips in the middle. So it's sort of back to square one with that one.

Work is gonna get more intense. Greater responsibility has fallen onto these shoulders and, fingers crossed, people will listen to my ideas and there's budget and all goes well.

I've been looking at HDB flats to buy and eventually move into. Each weekend I peruse the classifieds sections of the weekend papers for promising outcomes. I sms agents and most reply with an invitation to view. I think of these as weekend excursions. I bring the family on these semi fun trips to visit other people's homes. My mum will criticise the colour schemes and ask about kitchen cabinets while I usually stare in disbelief at the asking price. Well there is one flat that's got my attention and we've seen it twice. I've also stopped at a bank to ask about loans. I have been in denial this phase of Singaporean life, the lifelong debt bit. At least the girl at the bank was nice.

Ok, midnight, time to sleep. To be continued to some degree.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

A Piece Of Mutton, Or Something

The night or two before the biopsy I had trouble sleeping. I thought I'd be cool about it but the subconscious had other concerns. This time there was a repeat of the tossing and turning. I am a little morbid about bad things happening. I guess thinking the worst helps me handle whatever the outcome would be. I blame television.

I got my biopsy results last Friday. Funny thing was that I forgot to get off at my intended train station to switch trains to get to the hospital. I took the path to work, before realising the literal error of my ways at Dhoby Ghaut. When I got off at Novena, I contemplated taking a bus but the SG Buses app told me the only bus I could take would arrive in 7 minutes. I would only need to take it one bus stop away. I didn't wanna sweat in our God-forsaken heat of late, ok.

I ended up walking nonetheless. They took my weight again. I couldn't understand why. The male nurse attending to me told me if I gained weight it would be a good sign. I told him it was the excesses from the Christmas - New Year - Chinese New Year season of overeating.

The doctor said there was no sign of malignancy. That was enough for me. But what was the spongy mass of benign curiosity in my right lung? A granuloma. Web definitions include "Non-cancerous lumps that can form when certain body cells surround foreign material, such as silicone. Like any lump, it should be evaluated to distinguish it from a lump that might be cancerous." "Granuloma is a medical term for a ball-like collection of immune cells which forms when the immune system attempts to wall off substances that it perceives as foreign but is unable to eliminate."

So my friends could be right - a piece of mutton.

The doctor also said it was shrinking. Double woohoos. She showed me Xray scans on her less than adequate monitors on her desk as evidence of her newly announced diagnosis.

So that concludes it. The first 2 months of medical drama for 2010.