Panic attack + Laifaba wonton noodles & roasted meats & Muay Thai + Ajiya Okonomiyaki restaurant with Potato + 《爸妈不在家》+ Boxing cardio class + “First Person Singular” + Nozomi with Jess + ECG test + Ume San 100 with Jess & YJ + closing of STC

13/5/23 Sat: I can’t really pinpoint the trigger, but I had what I think was a panic attack in the middle of the night.

It was the second day of my period. I did not drink plain water from 2+pm onwards, hi-tea wine and tea. At night sleep aircon before slp also avoid drinking as much. Had maggie mee supper. Couldnt fall asleep. A bit of chest pain when lie on left, toss and turn, keep feeling thirsty and stomach bloated. Sudden heart racing so i got up, walk to kitchen to drink water and felt like heart beat so fast i cant breathe. Walked back wake potato calmed me down a bit. Tried to relax and breathe while seated down and it got better but min i lie down it felt uneasy. Numbness in left arm and cold in chest. Sat up a few times and could lie longer each time. Tried to sleep but potato’s snore kept me up. Maybe slept near morning. Something i notice: usually my feet and arms would sweat if fully under blanket for a while but tonight i could keep it in totally not sweating. Not unusually cold either. Didnt feel like a lot to urine but urinate quite a bit when I decided to go toilet. Went kitchen drink water and found air con leak when i come back. Looks like a possible panic attack due to dehydration/stress.

PotaTOHs drove to Laifaba wonton noodles & roasted meats to have lunch. We ordered their specialty wanton noodles with medium-fat char siew and also their wonton in red chilli oil ($36). We agreed that the noodles, sauce and char siew were good, albeit a bit on the pricier side, but the wonton in red chilli oil was salty for us.

Attended Yip’s Muay Thai class in the evening with four other ladies. We paired up and practised the moves like upper cut and jab cross which I learnt in kickboxing and piloxing, but others like right swivel were new to me. The drilling was rather tiring too.

14/5/23 Sun: Don’t know if it was the “trauma” from yesterday but when I tried to go to sleep and it reaches those points when your body is going into “another level” of rest, the similar feeling of the heart slightly racing came back accompanied by the same similar numbness in the chest and front body area, and then I’ll wake up and try to turn about. Took me a while to calm myself down in the humid night and then I guess tiredness took over. I really wonder if it’s the humidity that’s causing my urge to swallow saliva before sleep.

Potato cooked tomato stew with taupok, potato, celery, chicken leg meat, enoki shroom and carrot in them. The coral lettuce side went very well with it.

15/5/23 Mon: Once in a while, especially at night when doing nothing but sitting there, I could feel the sudden start to “sink” into panic attack mode. Been taking deeper breaths these few days after the panic attack. Fell asleep quite easily at night but after waking up, the left chest area sometimes hurt when pressed or taking deep breaths. Been a long time since I felt this.

Got quite tired during Pilates reformer class but good thing I felt nothing in the chest. Cooked a simple meatless hot soba dinner and also tried the fried beancurd burdock gimbap I bought from shopee (less than $6) was not bad!

Potato drove us over to attend Jess’ grandma’s funeral wake after dinner. She was already 93 years old and in her late stages of dementia then. Thought I ought to pay a respect because I remember seeing her grandma a few times when I went to her place last time.

16/5/23 Tues: *Slept okay last night and woke up feeling fine. Hopefully I’ve recovered from that.*

After dinner at my parents’ and I was seated on the train towards my Aerial Yoga class when the panic attack suddenly happened again. I first felt cold and numb in the face before I started to lose focus on the surrounding and then I could hear my heart racing. I took a deep breath and drank a sip of water before it went away. The whole thing happened in a minute. I kept thinking about that during the aerial yoga class so I didn’t really look at the flow sequence properly… tsk. When we laid down during Savasana, I guessed I over breathed and suddenly felt like I had to open my eyes for fear of it happening again.

17/5/23 Weds: *The VB this year was good but I’m feeling pretty jittery the whole day, so I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate. Please go away.*

I was very much relaxed during the whole of Yin Yoga and Sound Bath class until the end when Yip would strike the sound bowl as we did savasana. The minute he started, it triggered my heart to race.I was uneasy for a while but I told myself to calm down and breathe. I don’t know if the stimulation was “cleansing” done to my mind or did it actually made things worse? I tend to lean towards the former because later on in Wheel Yoga and on the way home, I was feeling great all the way and in fact much better, like my chest (chakra?) opened up.

Did the tripod stand in class and I rolled over at the first attempt because I did not placed my arms and head properly, but managed to do it on the second try. Cannot lift my legs up though.

18/5/23 Thurs: Treated Collin to lunch at老火汤but the pig stomach soup I had was so rich that it made me feel a little sick after that. Also, I had so much to do in office today that I felt my head ache in a weird way. I felt like it took so much out of me in a long time, so much so that I felt tired even when Potato treated me to a yummy Okonomiyaki dinner at Ajiya. *I know he did that to cheer me up after seeing his down wife after my first panic attack. Very thankful.* I only felt better at night after showering, but then my nose was so blocked that I felt like I had to breathe harder many times. *Mum got worried after I told her my condition and she checked in on me almost every day. I felt loved but I don’t like my love ones worrying for me either, so this will be a reminder to me, to learn how to relax and stop worrying, to channel the negativity out and to pace my work out especially.*

19/5/23 Fri: Attended the virtual Qigong class after a break and it felt nice. I am really not enjoying coach Irene’s virtual Piloxing classes on Friday evenings nowadays because she can go on 10 minutes non-stop with one set of exercise, sometimes forgetting to do the other side too. I wish we could get coach Stephanie back!

Potato cooked a yummy chicken marinara for dinner tonight as usual yay~

20/5/23 Sat: *A reminder to not go against my body when doing breathing exercises… listen to what it decides.*

Was rather tired from work but I got my energy from Potato’s homecooked meal as usual… seafood fried rice yay!

21/5/23 Sun: Potato attended his friend’s wedding dinner at Clifford Pier at night, so I cooked my own dinner and watched《爸妈不在家》.

Haven’t been absorbed in a movie for a while. The whole 90s setting felt so familiar to me. The naughty boy who would later grow to miss his Filipino maid who left, the maid who worked illegally outside as a hairdresser to earn more money on her off day, the father who lost his job and money to stocks, the pregnant mum who got jealous of the maid and her money tricked by scam company.

I’ve never had a maid before, but I felt sad like the boy did when she was forced to leave.

Rating: 3.5/5

22/5/23 Mon: Attended HPB’s virtual boxing cardio class in the morning. The pace was okay for me, but I “died” during some core exercises as usual haha. Just when I was about to get some water to wipe my yoga mat, I realised the water pressure was low in all taps at home. By 11am, there was no water.

Checked with Angela and some other neighbours and everyone in my block was facing the same issue. The water supply resumed at about 1pm but there was weird sound coming from the taps, and the water was cloudy for a while before it became clear again. *I took a quick shower in the afternoon but the pressure from the showerhead was inconsistent.* Someone from the Choa Chu Kang Town Council warned everyone not to drink the water until about 8pm at night, after the pumper has finished flushing the water.

Potatohs drove to Changi airport to fetch Ian and we had hawker food at ABC food centre at Jalan Besah. The “stupid” char siew they coined from one of the stalls there was quite nice, albeit a bit fat for me.

Finished reading “First Person Singular” by Haruki Murakami at night.

All eight stories were written in the first-person singular narrative. I skipped one on “baseball” because I wasn’t interested. I enjoyed reading “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey” and “Charlie Parker plays Bossa Nova” especially because the blurring between dreams and reality was interesting.

Still, they were confusing for me sometimes and I didn’t have much takeaways from them at a higher level.

Rating: 3/5

23/5/23 Tues: Yip taught aerial class tonight and I managed to get into the “warrior pose” in the air, but the pose after that was more challenging in the sense that it made me worked my legs (and hurt my left calf a bit) while hooking it in the process of going up. The final still pose saw us “in agony” over our sore quads lol~

24/5/23 Weds: My heart still raced a bit at the start of the singing bowl but I managed to calm myself down after a while. It still felt a bit uneasy, but better than last week.

Thought I did this pose nicely. Failed at shoulder stand in wheel yoga class because there’s still that fear of falling over but I did get the feel of both legs in mid-air while I tried… quite shiok leh.

25/5/23 Thurs: Meatless Thursday instead and Potato whipped up a yummy vegetarian Japanese curry with butter-seared king oyster mushroom and onion, shiitake, carrot, potato and edamame~ nice!

26/5/23 Fri: Did my 5^th session of香柏木massage and头部按摩with Sherlyn. Potato made squid in tomato and tobasco sauce, sweet corn, carrot and potato soup, as well as spicy lady’s finger with mushroom. I enjoyed the sweet and sourness from the squid dish and the soup was very sweet, albeit a bit “unnatural” according to dear after he added the wolfberry haha.

27/5/23 Sat: *Out of nowhere, I felt the heart palpitation for less than 30 seconds this morning while half-lying down to watch TV. Tsk.* Came home to yummy salmon with Chinese spinach and mushroom spaghetti in carbonara sauce~

28/5/23 Sun: Met Jess for lunch at Nozomi at Star Vista. We both had barachirashi don ($24) but I found the portion rather small! After that, we set down at a coffee place nearby and chatted for a few hours till close to 6pm. *Was feeling a bit unwell maybe because I sat for too long after eating. Is the issue with my digestive system instead?*

29/5/23 Mon: Attended Chisa’s Pilates reformer class with three other Japanese ladies. The moves today were not as hard probably because two other aunties were newer to the class.

Cooked a simple meatless noodle in chicken stock with carrot, dumpling, potato, ikan bilis, egg and bok choy, complete with the brown lentil as a side.

30/5/23 Tues: Saw a doctor at 8.20am at Bukit Batok Polyclinic for my panic attack issue. She sent me for the ECG test which took less than two minutes to be done. *Nurse said I was so nervous haha~ I’m quite a highly-strung person and I know that’s not good for health.* Doctor said my result was normal and she said it’s good that I feel okay during exercise, though she gave me the option of going to heart specialist for further checks, which I held off for now. But, she thought my neck looked a bit swollen, so sent me for some blood test to check for possibility of hyperthyroidism. *The last I did a blood test for thyroid in February, the results came back normal, so I’m not too worried.*

Tried new flow to get into the mermaid pose tonight... ouch my armpits!

31/5/23 Weds: Attended Nirvana Fitness zoom class after a long while and there was a new instructor this evening. The moves she did were different and slightly easier than before imo. *Potato bought us dry rice vermicelli with pork from Pho Street for dinner because of my cravings hehe~*

2/6/23 Fri: Tried Pilates Reformer class with the Korean instructor, Leila, this morning. There were only two students, so we used the Wunda chair for some stretching and quads’ work earlier before going over to the Reformer. Overall, it was more of stretching today, albeit there were some core workouts.

Jess, YJ, Potato and I decided to try out the newly opened Ume San 100 Japanese ramen place for dinner this evening. The eatery was quite small and there was a long queue outside when Potato and I reached. YJ and I had their ‘Angry Asari clam ramen’ ($16 each) while Jess and Potato ordered their dry prawn ramen ($20 each). We also shared the Umesan Nachi Pagoda ($10)… a small tower of fried gyoza skin, with a side of lobster salad, mala clams, seasoned jellyfish, and soy wasabi. My ramen was okay and I liked the fried gyoza skin but I don’t think we’d go again.

We finished dinner at about 6.30pm and wanted to go to the Izakaya bar above but it was full. Ended up having some desserts at Jane Deer opposite Bugis Junction instead. YJ was sharing about her new bought HDB and the renovation details. After that, YJ didn’t feel like going back yet so we window-shopped at BHG and she had some tea at Paris Baguette lol. *Breathing felt a lot better after taking one bottle of  cordycep drink, albeit it still felt weird at times... still definitely much better than before even if there’s that urge to cough sometimes.*

3/6/23 Sat: Potato cooked a ‘monstrous-sized’ rosti with sausage and cucumber for us for dinner haha! *Damn the palpitation came again for a few seconds when I was working late. Kept me awake till 3+am tsk.*

5/6/23 Mon: Thanks a lot to my dear for cooking the meatless dinner on Monday evening. It was supposedly "my job", but I wasn't exactly in the mood too after Townhall this afternoon. The last of Singapore Turf Club's races will be run on October 5, 2024. My first job since graduating from NTU... 10 years now and it comes to this. 180 years of horse racing in Singapore gone just because the government wanted it for redevelopment purpose. *I'm sorry but look at Bukit Timah's Turf City. What happened to 'redevelopment' there that now you need a second one?* Honestly, there were improvement in the turnovers this year and things were looking up, but sadly that wouldn't change the "grand plan". 

I don't know where the future brings me next but I most probably won't see such a great scenery/surrounding with lush nature at my next job. *I feel that it's not a 'cast in stone thing' whether or not we can run races till next October. If owners/trainers pull out at a much faster rate than expected, then it would be terrible.*