Mild UTI + Pat's early 37th bday lunch @ Grub + Ian's bday lunch @ Sushidan + farmily Dec babies' gathering + lunch @ Gracie & Anthony's + 2025 Reflection & 2026 Resolution
12/12/25 Fri: Suspect I have mild UTI because I’d feel the urge to pee and slight burning sensation when peeing since yesterday or the day before. It’s probably worsened by travel and mild dehydration, so I decided to see a doctor before dinner and bought the Ural effervescence capsules ($45) as well. Had to cancel my dinner and karaoke plans with my lyrics classmates.
13/12/25 Sat: Accompanied my parents to JE's market this morning and to see how my dad is after he was discharged from the hospital last week or so while I was overseas. He had stomach ulcer in his intestine previously, hence the blood loss and on Monday, he has to return to NTFGH's endocrine department for consultation and check-up. Mum has been helping him with his medication since he tends to forget to take them, but she had skin inflammation since the hospital visits she said. I suspect she's a bit stressed as well.
Did the usual market shopping and after that, dad went to queue for pork and century egg porridge ($4.5) which he shares with mum weekly. I tried some hokkien mee ($4) but it was not nice. He was able to walk on his own after some medication from the hospital, but while we were walking towards the bus stop, he suddenly went missing. I went back to look for him until mum called me, saying he went into the TCM hall to buy soap. He does things when he want to without informing people around him since young, and mum said there was once he just disappeared and went to a toilet..."missing for 30 minutes" so she was worried sick. Told him he has to be more responsible and always spare a thought for people around, especially his family.
Back at my parents, went through his whatsapp content and reminded him how to use the voice record function on whatsapp for easy communication. He was not interested in the jigsaw puzzle I bought my trip (300 pieces probably a bit too hard), so I urged him to play the logic puzzle game to train his memory. Mum did one together with him while I was there, and she completed another one by herself in the evening and sent me a photo. *Dad went to sleep again tsk. Well, it's a rainy day too... really good for naps.*
14/12/25 Sun: Busy work day with the South Africa and Hong Kong reports but I'm very satisfied with the prawn, cabbage, tofu and mushroom udon cooked by Potato during dinner~ the umami of the soup was very strong, so it's very tasty hehe! The prawns were plump and the cabbage was very nice too. *爸爸的记性不好，考验我们的耐性。也许是人生学习的一部分吧，也可能是教会我们珍惜的一次机会。*
15/12/25 Mon: Met Pat and WZ at Grub at Junction 8 for Pat's early 37th bday lunch. I tried their chilli crab sauce linguine with breaded fish ($22+). The sauce and pasta was not bad, but breaded fish was meh. Pat also had a kaya burnt cheesecake~ glad she enjoyed it! It was only a short meet-up as I had to go home to work in the afternoon, but it's nice to keep the tradition of celebrating each other's birthday ongoing! *Dad was done with his second colonoscopy this afternoon, but he probably has other problems bigger than the ulcer. 家家有难念的经；因为爸爸的病况最近我焦虑多些，但我也只能提醒自己不能急，凡事得灵活应对且做些长远打算，希望妈妈也不要过度操心。*
16/12/25 Tues: Went for Elsie’s intermediate class this morning and she decided to go with Towers! It’s my first Towers’ class, so she showed me the set-up. Not overly hard but after two weeks of no-exercise, some of my muscles are obviously tighter than before lol.
18/12/25 Thurs: PotaTOHs treated Ian and Linh to lunch at the raved and newly opened Sushidan~ Potato went early and reached at 9am. He was fourth in queue when the restaurant opened at 11am. I ran there because I was slightly late lol. We had the $29.90 sets each, and I think they were generally value-for-money! Linh and I were busy catching up so I honestly did not pay attention much to the taste lol. Then, we had Thai tea toast and coffees at Homm Dessert.
Potato tried cabbage roll for dinner, and made ponzu chilli sauce to go along with it. He minced mushrooms, pork collar, carrots, onions and ginger with oyster sauce, mirin, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Chinese wine and white pepper in those fat cabbage rolls haha~ it came out slightly underdone, so he microwaved it for a bit more. The cabbage was sweet on it's own and the meat mix was nicely marinated, but the sour ponzu sauce also added an interesting layer of taste to it.
19/12/25 Fri: After Car-streng-dio class this morning with Emma, I went to Jurong Polyclinic as dad was there at the Memory Clinic for another round of test after three years. Knowing dad, he has always been bad with words, knowing a bit here and there in English, mandarin and Malay. Somehow, he decided to do the test in mandarin, but this time there's a Chinese nurse doing the translation for the Malay nurse since I went late. At one point, the instruction was to "fold the paper in half", and the nurse translated it to“把纸对折”. To the majority of us, that's no problem because we understand, but for dad who's not so good with Chinese vocabulary all along, he didn't know what it meant (when I check with him later), so he folded the paper into many folds. As someone who have been working with English and Chinese all these years, and in this context, I would rather the nurse have translated it to the very layman saying of“把纸折一半”, because that's how most Singaporeans of my parents' generation would have understood it.
Saw a young doctor after that and I explained to her dad's situation lately, and maybe because she's not a specialist, she couldn't offer an answer exactly so her first approach was for dad to take medicine to improve the brain condition and delay memory loss. But, does that mean my dad has been diagnosed with dementia based on the worse score in the Memory Clinic's test alone? There are loopholes in the test like between nuances in translation and what patients understand, and my dad could have been stressed after hospitalisation and his habit of avoiding talking etc are not helpful. I would have loved to explain more to the doctor in his case but she wouldn't have the time for us, so we decided since he still has a few other medicines to take for now, we will not take the brain medicine first and go back for check again.
Had yong tau foo for lunch with them at the market, and took a bus home with dad because he has constant pain in his leg and prefers taking a bus even for one stop. Interestingly, he saw a neighbour or friend and immediately recognised that guy and smiled and talked to him. Anyway, he has a list of medical appointments coming up and I will accompany him whenever I can because he is clueless what the doctors and nurses say every time. Also, it's to lighten mum's load because she's already helping him a lot at home when it comes to his medication and routines.
My thoughtful Potato made seared chicken somen with cherry tomatoes and Japanese cucumbers for dinner~ he added chilli oil in the base too. Seared chicken tasted very nice!
20/12/25 Sat: Enjoyed carrots, potatoes and sweet corn soup, stir-fried cabbage with king oyster shrooms, carrots and shrimp cake and shrimp gyoza with Japanese cucumber for dinner~ prepared by Potato as usual~
21/12/25 Sun: Long work day for me but PotaTOHs had the farmily over since late afternoon for Netflix and birthday dinner for Ning, Ian, Gwen and Ava! We ordered zichar from Famous JB 101 ($170) and my favourite still remains their peppery chicken soup, prawn paste chicken wings and coffee ribs, albeit all of the dishes were quite good actually. Everyone was so focused on eating you don't really hear conversation going on but "mmmm... wow... yeah..." lol~
Also had cheese kueh lapis cake Fran bought from Bali, and fruit cake James and Gwen brought over. Of course, the guys had to have some alcohol around haha~ Ning and Wandi bought moscato.
22/12/25 Mon: *I only stopped feeling floaty today. Seems like it took me about 10 days to recover from jet lag man~* Went for my first pelvic ultrasound scan at Batok Polyclinic and I was told to drink till full bladder. Good thing I only downed water on my way there and while waiting because I waited about half an hour before my turn! Nurse Julia asked for the first day of my last period before she began to do the ultrasound. The whole process took 10 minutes or so and every time she pressed the scanner slightly harder, I felt like peeing lol.
Potato cooked shimeiji, maiitake and Swiss Brown shrooms with cherry tomatoes and spaghetti for meatless dinner! A bit too hot for me because he had one chilli inside and I still poured quite a bit of black pepper and tobasco sauce lol.
23/12/25 Tues: Went for大光明禅修and I could feel, internally, I'm still a bit tired and sleepy. Couldn't focus well because of my cough too.
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