Life Update 26-04-022

It’s been a mega long time since I updated. Sometimes I feel like giving up this blog. I have lots to share – my mind is always turning cartwheels, but it’s a chore to get it all down in writing. But there is something that always bring me back here to give a very, very occasional update, though I don’t know what that motivation is.

Anyway, I am very grateful that we are finally able to open up here in Singapore. My sister and nephew was able to fly back for over a month’s stay in February, and she plans to come back again later this year to make up for lost time. She is making all this effort partially because my dad is on borrowed time.

My dad has a lot of health  issues, as I have mentioned before. In the space since the last update, he has gathered more. Basically, his heart is failing, his kidneys are failing (on the brink of needing dialysis), he has some spinal issues that causes bad back pain but which cannot be resolved efficiently via surgery as his heart will not be able to take major anaesthesia. He has also just been diagnosed with early prostrate cancer, but which seems dormant at this point, so we are not going ahead with treatment yet. We also just found a lump in his thyroid which is yet to be diagnosed.

Despite all this, there is not much sadness or fear in the air at home. My Dad has been incredibly accepting of his all his conditions.  He has also indicated that if any of the treatment will impact his remaining quality of life, he might decide not to go ahead – like chemo/radiation etc for cancer. He has also indicated that he might not want to go for dialysis if it is ever needed, but I am not so sure of that, because I understand it’s a horrible way to go. But we are not at that stage yet, so it’s moot for now.

Anyway, he knows what is coming. We only hope that with proper diet, exercise and being in a healthy mood, we can have another 8-10 year more years together.

My mother, on the other hand, has completely recovered from her brain surgery. Although she still needs to be monitored regularly for tumour regrowth, she is otherwise fine for now. The brush with death has caused quite a few changes in both her and my father. She takes things much easier these days, and don’t stress herself. She also treats herself as and when she wants. She hopes to get another overseas trip in before her mobility declines further, so for her sake, I hope the COVID situation gets even more stable in the remaining year and I can bring her for another trip.

My father is also treating my mum much better these days. I think there is some guilt for the past and also some realisation that he really relies on her a lot, so he better treasure her while she is around. They still have their squabbles, but these days it’s a different kind of squabble. It is the kind that brings a smile to your face, because there is a lot of affection behind the squabbling.

For myself, I finally got my eczema flareup under control. It took me about 8 months and thousands of dollars but I am almost back to normal now, so all is well.

I am still working, but mainly working from home for now. I actually gave my notice to quit last August, when my eczema was still going strong. I had decided to go for a dual approach – both TCM and Western dermathology, and needed time off for that. I also wanted more flexibility in timing, in case my parents needed me.

However, my boss still hasn’t found a suitable replacement – mainly because she can’t pay what suitable candidates are asking for and not really wanting to compromise on her requirements. We had an agreement that I will continue to work for her at the same pay until she found someone but I would work only a four day week, and I would be able to take additional leave as I needed. I also wanted to work from home primarily, going into office maybe one day a month. This saves me two hours on the road per day. I am happy to continue indefinitely on this arrangement with her, and I am confident that it will take some time if she wants to find some one suitable within her budget.

Throughout the whole COVID and job situation, I have been constantly hit by how much stress I have been relieved of by my pursuit of FIRE and the presence of passive income. At no point in the past two years have I been stressed out about money, nor was I hesitant to quit my job when I felt I needed to look after my health.

Currently my annual expenses stay more or less stable at 20-22K . My rental income brings in about 17K annually. So I only need to find another 5K annually at most. I can easily cover that with a part time job, which I plan to do once I conclude my current employment, so I don’t need to dip into my investments. I can actually try to bring my expenses down further, but it might affect my quality of life a little, so for now I’ll stick with it.

Anyway, life is…not exactly perfect, but good enough. With all that is happening in certain parts of the world, my little slice of life on this tiny little island is heavenly by comparison. I give thanks in my heart when I have a meal. I give thanks again when it is storming outside and I am safe inside my own flat. I give thanks even when my father complains about having to go to the hospital twice to thrice a week, because he can still get comprehensive and cheap healthcare.

So, until the next time I update, I hope everyone keeps safe and all the strife in the world gets resolved soon. Bye till then.

A Good Update After All The Bad News

Things are looking up.

My mother has had her brain tumour removed successfully, and has had a good recovery. She is up and going again. The public hospital system moved very fast even though the various hospitals were more or less full up. She got her surgery completed one week after the being warded, and was at home less than one week after surgery.

We had great doctors who gave us a lot of confidence. One of the reasons for my mother’s quick recovery was that her surgeon managed to complete the surgery in half the time allocated and she did not have to undergo additional time under anesthesia. It helped that my mum was also very healthy otherwise and had none of the chronic conditions. It was sobering to find out that many of the people who were warded with my mum could not get proper resolutions to their health issues due to underlying problems like diabetes, heart and kidney issues etc. My own father cannot have surgery for some back issues due to reduced kidney functions and have to bear with the pain while undergoing less effective rehab.

Anyway, we even managed to have an at-home CNY reunion dinner with family and friends about three days after her discharge – my mother’s wish; she has always been the people person of the family, and the sudden illness made company and relationships even more precious to her. Since her surgery, she had been gaining strength and health back at an astounding rate, a surprise even to her doctors. She is almost back to normal strength now after just over one month since her discharge from hospital. Even better, some old issues that were originally attributed to aging has since disappeared, and she seems more alert and well than ever.

Financially, my mum came out fine, $0 out of pocket. The total bill came to over SGD 20,000, but she was treated in a government hospital and stayed in a subsidized ward class. Whatever the government did not subsidise, her medishield and private insurance took care of it. Even if we had to pay every single cent of the 20K, it would have not affected my parents’ financials. For that I am very grateful.

There were other small hurdles and incidences along the way of my mother’s illness that had somewhat of an impact on me, and which caused me to do a little bit of reflecting, but I shall touch on those in another post. I am just happy now that my mother is well again, and the family is currently safe. My sister hopes to be able to travel again in summer this year, and hopefully we can all be together soon.

By the way, thanks to all who happen to leave a comment in my previous posts, and sorry that I hadn’t replied earlier. I really appreciate your thoughts. Hope everyone stay safe and happy.

Bad News

The start to 2021 has turned out to be a bad one for me.

My mother was diagnosed with a brain tumour on January 28^th. Will I forever have this date etched into my mind?

We are looking at surgery this week if possible. And CNY and reunion dinner at the hospital. But I don’t really care as long she gets well.

Her prognosis isn’t the worst. The tumour is likely benign, it’s located outside of the brain membrane, but its huge. The doctors say they rarely see such a large brain tumour. The risks of dying from such a tumour is low, but we do face the normal brain surgery risks. Any surgery of the brain is a major surgery.

We are all trying to keep each other spirits up. My mum is the “people person” of the family, so there has been an outpouring of care and concern. We have been continuously fielding calls from various friends and family and it has been tiring. People have been mostly considerate and keeping things short – just that there are so many of them.

I think mentally, my sister might have it worst, since she is stuck in the UK and can only rely on us for updates. Imagine what her downtime is like – the fear and the anxiety.

For my part, I am just generally relieved that I have all the resources that I need to deal with this and has planned for this scenario way back when I decided to pursue FIRE. I have informed my boss that should my mum need long term care after the surgery, I would be resigning from my job and doing it myself. 

Anyway, there is now the surgery to focus on and get through, all other discussions can wait.

And I hope this is the last of it. No more bad news, please.

The World Is Too Big Again

The world was getting smaller; many unseen boundaries appeared to have been eradicated, but with one blow, COVID-19 made the world too large again, larger than I have ever felt it to be in my whole life.

This was the thought that kept crossing my mind for the last one year as things unfolded.

We have not seen my sister and her family for close to a year. With her being locked down in the UK, she will not be back for Chinese New Year this year. My parents will not see their adorable grandson anytime soon.

My Malaysian tenants have not seen their family for a year. They will not see them this coming Chinese New Year either.

At work, we have been swamped with calls from repatriated Singaporeans who used to work overseas. They used to be either be located overseas on a permanent basis while their families remained in Singapore, or used to fly back and forth on a weekly basis. With COVID-19, these arrangements do not work anymore. One lady candidate gave up her Hong Kong life to relocate to Singapore permanently because she couldn’t see her Singaporean boyfriend regularly otherwise.

None of them wanted to risk getting stuck for any reason anymore. They used to think no such reason existed. The virus has proved otherwise.

The world has become so big again, the seas uncrossable.

The bad stuff will probably end one day. COVID-19 will probably come under control one day. But I think people’s faith in globalization might never be restored. I am not sure if my sister regretted moving so far away from family for love, but for some other people, the world will never be small again.

And that, I think, is truly sad.

An Update – Sep 2020

It’s been a long while. Things haven’t gone exactly smoothly in the past year, and I have had no inclination to write.

Firstly, I contracted serious eczema immediately after my last Switzerland trip. It has been a year-long battle, and I am still dealing with it. The doctors think the temperature difference in Switzerland brought on the eczema. I was also wondering if this could be a result of hormonal changes due to pre-menopause, but I haven’t had that tested yet. So anyway, it has been a long year of not getting any sleep due to intense itching, bleeding skin, scars etc. I have it under control over most of my body at this point, but my hands and feet are still quite bad.

And the worst of it is that one can only control the symptoms with eczema, there is no root cure.

My father had a heart attack earlier this year, and it has been revealed that he has clogged up the blood vessels from his last bypass. His kidney function has also deteriorated, in part due to the medication to resuscitate him and in part because he had been undergoing laser treatment for kidney stones. He has only 50% of his kidney function left, and about the same for his heart function.

Nothing much can be done further with regards to his situation due to his age, so he is in maintenance mode now. The aim is to keep him functional and as healthy as possible so he has as many years left as possible. The doctors say that if he is careful, he may get another 10 years yet. It is sobering to know that the end is actually visible for someone. I wonder what it feels like to know you are on a countdown. My father seems to be taking it fine, but there is some regret that COVID had to happen, because his window for traveling, and spending time with my sister and nephew residing in the UK, has been cut down substantially.

Now, my mum. She had a fall earlier this year and fractured her left elbow. There had been many complications and she underwent three surgeries in total over a half year period. The good thing is that she seems to be finally on the mend.

Between the three of us, there were plenty of hospital visits and during a COVID situation and during the lockdown too! The only silver lining was that we are all of us financially sound and unaffected by the economic slowdown.

Oh, and I lost one tenant due to COVID-19. She was working in the hospitality sector and was retrenched, so she went home to Taiwan. I have yet to replace her, so that is a little drop in rental income for now.

We have come through the tough year more or less intact though, and despite the health concerns, life is still going on as per normal for my family and I. We are all grateful that we have little financial concerns during this global pandemic and times of economic slowdown. My mum says she can’t imagine how she would have coped if something like COVID happened while my sister and I were both in University and the family business was in trouble.

Personally, I am a little better off financially for this year compared to pre COVID times, as my job is not in jeopardy and I have had lots of cost savings working from home most of this year. All the government subsidies helped a lot too. My investments took a deep dive earlier this year but have since recovered.

So there you have it, an update finally from your truly. Things are not perfect, especially when intense itching wakes you up at 2 am in the morning but I am otherwise still here and mostly sound. Despite all that has happened in the last year, I am mostly grateful that things are not worse for my family and I, and my previous depression has not made a revisit.

Hope everyone out there is fine too.

Back from Switzerland

And so, I have been back from my trip of a lifetime for over two weeks, but have not updated due to struggling with various things since my return.

No trip updates for a while, until I get all the photos in one place. They currently reside in three different phones.

It was kind of a weird trip, and my Mum and I had some form of PTSD from it for about a week after we were back. My Mum had been dreaming nightly about climbing un-climable mountains, and I had also been dreaming about train rides and train stations every night. I will elaborate more when I do the trip updates, but one of the main reasons for the trip being less enjoyable then I had planned for was this – trail reviews. Don’t trust trail reviews when they say that it will be a hike grannies can do, because Swiss grannies CAN climb like goats.

I am also badly sunburnt, because I forgot to pack either sunblock or a hat, and refused to buy any in Switzerland because prices were kind of astronomical. 15CHF for a cap when I have dozens of free ones lying around at home! Thanks but no thanks! As a result, I look like I spent ten days at a beach resort instead of the mountains.

Anyway, the grand total for our trip sans discretionary shopping and gifts came to SGD 7,700 for two, which is pretty respectable. We have my mother to thank for this, since she lugged a rice cooker and about 7 dinners worth of rice all the way to Switzerland. Together with the generous breakfast at the hotel in Wengen, we managed to keep food costs way down. Frankly, it was really, really difficult to stomach the cooked food prices in Switzerland. The cheapest alternatives we could find were Kebabs at about SGD 15 each. We ate a lot from supermarket delis for our lunches, and a meal with two sandwiches and a salad would cost us about SGD 25. We checked out some Asian places, but there was no way we were ever going to be parted with SGD 25 for a bowl of beef noodles.

Frankly, I don’t know why people complain about food prices in Singapore at all. My mother told me she went on a grocery shopping spree once we came home, because suddenly everything looked so cheap by comparison.

We also spent around SGD 1100 on gifts and shopping. Dad did get his Swiss watch after all, plus another one for an Aunt of mine, and about SGD 350 worth of chocolates, wieners/cervalets and cheeses.

On the whole, it was still a memorable trip and I can now laugh at certain memories that had originally caused me to nearly cry in frustration. Switzerland is very beautiful and well run, and if I had the moolah, somewhere I would really like to live on a semi-permanent basis. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I comfort myself with thoughts of future trips back to the mountains.

Will be back with more updates as soon as I can get myself together and put together a few review posts!

….Ok, just one picture for now to stave off the anticipation…

Watch out for the rest!

Dealing with Learned Helplessness

My mother recently went on a short trip to Batam with her friends, and I noticed one of her long time friends did not join the group. When I queried why, my mum made a face and said, “Oh, her husband just retired, so she can’t get away because he needs waiting on.”

The lady’s husband is a healthy, physically capable man. It was an overnight trip. She would just be away for two days! Oh, the learned helplessness of that generation of men! It makes me boil. And we have one such man in our home too.

We recently asked my Dad how he is planning to cope while Mum and I are away in Switzerland. Singapore being Singapore, food is obviously not going to be an issue. Laundry though is going to be problematic. An excerpt of the conversation went like this:

Mum and Me: Just throw it all into the washing machine.

Dad: I don’t know how to operate that.

Mum and Me: We’ll preset everything, you just throw the clothes in, add detergent, and press ONE button.

Dad: But, but, but, I won’t know which button to press…I may press the wrong button…It is just too much trouble.

Since he won’t press a button to do his laundry, the likelihood of him doing all other chores like hanging up the laundry to dry and ironing his own clothes is literally nil. Not to mention stuff like washing the toilet, mopping the floor etc while we are away.

Anyway, the conclusion to that conversation? He would just leave everything in the laundry basket for ten days until my Mum gets back to take care of it. My mum is resigned to it. She says that if he had gone with us, she would have had to deal with the same amount of laundry at the end of the trip anyway. Meanwhile, I can barely suppress my rage.

I don’t know why anyone thinks this is even acceptable. It is not even the disproportionate amount of housework that women undertake that I am talking about. It is the fact that a human being is allowed to be so shamelessly lazy and dependent until he/she loses the skills for independent living.  And while I see this typically in older generation men in my part of the world, I understand that in certain parts of the world, the younger generation is also being brought up to function this way – to always need someone else to do the dirty work for them; otherwise they literally cannot survive.

I also confess to having a secret fear that my father would outlive my mother, because it will be expected that her drudgery will become mine, being the single unmarried daughter still living in the immediate vicinity. For a long time, I almost hated my sister for getting married and moving to the other side of the world, because she just took herself out of the running for this role. And I also secretly blamed my mother for enabling my father to this extent.

If my father was really sick and unable to do things for himself, it would be one thing. Having to wait hand and foot on a healthy person physically capable of independent living is another. I had a taste of it in January this year when my mother went away and I loathe the thought that there is a chance I would be looking at years of this if ever my mother passed on before my father did.

Oh, and don’t ever try to suggest paying to outsource the work. “Why waste the money when we (as in “people other than myself”) can do the work ourselves?” and “You think we’re made of money?” are common refrains.

I guess I could just not do it, if it comes to that, but decades of conditioning has made it such that I feel extremely unfilial even just thinking about not taking care of my father that way. So I guess I am adding to the enabler train and resulting wreckage, huh?

Until I can comfortably convince myself that leaving my Dad to his own devices if Mum is not around anymore, is acceptable, I just try not to think about it too much, except rage in small doses when conversations like the abovementioned crop up. In between, I just try my best to enjoy my own independent living.

And for those who have yet to reach this point of dependency, I would exhort family and spouses to please, please stop enabling the learned helplessness for everybody’s sake and teaching the new generations that such thinking is acceptable. Note to self and all: No one ever died doing a little laundry.

August 2019 Update – An Irritable Month

Actually, the month of August itself has not been so bad, but I am feeling cranky right now from a combination of things, so that is going to colour the whole of this post, unfortunately. No sunshine and roses for this one, hey?

Anyway, the first reason for my crankiness is disturbed sleep. Two of my tenants have taken to sleeping in the living room for reasons only known to themselves. This means that we have one door between us instead of two, which means less sound insulation. As a result, I have been woken up by alternating phone alarms since 5.30 am for several mornings already, and every single time I fall back asleep, I get woken up by another alarm, until I am wide awake at 6 am, with nothing to do. I finally fall asleep again near 7 am only to be woken by my own alarm. I hate losing that 1.5 hours sleep for nothing. To add insult to injury, those responsible didn’t even wake up until about an hour after the first alarm sounded! I have no idea why they set the alarm so early! And now, I have to draft a courteous message to the culprits when all I feel like is bawling them out for the inconsideration.

The other reason for my crankiness this morning is that someone saw fit to slash my new shoes at my own doorstep over the weekend. I still haven’t gotten over it. It is one thing for someone to come along and steal the shoes. That would have been an opportunistic crime; I would still have lamented the loss but move on. This slashing feels very personal, and I now feel targeted and unsafe in the very place that I should feel safest in. I feel quite violated in a sense. I had planned for CCTV installation in next year’s budget, but now I feel like I have to do this now.

And the worst part is that my mind keeps churning around the questions “WHO?!” and “WHY?!”. Is it one of my tenants? My neighbours? Did I look at somebody in a wrong way? Forgot to smile and sent a resting bitch face to someone? The kids who were being rowdy outside my house and whom I asked to keep their voices down? Their offended parents? It is very disconcerting and unsettling to feel that there is someone out there who probably hates your guts but you have no idea who it is. And I hate being unsettled.

And now for the other major happening this month. I went to the A&E for suspected appendicitis or intestinal blockage about two weeks ago. The blood tests and scans are all clear though, so I was sent home with painkillers after 8 hrs of discomfort in a plastic chair and $600 on my credit card. I am still having lingering pains now and then, so I plan for more specialist investigative works after my Swiss trip. More money down the drain but if it all comes back clear, it is money well spent, I guess. Anyway, you will find few real complaints from me with regards to our healthcare system. We all know the mess that is US’s system and my sister has nothing too good to say about the UK NHS, so I guess we are not badly off in comparison.

Anyway, that is about it for the bad parts, thank goodness. Life goes on otherwise. My sister and her family are in Singapore this week, so I get to see the bundle of energy that is my nephew. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would ever be enamoured by a baby, but I guess I just have not met one cute enough yet before this. My nephew is apparently a little flirt and stops whole shops in their footsteps when he goes out. My sister said a stranger followed them down several aisles in the supermarket just to play peek-a-boo with the baby.

In just over two weeks, we go on our Swiss trip of a lifetime, and that is something to look forward to, but I have trouble conjuring up much enthusiasm for that at the moment. The excitement of the planning stage is all gone, and I am currently viewing the trip from a “must-do chore” perspective. I sure hope this doesn’t persist and that I get back some semblance of enthusiasm before we fly.

So yeah, it has been a little depressive this update huh? I guess things can’t always be great, but I can’t help but think if life somehow thinks I have got it too easy the last one year and it is time to shake me up a bit. I have gotten soft mentally in the ease of the last year, but I am definitely not on the lookout for any challenges, so I hope this is the extent of it. If I only have to spend money to solve the problems, I will count myself lucky.

Alright, I need to be off to see if the cobbler can do anything with my poor slashed shoes. More later when I am in a better mood.

A Question of Moral Education?

Yesterday, I gave up my seat to an elderly man in the train. He turned around and chivvied his young grand-daughter into the seat. She looked to be around seven to eight years old and quite sturdy, and in my opinion, fully able to stand for the duration of the train ride. Certainly more capable than her old grandfather. Not only that, the grandfather still held the heavy school bag despite his grand-daughter being seated; the girl did not attempt to relieve him of the burden.

This makes it the second time this happened. The first time round, the grandchild snatched the seat the moment I stood up to let his grandfather take the seat. This was a sturdy lad about eight or nine, but the grandfather had no objections. He even took out the child’s toys from the bag to ensure the child had his entertainment, while holding on to the heavy school bag himself.

I wonder what kind of moral education both parents and grandparents are providing these kids at home. Aren’t these situations perfect for teaching the kids respect for the elderly, starting from their own grandparents? I would have had the mother of all scoldings if I had dared to even consider taking a seat from my parents, not to mention my grandparents at that age.

With the MRT getting exceedingly crowded, there have been many complaints about young people not giving up their seats for the elderly. After bearing witness to the above situations myself, all I have to say to the elderly making the complaints is: You created the situation. If you didn’t teach your children/grandchildren the correct thing to do, don’t complain when the offsprings of your compatriots don’t do the right thing either.

I also confess to being exceedingly reluctant in future to give up my seat to grandparent-grandchild combinations after this, like I am somehow contributing to the over-pampering of an entitled next generation, and I am too shy to speak my mind to the grandparent in question.

What would you do?

July 2019 Update – A Mishmash of Thoughts

It has been a while since I updated, due to a bout of prolonged flu and some general laziness.

Random updates and thoughts regarding things that have happened in my life since the last post (that I am just to lazy to devote individual posts to):

• All the Switzerland trip planning and bookings have been completed, many excel sheets later. It was done with quite a bit of exclamations over prices in general, but still, it is ALL DONE. The damage to date is S$6,200 for flights, accommodations and rail passes for two people for nine days. I really doubt we can just spend $400 per person on food for the trip, because it is Switzerland, so I guess we will end up blowing my initial budget of S$3,500 each. In fact, I have all but thrown the budget out of the window after all the research, but I am challenged to see if we can make it within $4K each including shopping. Yep, no Swiss watch for you, Dad.

 

• The daughter of my parents’ close friend passed away suddenly. She was about my age and allegedly passed on due to stress and exhaustion related issues. I think this incident convinced my parents for a while that my simple, downshifted lifestyle is not that bad at all if it kept me healthy and happy, though my mother started making comments again last weekend about my non-achievements. Oh well.

 

• For the nth time since I started working for my recruiter boss, we have been given age constraints for hiring. For really, really senior C-suite positions no less. The ageism is really bad; since when did 45/50 years old become the end of the runway for people? And we are living so much longer! So, take it from someone in the front lines, try to FI as early as you can, because you may be forced to RE whether you want to or not.

 

• I tried the low information diet a while ago and I really didn’t like it, because I felt like an uninformed swine during conversations. And I also feel that more information gave me more control over my life, whether that is true or not. However, it is very hard for me to read/listen/watch any form of news or reporting these days because there is just no good stuff happening anywhere, and I get so sad. What to do about this?

 

• I just realized (about 30 seconds ago) that the anniversary of my moving out of my parents’ place passed three days ago. So I am just over one year into living on my own, and I am alive and well, thriving and happy. Yay!

 

And…that’s it. Till the next time, folks!