We visited a dermatologist today for a second opinion on Zee Yau’s nail. Her nail on her middle finger lacks lustre and is becoming very rough. Initially, I thought it was due to abrasion resulting from playing with sand. However, I realised that it has gotten worse lately. I had a GP seen her last week, he didn’t say much about it except telling me to keep her hands dry and said it will take a long time to recover. Zeeyau was prescribed a cream to apply. My guess is the GP himself wasn’t too sure what was wrong.

I wasn’t very confident about the GP’s diagnosis (or no diagnosis). My brother then recommended me to visit Dr Goh S.K. clinic at Paragon, saying that he is very experienced and charges very reasonably. We made an appointment to see him very quickly. True to what my bro. said, his clinic is really those no frill kind compared to the other clinics around that look expensive, posh, tendy, high class or whatever decor.

Dr Goh diagnosed Zeeyau condition to be the Twenty-nail Dystrophy. Following the diagnosis, he gave me a little education on the condition, showing me books and asked me to read the description of that condition.

He said such condition usually occur in childhood. Early symptoms are small spots on the nails, which will slowly join together to form longitudinal ridges that makes the nails look rough. He found small spots of Zeeyau’s nails and the badly affected nails fits the description of the condition. The cause of such condition is unknown, and there is no known medical treatment. Well, the good news is, it is not fatal and would not affect her health in any way. It might go away when she grows older, hopefully that wouldn’t take too many years.

I was told to stop applying the cream since it has nothing to do with fungus infection. However, Zeeyau wants to continue with it, believing that it will help her nails recover by Christmas. I told her it might take 2 or more Christmas before it will return to normal.

We have been back in Singapore for a week and can safely declared ourselves to be free from the swine flu bug.

The kids have a blast of their time. Constantly eating all sort of junkie the grandfather bought to indulge them and then spend the rest of their time watching TV or playing with the neighbours until 11pm everyday.

And I finally had my four wisdom teeth rid off this morning. It is a big relieve to get these four stupid teeth off my mind, butI guess our plan for the father’s day feast tomorrow has to be shelved until I can eat properly.

Hopefully the pain and swell will go away very quickly, so I could enjoy myself a bit for the next two weeks before heading back to Shanghai.

Two important reminders.

1. always bring the child to consult a doctor to get a more through checkup during emergency even if everything seems alright.

2. avoid letting young kids handle glass.

It was really quite a freak accident. 弟弟 and I were enjoying a bottle of juice and he accidentally dropped the glass bottle. The bottle broke upon hitting the hard concert pathway. Then he rubbed his right eye with his hand and begun crying in pain. I thought he was terrified by the shattering sound of the glass. As I dried his tears with a piece of tissue paper, I saw a faint stain of blood on the white tissue.

Damn shit happened. My immediate reaction was to send him to the hospital right away and then warned him not to rub his eyes any more . He stopped crying after a minute or so and I started wondering if his tears had successfully flushed out any glass fragments that had gotten into his eye. Should I just go home since he wasn’t in pain anymore?

Better be safe then sorry and always trust our ultra kiasu motherly instinct. We went to the nearby Ruidong Hospital and was directed to see an eye specialist straight away. The initial checkup didn’t show any sign of foreign objects in his eye. However, closer examination with proper equipment found a stray piece of glass .

She had it remove quickly and his corneas wasn’t injured in any way, just a little cut on the minor eye area. Thank goodness the little lad was sensible enough to heed my warning not to rub his eyes. The amazing thing was, the kid was in total compliance during the whole process. No crying, no fighting. He followed the doctor’s instruction to look to left, right, up down and could even keep himself steady while the doctor was removing the glass fragment. Imagine someone holding a cotton bud and tried to swab it on your eye. I think he was quite brave.

Anyway, that was our little emergency last Thursday.