Leah’s Cafe

If there is anything good can come out from the recent cancer scare, it scared the big boy into action! :-)

I have nagged and nagged about including me in his employer provided health care plan, and since I am not there in IL yet and it never seems urgent, he just kept procrastinating it. Actually all he had to do just tell the human resource personnel about his intention and provide some basic data about his wife.

When the first pathologist’s report came back recommended further investigation of possibility of cancer, he sprang into action and got me on his health insurance plan within three days!

If we were gold coins collectors, we might be able to sell them to pay for the medical bills, but too bad we aren’t. Even a simple surgery and the subsequent diagnostic tests to identify malignancy has cost us more than 10k out of pocket. At least he knows cancer treatment without insurance coverage can wreck us financially and reason for many of the bankruptcy cases filed in America!!

Since I have taken every scopes and tests under the sun to identify malignancy and found none. Dr Eugene, the O & G suggested taking a second look at the pathologist’s report. He got me the slides and our oncologist friend wrote us a referral letter. The slides were sent to another pathologist at another hospital for second opinion.

The second pathologist’s report came back today, it didn’t mention anything worth further investigation! That means the first pathologist might have read too much and/or over analyzed the elements he saw on the slides!

Thank god it’s just a cancer scare!

It’s unlikely a common practice, but thank god for Dr Eugene who cares about the best interest of his patient, for voluntarily suggested getting me the slides to go get a second opinion. I believe it’s through divine intervention and the power of many prayers that changed and turned the outcome of this, thus keep me from going for another surgery to remove the left ovary as diagnostic and preventive measure, which is unnecessary in due of the second pathologist’s report.

I am very thankful that it’s not the real thing, just a scare that burnt a hole in my pocket and kept me busy running around for three weeks!

If you are a sporty fan, you will know watching the games in front of TV is different from watching it live, nothing beats the kick of watching the games live! But, it is not always easy to get tickets for sport events especially for popular sport events i.e. Miami Heat tickets are usually sell like hot cakes.

Are you frustrated because you cannot seem to get the hot tickets for your favorite NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL games or an amazing concert? Have you ever tried getting it online? With the Internet, it is possible to get your tickets without camping outside the ticket sale counter. :-)

My parents have lived in two different houses in their 40 years of marriage, they cannot imagine how on earth people like me moves around like a nomad. I just realized that this is the fifth time I am moving in the last ten years. That gives an average of one move every two years, it’s quite a nomadic lifestyle, isn’t it?

In fact, many of the boxes haven’t been unpacked since the last two moves. They are so many things we need to sort out or throw away, but we get so overwhelmed and paralyzed by the sheer thought of going through this junks, we just don’t do anything with them!

Many of the things are not useful nor valuable, but they hold certain sentimental values i.e the two boxes of cards and letters from a dear friend who was studying in a different university. It’s amazing that we were able to write to each other faithfully for 4-5 years, these letters are good chronicles of our student lives. Nevertheless, it’s time to throw away the bouquet of silk flowers and the small trinkets as they have accumulated to much dust. Time to give away all the soft toys and small little gifts from ex boy friends to niece and nephew and whoever wants them. :-)

Got up 6.30 a.m and start meddling on this computer, thought better get some work out of the way as this is going to be a busy morning running errands. I need to drop by the oncologist, Dr Nonis’s office to pick up the pathologist’s report. I am a bit nervous about the outcome.

Then, I am going to our house to sort and pack up some boxes that the part time cleaners already helped to move to one of the bedrooms that we are going to use to store our stuffs. We plan to rent out the house for as long as we are away in IL. May be we will return to live here one day when we are older, right now our plan is to keep the house and not selling it yet.

I am also going to help dad pick up his computer that sent for repair on the way home. His desktop was fried during a thunder storm, the mother board, sound card and video card have to be replaced. Good thing they are still under warranty! The last thing is to pick up my second sister who is at the car workshop. She is sending her car for painting work and leave it there until tomorrow.

With a few blogs running on several hosting plans, the cost of maintaining this blogs can add up to be quite a bit. However, it has not been costing me anything more than the domain registration in the last one year. I am able to host the blogs for free or almost free by taking advantage of the promotional offers of many of the hosting companies.

I just signed up for a first year free or almost free package. When the one year is up, I just move to another host. Since I have done the migrating a couple of times now, I have even learned to do it in a few simple steps, without involving the MySQL or any scripting whatsoever.

But, there are two lessons learned along the process. First, never take the “free” domain offered by this hosting companies if you plan to move out after a year. The “free” domain doesn’t register under your name and you need the permission of the hosting company that provides the “free” domain (the current registrar) to transfer the domain. Generally, they would lock the transfer of your domain one month before it expires and that would cause much delay when you try to transfer the domain and move your blog to another hosting company. It took seven days for me to be able to successfully transfer a “free” domain out.

The second lesson is: make sure the hosting company allows shell access. You cannot do a direct import of the posts, comments and categories from your old host if you do not have access to the root directory. This hosting company doesn’t allow access to their root directory for security reason. What lame excuse, don’t they heard of unix security software ? Luckily it is free for the first year, so I am still thinking should I get a new domain and start a new blog there, or just abandon it totally?

No matter how much we want a trouble free life, the things that seem so difficult today are the things that, in the future, we may be thankful that we experienced them. Don’t you agree, difficult times are often best times in our lives that taught us important lessons of faith, patience, and wisdom?

Not all of us have a chance to go on these cruise deals, but we all have a chance to sail and respond to storms  in our life. It’s probably never easy, but these will be the things that the spiritually stronger I of the future will praise and thank Him for bringing me through. It’s true that God never promise an easy life, but He did promise to never leave me nor forsaken me, what a relief and comfort!

The big boy does not only collect Star War and Lords of the Rings toy figures, he also collect hot wheels and coins. He recently purchased some proof sets of US Mint Coins and hot wheels off Ebay and emptied his paypal account. That’s typical of a selfish boy who refused to grow up.

He has agreed to help me with the medical bills and pay for the air ticket, now he is broke and won’t be able to purchase the air ticket! Luckily I have transfered a few thousands out of his bank account before he splurged it on toys. A boy should not be trusted with handling money. He “needs” to spend it when he sees money in his bank account!!