Yet another year had passed2015 came and went.
It started with an operation (which got postponed once due to my never ending cough caused by bad sinus). It could have been just a day surgery but the doc recommended a one night stay in the hospital for better pain management. So we ended up spending our 4th wedding anniversary in the hospital. Thank goodness I am fully covered by insurance. And of course, I'm so relieved and grateful to have discovered the problem and rectified it before more damage is done. My life feels much healthier now than the past few years, and probably a bit more energetic than before as well.
My stint with the ministry ended at the same time as my hospitalization leave, and I returned to work to start a new "chapter of my life". I was excited, because I would be in a new department and placed in a more senior position in charge of a team. I was keen to contribute. However, the excitement did not last long. Reality set in and human issues became more annoying and irritating for work to be pleasant. Quarter life crisis hit (probably as a result of that), as I questioned what I had achieved and developed over the years, and what I wanted to be in the future. I was seriously considering quitting when the going got rough and the stress and unhappiness was too much to bear. However I had no idea what else would be better, plus a 2-weeks break in Australia helped to relieve the stress, so I am now still at the same place, pondering less about what else I want to do and thinking a bit more about whether my thinking or perspective or values or principles about work haven been too narrow and rigid and impracticable or whether there is a need for me to change and adapt instead.
The most traumatic thing that happened, was the loss of a blighted ovum. It started in end March with lotsa happiness and excitement. Then the spotting started after returning from the short Taiwan pilgrimage in early April, and thereafter a series of visits to KKH. The doc prepared me in the early stage of investigatory tests that there could be a chance of ectopic pregnancy, and if so an emergency operation would be required on the same day. Thank goodness they managed to find something small in the womb and not in the tubes, hence did not confirm the diagnosis of an ectopic. Subsequently the small sag grew, but into an uneven shape. There was no foetal pole to be found. No heartbeat. Just an empty shell. I was scheduled for a D&C, but during the pre-op clinical visit, I was still holding on to hopes that it could be just late development and hence requested to postpone the ops by a week.
The fateful day came a few days later. I was feeling really down from all these and took the day off from work. Cramps came and went on that day, and it was about 4pm when the most painful bout took place. It was less painful than I thought, but still more than the usual menstrual cramps. I was rolling around in the bed for about 30min. Eventually after the pain subsided, I went to the toilet and felt "it" slipped out. I saw the ball of tissue, wondering if that was it, and took some time before flushing it away. And that was it, the end of 9 weeks of growth, confirmed via ultrascan 2 days later. No ops was necessary, thankfully.
Logically, scientifically, there was no foetal pole, no heartbeat, so no baby at all. Life went on, I still went to work normally without taking leave, nothing much appeared to have happened. But apparently my body and heart and subconscious thought otherwise, and I had the most heart wrenching nightmare ever. One in which I had to witness the death of my most loved one so vividly, holding her in my arms while I bawled and cried her name out so loudly and painfully. I woke up in the middle of it with tears flowing and my heart still tight with pain and sorrow. I continued to cry. I cried so hard, like I've never cried before. It was a much needed relief of the stress and sorrow that had been building up over the weeks. With that, I finally closed the chapter and move on.
The year came to an end with a few meet ups with friends, including some whom I had not met in years. I seldom went out one on one with friends, so I was rather nervous about it. But I was glad to have done it. It was really fun to catch up with each other. Making friends get more difficult with age (or maybe it was just me), hence knowing that there are still friends out there that cared and appreciated my company is very comforting, especially since I had been extremely lousy at keeping in touch.
2015 got me started thinking about my priorities in life. About work, about life, about family and friends. I hope to be more enlightened in the year ahead, and that I would feel less lost and can focus on working towards my goals. I pray for the energy and positivity to overcome my fear and challenges to come, and to work towards becoming a person I could be proud of.