Thanks for your prayers!

Dear All,

First, I need to give thanks to everyone, anyone who took some time to pray for us during that challenging year and a half, anyone who took the time to give us a call, leave us an encouraging word, stayed with us as we went through this year. I also want to thank all of Living Love Fellowship for their support for having prayed for us weekly during our pre-study worship. I want to also thank doctors (Dr S. Leung in partcular), bioresonance therapists for their care.
I want to also thank my family, during this year, I haven't been the best husband, I haven't been the best son, I haven't been the best dad, I asked for your forgiveness and thank you for your support.

To all of you THANK YOU.

This year, we settled on continuing Lémuel's bioresonance therapy, we moved home and since then, Lémuel has been constantly showing progress, now he walks, he talks, he sings, he says "Aiyyaaa" like a true Cantonese speaking kid. He still has some development delays, we hope that he will be able to get into a kindergarten, next year K1's resources are pretty limited. We leave it to God, we'll pray and see.

Here are some pictures summing up what we went through:

April 2013, his body was completely trashed, red everywhere, swollen, injured, he started to lose weight dramatically, feeling very itchy, suffering from his multiple wounds.

At that time, he was all covered by wounds as you can see:

May 2013, start of his steroid topical treatment. That's what I call bleach for the skin, his body went from reddish to snow as white, but he was swollen ALL over his body, he looked fat, but his body mass went from 50 percentile to under the curve.

As we continue using steroids, we could not get rid of certain rash attacks, he would have  the eyes all swollen up.

Lémuel prepared to sleep in his wet wrap, a real little mummy. That's every night, from May to November 2013.

Up until May this year, he remained tied up when he was sleeping. That's when he was also having wounds on the cheeks.

If he could get his hands off of his wrapping and reach his face, it would end up like this. In order not to shock my readers, I decided against publishing pictures of his face. Believe me, having to clean up massive amount of blood in the middle of the night is the last thing I wish to anybody.

April 2014, we were at the beach and you can still see his skin not completely restored, his cheeks took a VERY long time to heal, arms and legs rashes would come and go.

After a year of treatment:

So again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your prayers and support.

Now, he still has allergies, he still has a very long list of forbidden foods that is veerryyy slowly reducing, he still has sensitive skin. I'll keep you up to date. I'll also try to find time to write down treatment we did in details for people looking to help their kids if they are suffering from the same thing.

This would not be complete if I don't also give thanks to our Heavenly Father who placed Lémuel amongst Myrtille, Yukyin and I. We learnt a lot, we shared a lot, we grew a lot. Thanks to You. I need to admit that a few months ago, we could not envision the fact that Lémuel could live a normal life but Thanks to your healing hands, I see him a living testimony of your Love.

Growing out of allergies?

Dear Reader,

Nearly half year I haven't posted anything. A lot has changed. Myrtille is growing, her relationship with me has not changed, I am always expecting too much of her, it's like the lack of care from my own parents has turned myself into a freak. I don't really know how to work on myself, but when I see her, and hear her... especially when she complains and she does complain a lot, I really want to scream out loud.
So, I took a decision, don't know how long it will last, but I need to be a better father... I need to think of ways about making her feel proud of herself, proud of me and I need to learn how to be proud of her... maybe I should also say it... it might help her.

Anyway, started to learn how to tie her hair in a different way than a pony tail... It's growing on me and she likes it.

Being a Dad... is difficult, being a girl's dad... is even more demanding, our brain does not just work the same way. I need to be even more delicate than with my wife. I don't know how friends having two or three girls are doing it... I wouldn't.

Lémuel....

He changed, now he walks and copy us. His vocabulary is still very limited but he quickly catch those habits we have. He is still walking drunkard style, that's very funny to watch and he does not care about hurting himself.

Allergies? Yes... they are still here, we moved flat and since then, we are using steroids a lot more often, as we want to be able to control their skin condition, that makes them sleep better, prevent them to sneeze like crazy. Inside us, we still want to chase, we want to know why? But sometimes, it's seems like we will never know and we should just spend our time on creating memories with the kids and wife.

But, I do thank you for your prayers, Lémuel is way way way better than last year. It was around May last year that he was depressed and nearly died of infection. Now, he is always walking around and smiling, hoping to catch a cuddle time with Mama. We came a long way from that.

Thanks

Myrtille, 5y


Lémuel, 20m



The watermark is wrong, it should be 2014.

Photogear review: Nikon focusing screen H2

Dear Reader,

Today I'll talk about another focusing screen, last time I told you about the eBay big eye focusing screen here, it worked well but not well enough so that I can really recommend a purchase, especially for the split screen area. I said at that time that I would give Nikon H2 focusing screen a go and I did...
Went on eBay, wait a huge amount of time to have a h2 pop up at a relative good price and snatched one sample.
The Nikon focusing screens type H are equipped with microprism over the entire surface of the screen. There are 4 grades, 1 to 4 that correspond to different focal length of lens used. Longer lens light rays are not hitting the focusing screen the same way as wide angle so that's why there are different grades. I took a H2 because it was the one that is said to work well with the 50mm f1.2 that I own.

Amending an old Nikon focusing screen for cropped sensor body is not so difficult, old ones come in 3 parts, the focusing screen, a condenser (to direct light), a frame to hold all that. I took the focusing out, wrapped it with masking tape, cut it with a metal saw to approx the right dimensions (just took the existing one out and measured it with a caliper). Then started the long process to grinding it to the right dimensions using a file and some sand paper.  Once the dimensions were fine, I took off the masking tape and Voilà, it was done. By the way, for people looking into doing it, I did not make the side tab that protudes from one of the side, I just did a rectangle shape.

After putting everything back in my DSLR, I tried it and I figured out that the focusing was off... Wayyy off.. After a few puzzled seconds, I figured out I mounted it upside down... The focusing surface is towards the top. So took it out again and replace it correctly that time. Test it and it works quite well. The focus is easier to acquire than the big eye focusing screen and It is way easier to pinpoint focusing with it. It's not perfect though as my main manual lens is a nikkor 50 1.2 which can be a bit soft sometimes at its widest setting, so it can be challenging to nail focus. But the fact that the microprism cover the whole screen is a good help, I can focus just anywhere on the frame. I still need to make sure to move my AF point at the right location for metering but I can leave it in the middle and just do a center weighted metering and be done with it.

In a few words, a very good focusing screen.

Thanks for reading.

Still struggling

Dear Reader,

Time is flying, we are 2014 now, Happy New Year by the way.

2014 and Lémuel is still sick. He is ONE now, he did not get birthday party, no cake, no toys, no friends, no outing. I think we used to being spoiled. He is sick and everyday is the same headache.

Beginning of October, as the doctor was not seeing a drastic improvement of his condition, he advised us to go have a look at Bio-Resonance therapy. So, after having being very reluctant to do so, we went ahead. First session passed and we were already reassured. 85% of the allergies we knew he had were diagnosed by the therapist, so we went on a full treatment for Lémuel. It's a lot less intrusive than the IV injection he had at the last doctor, so he is happier about that.

Months passed, he is improving, but lately, he started to have some rashes on his cheeks that we can't get rid off.

That was a month ago, now it spread a bit all over his head and it's a nightmare.

His behavior changed too, he is more aware of his food, he uses "scratching himself" as a way to express when he is not happy and will often scratch his legs, torso, hands etc... we are trying to change this behavior of him, but it's not something that can be achieve in a short period of time.

At night, he is wrapped up in a swaddling cloth, last week, he managed to free his left hand out of it during the night, he turned his bed into a blood bath, blood everywhere on his head, cheeks, etc... Yukyin and I were scared, but we needed to act quickly. Cleaned the wound, placed on new bandage etc... Yukyin got sick with the quantity of blood she saw. It was not a pleasant night.

So where do we stand today? I don't really know. I just hope that he is going to get better.

Myrtille too, started to have rashes spikes, she has a lot over the legs and hands, as she is older, she can't control herself and scratch at night. We can't really wrap her.

Our living is closed to a nightmare. Myrtille, Yukyin and I also went to the Bio-Resonance therapy, I have been diagnosed a depression. Although I can still convince myself to hang on, knowing that I have signs of depression is depressive in itself.

Anyway, if you have two secs to spare, please pray for us.
Thanks

Getting better

Dear Reader,

Yup, he is getting better!

Last time we put steroid was yesterday but it was after 8 nights without!
Please continue to pray for him.

Now they can start to interact a lot more:

It's not perfect though, he still got reddish after a few days and it does not seem to reduce, but he has been sick the last few days and we know that it affects his rashes. Myrtille on her side has more and stubborn rash, we don't really know what's the reason she got rash all of a sudden these last week, but we are monitoring her situation.

Anyhow, just a quick post to thank everyone for your prayers, it's working! Thanks to The Lord.

See you soon.

Geek post: Data back up

Dear Reader,

People who knows me a bit more knows that I am It savvy and knows quite a lot about computer stuff and general electronic stuff. Lately, our computer has been showing red alarm on storage space. I bought my current computer in 2009, it's an old i5-750 with 2x1TB of storage, the system is running off an SSD which is fast and responsive. Our usage is simple, I do photography editing/exporting through Adobe Lightroom, I do a lot of TV recording, we have a TV tuner and I mainly record some blockbusters along with some hd documentary (the ones from BBC for example). It's better than downloading them from the web, I am patient in nature. It takes a bit of time to process all of that, cutting the ads and all but it's worth while.
So far, my pictures archive is toping 250GB and video is over 400 GB and as it's growing at a certain pace. As I keep two copies of pictures and certain files, everything is taking more and more room. So I decided to buy some storage. A few options are available, firstly,  the external hard disk, it's easy you attached it to the computer and it's done and dusted. I could go that way but last year, I went visit a friend's home and he had all those external drive laying around, maybe 5 or 6. So I thought that it was not a good idea, it's far from being upgradeable and once you reach the limit your are done with it, you need to buy something else. Also, you need to manage the space and redundancy yourself.

So the other route is to go NAS. There are a lot of off the shelf NAS providing good transfer performance and somewhat good storage space. But boxes are limited in space, usually 2 bays devices are affordable but if you want more... It's a headache. Also more than 2 bays devices run hardware RAID and proprietary software so it's not safe against "what happen if the board fails? "

So I decided to go DIY route but it's still expensive, my main requirements are: It needs to run ZFS, if it runs ZFS, I need to have ECC memory (it's a type of RAM that does self-check to correct error). I don't want a big box so I would like to have a mini-itx format with the maximum disk that I can put in a box without too much waste all in a relatively small budget. After looking around and pulling my hairs around, I ended up finding a good deal: HP NL54 Proliang G7, a little box that can contains 6 drives on its own, memory ECC ready and that has 2 PCI-E slots available for upgrade, all for less than 1900 HKD (250 USD), I can't beat that price for the features it offers. Then, you add the RAM, the drives and all, you end up with 6.8 TB of storage for 6000 HKD (775 USD), 5 x 2TB drives in a Raid-Z redundancy set-up, so I can lose up to 1 drive before the system has issue.

The software side is handled by a napp-it to go appliance, it's a usb stick, you plug it, set-up the hard drive space and it works, I now have an network drive accessible from my computer with 6.8 TB of storage. Next, I'll probably talk about what else we can do besides acting as an external drive.

Thanks for reading this geek post...

Seeing Light

Dear Reader,

Here is our family last update, Lémuel has been under detox medication for around 9 weeks now, at his last doctor visit, the doctor decided to switch his medication from IV injection to oral intake, it allows the treatment to be given in a more stable way. We received Lémuel's food allergy test and Yukyin took the loving decision to live on rice, potatoes and sweet potatoes so that she does not trigger his allergies through breastmilk, I really thank God for such a loving wife, she is a model for me. In the same time, Yukyin got her heavy metal test result and she has 12 times the reference value for Lead, which is quite astonishing. Hence, she picked up on the treatment too, we'll see how she fares but her rashes has been under control so far.

Lémuel's skin is a bit better, we went from daily steroids to steroids once every two days, it does not mean that he is completely clean from rashes, it is just that his rashes does not peak suddenly one day to the other. First day after steroid application, he usually get a lighter tone, second day one would see clouds of red rashes a bit everywhere. In the last 3 weeks we have seen a slight improvement as on that second day, he has a bit less rashes every time. So we keep praying that he will get completely clean one day. Also, his rashes are a bit different from before, we do a lot of efforts to keep his rashes disinfected, as we moist them with a lot of greasy product and do a wet wrapped treatment at nighttime, it is important that his skin is free from bacteria before doing so, luckily, the doctor prescribed a disinfecting ointment that we can freely apply on his skin. That helps his skin being free from bacteria and avoid infection. His rashes are drier now, they don't ooze liquid as we could have in the past, which is a good thing.

Improvements... but at what cost? Yukyin's diet is boring and we are just staying home every week... hence you don't see a lot of pictures of them. Hopefully, we will finally have him off those medication and he will be able to start eating like a normal person.

Myrtille, on her side, is growing too, she is now in K2, she does love her brother, but we see some hints of hate and love relationship growing. She loves it when she manages to get him laughing non-stop, but she does not like that all of our time is spent taking care of him which is not so surprising but in the mid of despair, she surprisingly started to act like him in an attempt catch our attention. Anyway, we know her needs, we will address it, we just need help from above and from your prayers as always.

Thank you for your prayers and support to us.

Ah! Last thing, we are all sick, it started with Myrtille, then Mama, then, Lémuel and now me... Our helper is the one next on the list. Nowadays, our bodies are just unfit to fight against a simple flu.

Living on steroids

Dear Reader,

From my last post, Lémuel went through the worse weeks of his short life. Mid May, just before his 6month check-up, we realised that he lost 1kg which is life threatening for his age, as he was supposed to get 1kg from his 4 month check-up. His rashes got worse and his skin was turned into a humid yellow flaky and bloody swamp. He had very very bad rashes with an severe diaper rash. It's was so severe I better not show any pictures... It still break our hearts looking at pictures of him at that time. 

The doctor (let's call it doctor A) we went to see who did not prescribe any steroids still did not acknowledge that he was going through a painful treatment so, in a call from God, our pastor advised us to go see another doctor (let's call it doctor B). From the beginning, we kept ourselves from using steroids but his condition was too severe to chose not to. Dr B told us that we need to use it because he has too many open wounds and although he can't die from eczema, he could die from infection. So, she put him on antibiotics, swabbed his skin to check if he had any staphylococcus aureus, once his wounds stopped bleeding everywhere, he was to start steroids treatment at a 1:1 ratio, that we scaled down as things were improving. Yukyin had to follow a vegetarian diet as Dr B's is specialist in nutrition and meat, dairy, wheat and egg are a 

After two days, he was clean. All clean, he was so clean, nobody could believe it. Even Dr B couldn't believe it. But our worries continued on, his weight was worrisome. He did not like to drink his prescribed milk "Neocate", a man made milk for extreme allergic kids. On top of that, he started to have swollen feet. During the week-end, Dr B called over and asked us about his condition, she suggested that we still head over the hospital for a blood test to see if he had any hidden issue. So Yukyin spent two days at the hospital. During these days, he was fine, he still did not like to eat anything besides breastmilk. Having him eat his Neocate was quite a challenge, but God also provided us with a helper that is very patient with him.

Weeks passed, he started to gain some weight, but his rashes would come and go, he had a new kind of rashes that we never saw before, so Dr B advised us to seek a dermatologist, Dr C, he confirmed that it was eczema... and his treatment was exactly the same as the treatment for Myrtille... Low let-down ratio with wet wraps... This was kind of a "back to square one" feeling. We did not expected to have to go through all this to find out that we should have kept doing what we were doing at the beginning minus the staphylococcus aureus. Besides, talking about those, his lab report said that he had a heavy growth of them, so he could have died.

Anyway, armed with new creams and treatment, we continued to applied steroids and went back to see Dr B. She was still thinking, why was his condition not improving? he should have started to get better, Mom was eating vegetables, he was on breast milk, we kind of gave up on the Neocate as he was throwing it up, from her point of view, even if her breast milk is wrong, it is still better than formulas. She was at the end of the rope and she gave us two choices: Dr D, a Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor, and Dr E, a heavy metal specialist. We decided to go with Dr E... 

Meanwhile, at the hospital, we went back for his blood test results, they were bad and all over the map, all the indexes were wrong. But he was visibly getting better. The doctor (Dr F) there was still concerned because of the amount of steroids we were using, but we explained him that we did not really have the choice. :( So, he arranged for another blood test few weeks later to recheck-up on his condition.

Beginning of July, he got his blood tested again, by that time, all indexes were ok, but Dr F said that we MUST stop the steroids because it will have effect on his growth (blindness and bones issue). He gave us Protopic... which is known to give skin cancer. Oh, I nearly forgot, he also did a skin test for allergies and he is allergic to cow and soy milk, almonds, dust mites, pork and wheat.

On the private side, Dr E met him and explained his theory, heavy metals are impacting his immune system and it reacts illogically against healthy external elements. Yukyin did drink a lot of fish soup during the first few months after birth, so that might explain why he has such issues, there might be a link!

Lémuel's urine sample was sent to Paris for testing... and we just got the results a few weeks ago, he has evidences pointing to the fact that he may have high levels of Mercury, Lead and Arsenic, 4-5 times the upper limits. :( Dr E is still confident, he said that he has faced a number of similar cases and that Lémuel is still young, he does not think it will impact his growth, especially his brain. His treatment will still have to last at least 4 months, it can be quicker but the quicker it will be, the heavier his liver and kidneys will be damaged. He still prescribed a huge amount of supplements to boost his immune system. He is going to go through a chelation treatment.

So, here we are, applying steroids nearly every night (current let-down ratio is 1:15 with Eloment Cream), our diet is vegetarian, dairy free, gluten free, egg free, milk free... it does not leave a lot. At home, we have Air Purifier, we bought anti-dust mites beddings for us, we change detergent, we clean air conditioners etc... did a lot of things at home. 

Thanks the Lord, he is still alive :) Now, he eats a lot more, his rashes is half under control, he smiles!!! we went to look at his pictures when he was the worse and I pray that we never see him in such a condition ever again.

Anyway, if you have time, just drop a little minute of prayer for us. We pray that we can overcome his allergies.

Rashes, 2nd run

Dear Reader,

Today, I need to pour out my sorrow into this blog... Lémuel is suffering from rashes that covers approximately 95% of his body. It started maybe in January, at first, we did not care as we thought it would slowly disappear, but as time flies, rashes started to spread, more and more. Around Chinese New Year, his skin was rough, like sandpaper, completely opposite from what we should expect from a baby skin. When he took bath, he was scratching his knees, scratching his tummy, and as he has some pretty sharp nails, it bleed. We thought that we would never have to go through this again after our first experience with Myrtille and her dust mite allergy... we were wrong. Lémuel has a wider spread rash and he is developing that a lot more early than Myrtille.

As his condition did not improve, we went to see a doctor, he gave us some steroids and bath oil. After a week, we did not see any improvement, so we tried to treat him the same way as Myrtille, wet wrap method with a low let down ratio of corticoid cream. It cleaned his body, but we forgot about the small injuries he inflicted himself and they started to get infected. So we went back to the doctor again and I got yelled at because I should not have treat him the same way as Myrtille... having the same symptoms does not lead to the same treatment, so I clench my teeth and took it all. Lémuel developed an infection and we got a cream for that, we stopped the corticoid and continue the wet wrap, but after two days, rashes were back again. We were lost. The rashes even spread wider in area. :( Things were getting out of control, so I contacted the fellowship, and Yukyin contacted Myrtille's classmates mom and have them prayed for us.

One of the mom called Yukyin back, she shared a similar experience and advised a dermatologist. We went to consult him on Monday, he told us that we made a lot of things wrong, we should not have used the corticoid, we should stop using paraffin based cream, etc... he gave us a bunch of bath oil, moisturizing cream and we started a new treatment. He noted that Lémuel had a bunch of microbes on his head so gave us plenty of disinfectant soap. He stated that baby should be healed by 1 year old, but that's still sooo far away!

4 days through the treatment, Lémuel is peeling around the exposed area (neck, face, head) and the non exposed area are still reddish with little bumps around. For the last two days, Lémuel started to cry in pain every time we would apply his cream, like something is stinging his whole body, he moves his body so as to avoid our touch. His whole body feels like burning hot.

We feel helpless. In top of that, Yukyin has a blocked milk duct following a yeast infection.

God I know that you read that blog... because You know everything, anything that I write, think, You know them even before it reaches my mind, some of these thoughts, some of my acts, You are the one who suggests them to me, plant them in my mind as we plant a seed on the ground. To let you know, I would rather live with Lémuel's skin issue than look at him everyday going through that pain, living with an ever itching skin, living with the stinging reaction of moisturizing cream applied on his skin. I know that he is meant to be one of your child, I know that it breaks Your heart every time You hear him cry, I know that You are with us when we hold down his four limbs as we apply his creams. I know that You are there bearing his suffering with us. Give us patience O Lord, so that we can go through this, strengthen our faith in you. 
In Your Holy name, Amen.

Brother and Sister.

If you have 2 minutes in your busy schedule, please pray for us. Thanks for reading.

100 Days in!

Dear Reader,

We are 100 days in. Lemuel is still growing at a relative high pace, and so is Myrtille, she definitively got accustomed to her brother, exception when he is crying a lot, she is there, talking to him, trying to calm things down but she sadly realize that nothing is working... while he keeps on yelling.

Growing with Lemuel and Myrtille as a father is a lot different. Usually, people tend to believe they could stay away from comparing their kids, but I know that's impossible, no matter what we do, we'll end up comparing our relationship with each of our kids, God might be the only one who succeeds in this. Although I love them the same, as for now, it's true that Myrtille gives me more headache than Lemuel, even when I try to remember Myrtille at the same age. I think it will be an ever evolving relationship with them, that's the fun part of being a parent.

Myrtille started to seriously learn French... ahaa... Up until now, she only knew about some simple words, like "fromage" and "yahourt", now she understands when I tell her to put on her backpack. Still a long way to go before she says something in French, but it's growing at its pace. I do hope that she'll learn French so that she can understand English grammar a bit more easier. Hong Kong people has a lot of difficulties with English grammar. Even if I take the risk of being criticized for what I am writing here, I do supervise quite a few university graduates here and their English really needs some polishing, I don't pretend to have a perfect English either... but I do believe that I express myself in a very understandable way (I think it even sounds a bit French). When I talk about it with Yukyin, she tells me that she only understood English grammar in France, when she actually learnt French grammar... :). So, if Myrtille can get a bit better in French, we might pull it off. However, I am not so worried about her, God will end up giving her something to do as He does with all of us.

Another topic though, during one of our daily Bible reading with Myrtille, we were talking about Lazarus who died and got resurrected, he was mummified and placed in a dark place, he could not see anything, that time, it was a bit weird because, I might have read this with Myrtille 3-4 times, but all of a sudden, she asked me "why?". I never approach the topic of death with her, I was surprised and in the same time concerned about the kind of answer I could give her, and then, I went to ask my wife, she replied bluntly that she never approach that because the book never says anything about that. :) see how unprepared we can be sometimes...

So at the end, I went and ask their school teachers. They were happy enough to tell me: "Just say that he is dead"... at that age, they don't ask beyond that, just say that "he is dead", that's all, no big deal... Because this is part of the story. But if it was something happening among family members, she reminded us that we need to treat sorrow and carefully in clearly explaining them what's happening. This month theme is Jesus Resurrection at school... so they will take care of the situation.

For once, I felt lighter. :)

So, back to Lemuel, 100 days... and yesterday night was the first night I slept from midnight to 7h45 without opening my eyes. I hope I can keep on leading Myrtille and Lemuel on the right path.

Thanks the Lord for helping me and thanks for you if you got to the end of this post.

Next will be pictures, been a while I did not post but my flickr account is still staying active!

Two Months in.

Dear Reader,

We are two months in and we are slowly getting used to our pace. We went to the birth registry and we are pleased to announce that our little guy's name is Lémuel, which means "devoted to God", because that's the way our Lord taught us to live our life. In Chinese, his name is 讚熙, "Praise Splendor" reminding us to always praise our Lord.

As I said earlier, we are slowly setting ourselves into baby sitting pace, Lémuel sleeps quite a lot, he does not need us to rock him too much, a big difference from his sister, Myrtille had us rocking every time before her nap/bed times up until 6-7 months and even now, she is somebody who easily feels unsecured about things. She easily get mad about things that she can't accept right away, she would yell on us because things does not go as she expect. She has her character... We just need to learn how to live with it and raise her in a way that she understand her limits. Lémuel is already different, actually, he is more playful, he smiles a lot more than Myrtille at the same age and he communicate a lot more with us, he likes to talk to us, he likes to be with us, and when we let him alone, he will make us understand that he is the poorest baby on Earth.

One of our biggest fear about having two kids was the fact that we would prefer one over the other. I think it's difficult to avoid and through the short paragraph I have written, you might think that there is something that changed between us and Myrtille, but I don't feel this way. Maybe I am just convincing myself, but relations are just different. One thing for sure, we continue to love them with abundance. 

Myrtille changed a bit since Lémuel's arrival, at first, we were over busy taking care of him, Yukyin was exhausted from breastfeeding and the fact that he was in and out from the hospital did not help her at all, so she felt put aside, she went as far as saying that she did not want little brother to be home, but when he was at the hospital, she was worried that we came back without him.

Time passed and she started slowly to get a better temper and play her role of big sister, bringing us the changing mat when we need to change her brother's diaper, talking with him, reassuring him when he is crying, telling him that we are quickly coming to take care of him etc... a playful big sister.

So, two months in... Thanks to the Lord, we are still in one piece. This week, we will have the Chinese New Year, that will allow me to rest a bit and work a bit on my speakers project that did not move for 2 years since I talked about it.

Sick sick and sick

Dear Reader,

This fall, flu has taken down some of our family members... It started with me, a while ago, then, our helper, Myrtille and went back at me again. Myrtille is the one who suffered the most. Her fever got very high, she had some hallucinations and her appetite is near ground level, she does not eat, does not drink...
But since she started an antibiotic treatment, she has felt a bit better, at least, she does not have fever during the day anymore, only during her sleeping time.

As she stays at home, she easily get bored and is constantly requesting people to play with her. We are not too sure how to develop her interest in playing alone for some time. Maybe it's in her. So, we are rapidly pushed into our limits... Mom this, Mon that, Dad this, Dad that... Yukyin is tired as baby is relentlessly asking for milk...

Anyhow, we need prayers... for different things, first, we are all sick, so it would be good that we reach 2013 in good shape, second, we would like to found a way to have Myrtille grow more by herself, not reaching for our presence/help at all times. Sometimes, she is is really used to rely on us.

In the meantime, some pictures:

Myrtille and her friend during last Saturday outing (before she got really sick)

and her little brother, playing... behind his towel.

Thanks for reading.

10 days into a 4 Pax family

Dear Reader,

It's been 10 days since God gave us the joy of having a new baby home and what a gift! :)

Lil'bro does not have a name yet, but he is growing. The first half of his life was spent between hospital and home. He was born on the 22nd of November and they spent 2 nights at the hospital, as Yukyin wanted as best as possible to breastfeed, Lil'bro was not allowed any formula supplement, but we might have done it wrong at first. Lil'bro was a bit hungry and after two days, he was suffering from jaundice. He had quite a yellow tint but they still allowed him to be discharged. On the other hand, Yukyin needed an extra day to recover as she did not eat on the delivery day and could not eat afterward at all, she lost too much blood and did not have the energy to put her back in shape, she was feeling dizzy and uneasy with food. On the next day, appetite came back and she started to eat and regain energy. So, by Saturday afternoon, they were both home. But, Lil'Bro appetite dropped and we started to be a bit worried. Yukyin did not have milk in yet, so we were a bit concerned.

On Monday, we brought him to the Medical Health Centre, they told us that he needs to go back to the hospital for further checking. Through those events, I became angry about how wasteful the government can be in some cases, devices to check jaundice there have a 30% variation in readings and at the end, we were asked to go back to the hospital... somehow, I am just thinking if we should not have all those checking done in one same place instead of running around. Anyway, we got to the hospital in the afternoon and Lil'Bro needed to stay in for the night. I was kind of heartbroken... I know that jaundice is common but it's just sad seeing that little guy half naked in a plastic box lit by a powerful lamp. Just a feeling of loneliness. Besides that, they needed to feed him formula, bottle after bottle... they had a fixed amount of milk he needed to eat so that he could flush toxines and other bad things responsible for his jaundice... After one day, he was sharp awake when we visited him... 8) At home he has always been a bit sleepy, there he wanted to eat... So, somehow, we were disagreeing with the hospital's way of doing things, but in the same time, they got him his appetite back.

Another night passed and lamps when out, he was in observation, his jaundice rates were back to lower readings and he could go home on holiday for a night :). So, since Wednesday night, he is back home and we got all tired again from lack of sleeping. Yukyin's milk quantity is a lot higher than before, so I think he can be breastfed from now on. He had a few hesitations at first asking for milk bottle, but Yukyin kept strong and got the message in his mind... "you can only be breastfed".

Now, it's been few days, we are still very tired, Yukyin makes most of the effort, getting up and feeding him through days and nights. There is just some things we will never being able to replace. I tried to keep my head cool down, I had some bad time at start, gave some angry stares at Yukyin, but I'll pray that I'll get my temper in check. Sorry for being such a bad husband. I admire the love you give us so much.

I'll probably tell more about Myrtille another time as she also did change to cope with the presence of her little brother.

Here are some pictures of him:
Thinking about Mum

Another one:
Fully Awake, staring at Dad

Thanks for reading.

God listens... and gives.

Dear Reader,

God listened to our prayers. After Myrtille's delivery experience here, Yukyin was so marked that she did not want to have another baby, but after several years of thinking, she tried to put her fear aside, but no matter how you try, you can't definitively put it aside. So we prayed, we prayed with friends around us, we prayed with brothers and sisters in our cell group, we prayed with Pastors, we prayed and prayed with Myrtille... we kept praying. Yukyin wanted to experience a natural delivery, not a c-section again, but she had her moral sapped by several private obstetricians, telling her that it's no use, the best is to go with a c-section and coming with millions of different reasons about why she failed the first time. She wanted to try to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) but modern medicine prefers to stick to c-section surgery if the mother has went through a previous c-section as the risks are somewhat safer and much more under control. But Yukyin read a lot on the topic (she might tell you more one day) and still wanted a vaginal birth in order to have a quicker recovery for the mother (c-section does hurt your body, it's a surgery after all). So, knowing that she might have a slight chance to succeed (50/50 in the best case from the most optimistic obstetrician) and against  nearly all the obstetricians advice, we still decided to tell the hospital that we would opt for a natural delivery instead of a c-section on appointment.

Thus, from the end of August, Yukyin spent her days and night playing on her fitness ball, going to the swimming pool... doing exercises, walking, swimming, walking, squating... and most of all, praying and keep asking people to pray for her.

Seeing that baby was still not in the mood to come out, we kinda lost hope but we still prayed.

So after 9 months of prayers, on the due date, Yukyin's body started to have contractions around 11AM. She stayed home as she did not want to be under hospital environment stress and pressure. She started to keep track of her contractions, 1 mn every 3-4 mn. It was starting weak. At around 11:30, she asked me to come back home for lunch, so I took half day off. My boss is really good with us, so I could leave without issue. She stayed on her fitness ball, she thought that by going to the hospital, she won't have it anymore.

At 3PM, frequency started to increase, we were at 1 mn every 2 and a half minutes and she could not hold it anymore. We packed our things, I told her to keep the ball and try if she can use it there... we tried to call for a discounted taxi (thanks Grace for the number, Yukyin did not want me to spend 2 minutes not by her side googling for one), but this one told me that it's too short a trip to come pick us up... :( so we went for the legal way, call up a taxi at the Shatin Taxi station, went to the hospital. Registered her up. They did a quick check-up, she was 2cm dilated.

At 3:40, we noticed some nurses talking about fitness ball... And we simply asked if she could use hers as they did not provide any. They said yes! "you should fight for your privileges" (actually, the nurse was from another department and talking to her pregnant friend who was midwife". So Yukyin was happy as she could make herself comfortable again.

At 4:40, I started to hear her crying out her pain and suddenly, the nurses cried out "Ayaaa". Her water broke and they asked her to move back on her bed. She was fighting with the nurses... she could not move at all. They checked her up, the nurses said: "4-5 cm, let's write 4", they move her to the labor room.
Once in the labor room, another nurse checked her up and told her: "You can start to push"... Yukyin was "o_0" ??? what?
She got two incisions and they asked her to push as baby is ready for delivery, she could not believe it!! After 2-3 pushes... baby was there, 4:52PM! She spent less than 15 min at the labor room and baby was born! It's a guy, 3.4kg, we will present him later on.

To sum up, we are SO THANKFUL to the Lord first and to our cell group, pastors and all people who supported and prayed for us, who also prayed that she could manage a VBAC.. We still can't believe how blessed we are! God really gave us a perfect delivery, he listened to our prayers, Yukyin spilled it all, she prayed because she did not want to wait 48 hours as with Myrtille and end up with a c-section, she prayed because she was afraid of the hospital first stage room AKA the room where you endlessly wait and hear other women cry out loud in pain while waiting for your turn... She prayed because she was afraid she would not know how to breathe correctly, she prayed because she knew VBAC would involve some risk (the scar might burst in some rare case). She prayed because she wanted me to assist the birth, it ended up that I could not this time either because of malfunction in the public hospital systems (related to gas leak and all)... She prayed because PW hospital is not the best hospital of the world and that we got a lot of bad stories about it, especially trainees from Chinese University of Hong Kong.... She prayed, prayed, prayed... and she got what she wanted most, an ultra smooth delivery.

Thank you Lord!

Are we there yet?? and some mixed feelings about School

Dear Reader,

Yukyin is at week 39 and baby is still not in the mood to show its face... We really start to feel the weight of all those seconds, minutes, hours or days passing one after the other. Everything is ready, we just need to get baby out of Yukyin's tummy. We keep praying for Yukyin's delivery. That's for my first piece of non so happy news, here is the second one...

Last week, we got the first teacher/parents meeting at Myrtille's kindergarten and I won't hide the fact that we are not so happy about that. She is 3 but she is already so far behind... She is not an easy girl and she does not cross your sight when saying "good morning", she likes to play several different educational toys in a short time while the other may just play one or two at max, she likes dancing around in gym class when her teacher asked her to only stand on a predefined area, she has no patience and wants things right away, she does not know how to draw a face (a circle, with two eyes, a nose, two ears and a mouth)... So, yes she is 3 and she is considered "BEHIND"... If it continues, we will need to use other methods says the teacher...

I think I am just going to blow it out: "SO WHAT?".... Myrtille is 3, if she goes to kindergarten, it's obviously that I would like my kid to learn things at school and not having me teaching her at home. I know that I need to play my part as a parent, but is it K-1? She does not even know how to hold a pen correctly! how can you just ask her to draw a face? ... "look at the others, they can all do that"... so what? Just pushing things into a kid's mind is just wrong, there is no more discoveries, no more fun in the learning experience, that's just sad. The first few years are really the years made for the kids to be given boundless fun with the different tools they have under hands. Instead of that, they just try to format kids into a mold. That's SO wrong. Kids just become robots. I do appreciate the religious teaching they offer, but capping a kid at that age is just so sad.

In a flash of an instant, we gave a thought at leaving the public schooling in order to get something more western culturally speaking, but we just can't afford it.

Now that my anger has passed, we'll continue to work on what we thing is really a problem, Myrtille's impatient side and bad manners. Other than that, I just realize how much we are not in phase with school. I thought they were doing things at child's pace... but no, they are doing things at Hong Kong's pace.

I'll work my bottom off in order to get her through that early-learning phase that kindergarten completely missed. I just pray that God will change that city someday.

An angry Val

Still Waiting.. :)

Dear Reader, 

It's maybe the fourth time I use the word "Wait" in a post title, but yes, we have been waiting for a long time now. We are week 38 and baby does not seems to show any sign that it wants to get out of Mama's belly. So, meanwhile, we are still preparing ourselves. 

Myrtille is growing and she entered a new phase in her mind, we gave her her first stickers program reward, a Vaude flashy red backpack! She loves it. The stickers program is something really simple for kids, she does good thing and she receives some stickers, she gets 30 stickers and can exchange for a gift, it can be bought in advance so she is fully aware of it and even chose it. Right now, we have 3 boxes of toys sitting in our glass shelves... just waiting for her to collect some extra stickers.

She lost appetite too... That's a shocking piece of news, but she started to show difficulty eating vegetables... at the end, I think we are going to have to live through that. 

Yukyin is still doing various training in order to get baby in the right orientation, we really pray that she can do a natural birth this time. Her due date is in 10 days, so please keep her in your prayers if you think about us.

My workouts have gotten faster, I switched skates, I went back to my old BONT Vaypor 5x84mm wheels (you can google that if you have time). They are a LOT lighter than my previous Seba High boots, so I can skate faster and don't feel to have a 100 pounds gorillas attached to each one of my feet. Now I have some more precise figures to share, I average my outings at 15-16km/h, average speed is 17-18 on a flat surface. A sprint will get me into the 27-28km/h. I would like to reach a steady 20km/h on flat road and break the 30km/h on a sprint, but there is still plenty of work to do. I need to boost my heart first and I think I am going to jog train at a low speed in order to do that. Need to find the right fitness plan.

So, That's all for this week end. 

We spent some time taking some pictures, so here they are:

Another one:

And a last one, our little monster:

That's all folks, thanks for reading :) 

Please keep us in our prayers :)

Heart Beat Monitor for Casual Workout: To Keep My Heart In Check!

Dear Reader,

As I said previously, I started to go out and workout. During my workout, one thing I could not get feedback on was my body. You often hear that we should listen to our body, but it's hard to really be able to tell myself if I am in a good shape or not. So, last week, I broke my wallet and went off buying a Heart Rate Monitor chest strap. It's a kind of elastic strap that goes around the chest with a electronic device that track your heart pulse. I suppose it's kinda like wearing a bra while doing sports... weird at first....

The model I use is this one, it's from Polar and it's bluetooth enabled, it works very well with my phone (a Galaxy S i9000), connect without an hitch, totally plug and play. I did my last workout with it and accurately gives a reading of my heart beat. People says that it does not work with the sensor in the back and I still need to try it, I'll update this page when I'll have more about that.
Edit: After using it for 2 weeks, it failed once, it disconnected when I pause my workout and needed a connection refresh, I don't think it's a big issue, I'll see if that happens more often. Also, I did try it with the phone on a beltpack placed on my back and it does work, so I can freely skates with my beltpack on the back.

Now, what's the purpose of it? simple, I try to not overpush myself, when you read the news, you can see stuff like that, a cyclist dying after probably pushing himself too much and in the past, I did overpush myself twice, the first time, I collapsed, the second time, I was nearly collapsing, I managed to call my colleagues to pick me up at the bus stop. I'll just try to control myself. Luckily, I can gradually train myself :). The purpose of having a HRM is to be able to know where you at during the effort, heart beat are separated into 5 zones of beat frequencies, the faster your heart beats, the higher the zone and obviously, you can't stay for a long period of time in the highest heart beat zone.

In my case, my smartphone will just give me a voiced indication about which zone I am evolving too, so if I was slowing down and the computer tells me "heart zone 3", I know an indication of the bpm my heart is beating at 150-159bpm.

That way, I can try to train myself into a specific zone, like going the fastest within a given zone.

At zone 5, I can do approx 30+ km/h I feel that I can go faster, but my body does not move faster to be able to increase speed... a funny feeling. An inline speed skating athlete can do a Marathon in just under 70-90 minutes... That's 30+ km/h average, I am only averaging 15km/h on my best day and I need a pause and I don't think they are constantly pumping 160 bpm during a race... So I am very far from World class athletes... but just being at half their performance is just disappointing (it's like thinking that you need 20 seconds to do a 100m... I know I can be faster than that)... I don't mean to race, but achieving 3/4 of it might be a good goal to start over let's say a 2 years period. I'll come back to that point in the near future. :)

That said, I hope to be able to keep my workouts when baby will be here and not lose this new habit.

Thanks for reading.

6 years and counting.

Rear reader,

Today we celebrated our marriage anniversary. 6 long years, during which, we have been growing our love to each other. I learnt more about my wife, she learnt more about me, and this year has been marked by our will to be parents again. So after a big amount of prayers, of trying, Yukyin has a huge belly ready to give birth somewhere around next month.

A new challenge.

From the time we had Myrtille we learnt that we are not so patient anymore, we are less careful, we have less free time, we are older, I really enjoy sleeping some time. So sometimes, I am just wondering why we decided to get a new kid? But I do think it will help gather ours ties closer, Myrtille will learn what it is to share things at home, to share mum and dad's time. To live with a sibling. I always had my big brother, but I never knew how it was before I arrive in his life. Now, I can imagine through Myrtille's life and I think it won't be easy. At last, we want to build a family of 4 inside God's hands.

Yukyin's condition is fine, she is nearly at the end of her pregnancy and started to have all those different little things happening in her body that indicate the nearing of the end. I just want to ask you to pray for a smooth delivery. We are not so worried about the life with baby, we are more worried about how the delivery will actually happen. She had a c-section the first time and we would like to try giving her naturally.

Anyway, thanks for those beautiful 6 years, thanks for tonight's cake. I love you.

I pray that whoever you are, you live a happy tale with your half one. (If not, you can always drop me a comment, we'll pray for ya.)

See you soon.

Start workout!

Dear Reader,

Having Myrtille, a pregnant Yukyin and a need to balance family/work/entertainment life is not easy. Lately, I found out that I put up some weight, on last Friday, I had a Mcdonnald's lunch with a KFC diner... Before you throw stones at me, Yukyin had the same... Now, you can throw even more stones at us :( Seriously, we are just two lazy eaters some time... It does not happen everyday, but yeah... that evening, I felt weird, I just felt all the bad grease running in my veins. I am not fat. I am 177 for 70 kg, which is not really fat, but Yukyin found me a bit on the overweight side, she would like me to be a bit slimmer and obviously healthier.

In terms of diet, my family background is not the healthiest either, in one hand, I might end up like my brother, whose diabetes activated a day in his thirties... :( and in the other hand, my mum's family side is what I would really call being on the overweight side, sorry folks, I don't want to hurt feelings, but I do think weight are on the high side.

As time flies, I got into my thirties myself and my brother's warning got into my head, I need to do some workout, one to lose some weight by reinforcing muscle mass and two, to improve my heart for my older days, three release some stress. :) I can't afford to have both Myrtille and Yukyin worrying about my health.

So, I seriously planed to take back my big butt on my skates and go eat some asphalt.

When Google had their 250M app sold or whatever the amount of sales, they got the Runtastic app on sales, a GPS tracking app... so I took it. 2HKD... A bargain. Last night I used it for the first time. A really good piece of software, not too complex, not too easy either, I needed to take some time to figure out how it worked as I never tried this kind of apps... I did not really know what to expect, but I was expecting the ability to track my route, track the speed, track the time and map it on Google Earth and I think that this app is spot on with all my requirements.
Use was simple, you turn it on, you turn the GPS, which take a insane amount of time to initialize on my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S), and off you go, the app will follow your course.

So here it is, my first workout:
http://www.runtastic.com/en/users/valentin-leung/sport-sessions/29651827

Distance 11.91 km
Pace: 04:36 min/km
Calories: 517 kCal
Elevation: ↑ 119 m

Pretty neat isn't it?
12km for my second workout (I did not have the app ready for my first outing).

Actually, earlier this evening, I was eating this:

A very soft, cheesy, creamy mushroom penne, so I kind of needed the work out :)

To finish, I pray the Lord for our health, my family and mine and hope that you'll also find your way in keeping you healthy.

See you soon.

Half way to First Term!

It's been a while! Actually, every time I look at my browser's bookmarks, I always have something in my mind to write but never had the time to work on it.

As of today, we are mid October and Myrtille has joined K1 since last month. Her life brutally change from being a no-worries laid back / play all day life to a meticulously arranged day. Morning, she wakes up at 7h35, have a wash, eat breakfast, go to kindergarten for 3 long hours, learn 3 languages, plenty songs and  Bible verses, she then come back at 12 for a lunch, followed by a nap. She would have some simple homework (drawing lines / coloring stuff) to do and playtime downstairs if time allowed. Diner at 7pm and off to bed at 9pm.

To me, that was just the end of her worry free life. She will have to learn the hard way... The Hong Kong way! With Yukyin, we are already feeling pressure from the school system, the pressure put on kids is tremendous and I just don't see the value for that. It just leads to more social and economic problems with difficult integration of young in the current society. Anyway they are meant to be the leaders of tomorrow, so I'll just entrust them the future of my old ages.

At the end, I still strongly believe that if God allows her to succeed, she'll succeed if she put herself up to work.

Back on Myrtille, she is now three. She talks a lot, still energetic in running around, she already has a big sister attitude and she will be indeed big sister by the end of next month. Hehehe
We'll see how she tackle the newcomer at home.

On that, I hope I'll write more in the future, I just got a pro Flickr account, I think I just can't do without, since I reach the limit of the free account I just dropped blogging which is bad.

So in the wait for more of our news, please pray for Yukyin's pregnancy and for a smooth delivery.
Thanks!