A series of freaky event occurred in April 2025, right after I’ve
participated in a month of Revival Prayer movement in Taiwan, so I believe
these are attacks from the enemy. Firstly, a relative implied that someone in
the family had active TB and kept it a secret from the relatives. On the
following day I decided to do the IGRA blood test as precaution, since Charlie
happened to have gotten sick with fever. On that same day Chester had an
accident where his finger was in the door hinge while the educator was closing
the door and his thumb nearly fell off, so we went to the ED and waited whole
day, only to be told he needs to be seen by the plastics team the following day
in another hospital which was very far away. This week coincided with the week
of a big doctors’ strike! We were lucky that Chester was able to get the finger
surgery done in the late afternoon. However, when I got home after Chester’s
surgery, Charlie became even sicker. Chester and I tested -ve for TB, but
Charlie's results were still pending! Then at midnight Charlie was breathing
very fast and had very high fever and I saw the TB result was indeterminate, so
I took him to RNSH ED in the middle of the night! We pretty much got locked
into the hospital because as soon as they heard possible TB contact they got
very cautious. CXR showed early pneumonia. IV antibiotics were given and
Charlie improved very quickly. However, they wanted to take a nasogastric tube
to confirm that it really wasn't TB, which was highly traumatic for Charlie, as
he needed 5 people to hold him down. I got an update from the relative that it
there wasn’t TB in the family after all. I tried telling this to the medical
team but it took quite a while before the consultant doctor got the message. Luckily
we got released from the hospital as a result. The children were very
emotionally upset throughout this week, because they were both very upset by
the whole hospital experience, and I didn’t sleep for 4 days. And I had to
cancel three days’ worth of patients, approximately 100 patients! So the
financial impact was pretty devastating for the family. Meanwhile, my husband’s
studies abroad were going pretty rocky and he was at danger of having to repeat
a year of medicine. This also coincided with the time where I was planning to
get pregnant with the third baby: I have to get pregnant on this particular
month so that the baby will be born when my husband is back in Sydney for the Christmas/New
Year holidays. These series of event actually made me even more convicted that
getting pregnant this month was the way to go!
Fast forward to July: I was about to enter into the second trimester
and the baby and I have been well in all the antenatal checks. I thought that I
should make a visit to Taiwan, because once we have the third baby, our family
might not be able to travel again for quite a while. This was my first overseas
travel since our wedding reception in Taiwan in 2019! And the children's first
international travel! It was a lot more difficult than what I imagined (but my
hubby already predicted all of those difficulties). Just to list some examples:
Children overwhelmed by an environment different from what they are used to and
crying that they want to go back to Australia and unable to fall asleep. 18kg
preschooler suddenly refusing to walk: before getting on the plane, in the
middle of switching from one public transport to another, etc. Overtired children suddenly falling asleep
during meal and throwing crazy tantrums in the restaurant after waking up and
we had to takeaway the food. The
technical difficulty of catching public transport, which makes going from one
place to another impossible: you can’t get a pram onto the buses in Linkou
because there are so many steps, public transport is so crowded and you need to
take the lift if you’re bringing the pram, and the wait for the lifts take
forever, and the routes to the lifts makes the walks in the station much
longer, just to name a few.
I did my cpds on the first weekend back, and my hubby did his medical
electives on the weekdays for the rest of the two week stay in a more remote
region in Taiwan, so I was alone with two kids during the weekdays, which made
travel on public transport even more impossible. I stayed in Linkou during the
weekdays during our first week back, and in the Taichung hotel during the
weekdays of our second week back. The second week was much better than the
first, because the environment was clean, and the hotel’s got brunch buffet and
great play facilities for the children.
It was still exhausting being the sole carer for the children. It was
great catching up with some relatives and family friends during the weekends
though.
Fast forward to late August: It is confirmed that my husband has passed
this year’s studies safely. Hopefully, he will graduate on time in June 2026!
Fast forward to 7 September: It was quite memorable in that it coincided
with my wedding anniversary, the Australian Father’s Day, and the 23rd
anniversary celebration of the church I used to go to – the 1503 Mission
Network! Yet, this was a pretty “fatherless” day for our family. My husband is
still far away abroad undergoing a career change. My dad passed away suddenly
and unexpectedly 12 years ago. Although not a man of many words, there’s still
regret that I never tried “listening” to him and never truly got to know him
well. Occasionally I still get dreams where my dad was actually alive and there
was somehow a mistake that occurred which made us thought he had died. The
first time I stepped into 1503 happened to be the church’s 5th anniversary, so
I dropped in for a visit. The blood moon phenomenon occurred in various places
around the world 7-8 September: based on past observations of blood moon occurrences,
I think something big is coming up.
