What Idiopathic Anaphylaxis Has Taught Me

1. Change

Since I have had this condition, change has been a constant companion. I have had to change my lifestyle, the way I think, my attitude and my beliefs.

With this condition, change is very constant for me. One day I am at the top of the world. And the next three months I can be in the valley of death. And by allowing myself to adapt and in being more open to these sudden changes, I am more prepared and am able to maneuver and go with the flow of this Idiopathic Anaphylaxis river.

2. Endurance

I never knew that I had so much stamina to fight in me. I mean, I did not know that I could endure such a difficult journey and yet still have much endurance to continue on this fight. There were many times during the early months that the fatigue was so great that I felt like Frodo when he finally succumbed to the power of the Ring. Many times I had succumbed to depression and exhaustion to the point of being at the brink of giving up the fight. I felt like throwing in the towel. Times like when every single smell, aroma, fragrance or even food that were salicylate-free seem to set off the anaphylaxis alarm.

3. Patience

In all of my years as a human being, patience was never a part of my personality, what more my vocabulary. And after being struck and having to live with this medical condition, it was a painful journey where patience was concerned. I had to learn patience from scratch. I had to be patient when I wanted to go out so much but could not because I was too drugged up, when I was reacting to every single thing or when I was just too exhausted from bouts of almost-anaphylaxis attacks.

I had to learn to be patient where my appetite was concerned. I had so many picas and SEVERE food cravings that I could chew on my own knuckles. Many times during the night in my ‘odourless’ room, I would smell pizza, curry prawn mee, or even fried kuay teow when there wasn’t even a smell in the room to begin with. And it used to drive me insane having all these cravings like a pregnant woman and yet being unable to satisfy the need. It is a good thing that I was born with the ‘strong will’ character. I don’t think I would have lasted if I did not have an iron will. Iron will and patience have pulled me through many times.

I had to learn patience in the area of wanting to do the things that I felt like doing but could not do so. It is akin to a leopard hiding, and waiting for the right time to strike its victim. Being impatient and striking at the wrong time would cost the leopard its meal. And I am that leopard, waiting patiently for my time to ‘strike’ the Idiopathic Anaphylaxis in its head and to have my hearty meal as a reward!

4.  Perseverance

Perseverance is steadfastness in living my life to its fullest, despite of the difficulty or delay in achieving a breakthrough. And I am still persevering on for a breakthrough. And I am persistent in obtaining a breakthrough where my health is concerned. I have had a long period of remission, and I do not believe that I would not have it again.

5. The Ability to Adapt/Think at the Speed of Lightning

There was a time where I was cooking a pasta bake dish for the guys and I felt an attack coming as a result of the smell of the mozzarella cheese that was baking in the oven. I wore a mask and I could still smell it. I ended up wearing THREE masks on top of each other and when I was done baking, I went into the outer kitchen to eat and then hid in my bedroom until the smell was cleared from the house. If I had not done so, I would have had another attack.

6. Learn to Accept Setbacks and to Make the Best Of It

I have learned that if Plan A does not work, then Plan B will have to take place. There was once where we could finally go for a short trip to the beach. The day before the trip, I had a near anaphylaxis attack which left me drained, terribly sick, so drugged-up that I could not even remember what I did for the last five minutes. And we had to postpone the trip at the last minute and pushed it to the following week and changed all of our plans.

7. Being Grateful and Thankful

I know that I am not the worst case scenario though the doctors I have seen have not come across anyone who are worse off than me. But there are worst case scenarios than me. Though there is nothing to be joyful about the other people who are in a condition that is worse than mine, I am grateful and thankful that I am at this place in my life. I am grateful that at least I can still eat the food that I am able to eat. I can still drive. I can garden. I can make music. And I have my family and friends’ continuous support and encouragement. And I am alive!

8. I Learned New Skills

Because of this medical condition, I have had to learn how to cook and make food in a new way, how to bake (I did not bake a single thing before this!), how to grow and maintain a mini organic garden to feed our tummies (I did not garden before this!), and how to live a chemical-free life though I am constantly facing chemicals in my everyday life (I did not live a chemical-free life before this).

And by learning these new skills, it has improved even my family’s living condition. It has definitely given me a miracle where my hair is concerned. My scalp was very unhealthy. And my hair was so sickly, yellow and dropping in clumps that my hairdresser kept on pestering me to do hair treatments to save it. I think it was after one year after the salicylate-free and chemical-free diet that she asked me whether I had dyed my hair or I had gone for a hair treatment. I myself did not even realize that my hair had turned pitch black. Today it is shiny, my scalp is healthy and there isn’t any white hair!! Thanks to the ‘strict and limited chemical and salicylate free diet’. I guess we win some, we lose some!

9. The Meaning of Life

Life is being contented with what we have. Life is having peace in our hearts. Life is us, being alive on the insides and not just by living with a beating heart, a pair of breathing lungs and a ‘functioning’ brain!

Life is what we can take with us in our hearts wherever we go and whatever we do. Life is about living to our fullest even with our setbacks and imperfect conditions. L.I.F.E is Living In Faith Everyday! L.I.F.E is Living In Fullness Everyday. L.I.F.E is DEFINITELY NOT Living In Fear Everyday.

10. You Will Know Who Your ‘True Friends’ Are

Back On My Feet

After two days of fighting this flu-bug which I had ALMOST succumbed to, I am back on my feet. Well, almost! As my body was fighting the virus, I did not want to burden it with salicylates. So I cut back on salicylates and only ate food that was on the low-end of the salicylates table. Will be salicylate-free again tomorrow.

10th November

Rice with scrambled eggs, lightly stir-fried lettuce vegetable with garlic, minced chicken with sliced potatoes and rice! All the dishes were cooked with sea salt and sunflower oil.

11th November

Baked fish (I honestly do not know the name of this fish in English!), stir fried french beans with garlic and rice.  The fish was baked plain - no salt or oil and it was VERY tasty and sweet. It was fresh from the wet market. The vegetable dish was cooked with salt and sunflower oil.

Day Seven & Day Eight

DAY SEVEN

Well, finally it was the last day of the salicylate-free diet. But I started having flu-like symptoms and it is not very good news to me. No medicines and just good food to fight the virus does not sound very comforting. I made baked fish, stir-fried lettuce vegetable with garlic, salt and sunflower oil and steamed beancurd. Sorry to say that there are no pictures as I was really down and out. And I just crashed in bed the whole afternoon and evening.

DAY EIGHT

I made chicken soup with carrots, home-grown tomatoes, celery and potatoes to fight this bug which is trying to wear me down. After yesterday's '40 winks' which turned into 4 hours, I had felt better. But today, I felt as though I had been run over by a steam roller. Thus, tonight will be an early night for me. Goodnight! And may the sleep help my immune system!

The Glorious Heavens (Part 3)

'May your life always be the Counterpoint to the Clamour of the World,
May you delight in Dancing Lightly With Life,
May you soar on eagle wings, high above the madness of the world,
May you always sing the Melody in the Symphony of Your Life,
May you taste, smell, and touch your dreams of a beautiful tomorrow,
May your sun always shine, and your sky be forever blue.'
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Day Five & Six of Salicylate-Free Diet

DAY FIVE

Day five's menu was fried rice with minced chicken, lettuce which I shredded into fine strips, garlic and shallots. And I garnished it with scrambled eggs. Result: Yummy to the tummy! :)

DAY SIX

I made chicken soup, shredded chicken cooked with salt, a bit of brown sugar, garlic and shallots and 'pak choy' vegetable for day six. I can't wait for day seven and I will be done with being salicylate-free where food is concerned! I want to eat my home-grown TOMATOES!!!!!!!!!!!! Hehehe...

32 Months

Just another four more months and it will be three years. ‘So how do you feel after 32 months?’ I was recently asked. Honestly, I really don’t know. But I do know that as I am writing this, I am very grateful to be alive, but I am also quite weary and tired. Weary of fighting for my life every single second of the day. Tired of hiding in my room after cooking food that is packed with salicyates for my family. Tired of running out of places that reek with chemicals. Tired of explaining the medical condition that I have over and over again. Many times I just feel like carrying a picket sign which says, ‘Leave me alone! I am fed-up of explaining myself. Just go read my blog!’ Ehehehe...

I want to be able to travel to all parts of the world. I want to go to the seven continents on this Earth and experience the beauty of this world that God has created and not just Google up pictures and visualize myself in them. I want to take my son to countries where there are the four-seasons so that we can watch the beauty of autumn, the vast colours of spring, built snowmen and make snow angels during winter and experience that the summer over there is worse than our hot days over here. I miss playing with snow!

I want to be able to savour all the wonderful food again. Not chemical food though. I don't think I could ever eat chemical-laden food anymore. But food with salicylates. I would love to eat curry, spices, and herbs without reacting. And not having to withhold myself for many days in order for the salicylate levels to reduce.

That being said, I have learnt a lot during these 32 months. 32 months have taught me resilience, patience, strategy thinking, and endurance. 32 months have made me a very strong person, and a fearless person. I used to be a person full of fear. Seriously, what can be worse than Death? And if you have ever stared at Death in its eyes, you will have nothing to fear anymore in this life. I have never shared in detail to what happened to me when I was hospitalized 32 months back.

When I was admitted for the first time in March 2009, I knew Death wanted my life. I was afraid. I mean, my son was only 4 years old! He needs his mother. I felt very lost. I felt very small. I felt VERY fearful. And I saw Death hovering outside my window. Mind you, I was 7 floors above ground. No one in their right mind would be ‘floating’ outside 7 floors above ground after midnight! And Death stared at me straight into my eyes. It was very displeased that it did not manage to rob me of my life. And Death told to me that it would be back. And then I saw Death flying up and down the building. Darting from left to right. It wanted lives. And during the middle of that night, there were two code blues. Code blue is used when a patient requires immediate resuscitation. And one of them was a child, who sadly passed away that night. I became even more depressed.

The following encounter has been shared on the first post of my blog. Death is really so cold that even the word ‘cold’ is an understatement to explain it. What I didn’t share was that as I was being rushed to the ER, my father who was at home, felt what I was feeling. He was feeling so, so cold and he behaved in a way that my mother thought that he was having a heart attack! And my father is one man who can withstand cold, believe me. And in his heart, he knew that I might not return at all. I could feel Death embracing me as I moved into that damp and darkly lit tunnel. The sound that Death is, is so extremely horrible and so shrill that it would cause every sound measuring equipment on this Earth to explode simultaneously. I honestly do not know why I did not experience that white light or to why I did not see ‘Heaven’. To all of you who asked me these questions, I have only one thing to say. I do not know and today, I don’t give a damn. Why? Because I came back and that my son has a mother, my husband has his wife, my parents still have their daughter and my brother still has his sister. I am just glad that I heard my husband’s voice calling me to return. The rest do not matter. In fact many things do not matter anymore.

32 months have taught me not to take life for granted. 32 months have made me view life in a totally different way. 32 months have taught me that slow and steady WILL win the race. And 32 months have taught me to be creative. If A does not work, there is B. And if B does not work, there is C. And I have until Z. And if Z does not work, I will create A.1, A.2, A.3 and so forth. And the choices are never-ending.

32 months have taught me to not give a shit of how others 'think' or 'feel' I should live my life. I know, and God knows, that I am living my life to the utmost best that I can and that is all that matters. And I will continue to learn the lessons in life as I 'trapeze' from one adventure to another. 

And so after 32 months, I will attempt my first ever Haiku.

Clouds in the sky with

The rainbow, stars, moon and sun

Say life is awesome

Day Four of Salicylate-Free Diet

Today is day four and I am three days away from reaching one week of a salicylate-free diet. Today, I made cooked fried eggs, potato+minced chicken with salt and sunflower oil and lettuce iceberg. And I really enjoyed today's food! Can't wait to go back on a diet with some mixture of food with salicylate though! :)

Rice with fried egg, minced chicken with potatoes cooked with sea salt and sunflower oil and lettuce.

ONE Year of Container Gardening

It was during this time last year that I decided to start a container garden. I had actually thought of it as a 'holiday project' for my son and I to spend the school holidays together. Little that I know that it would turn into a little garden that would feed our tummies over and over again.

I am glad that I started this 'little' project as the vegetables are so different from the ones that are bought from the supermarket. Even the organic vegetables that are bought from the organic mart lose hands down to the vegetables from my garden. The taste, smell and texture of the vegetables from the garden is just...... Errrrm, there's just no words to describe it! Nothing can be compared to it. It's just super-delicious-yummy-to-the-tummy-now-you-see-it-now-you-don't-'cos-I-just-finished-the-whole-bowl! And my vegetables do not burn my mouth or give me Hades-inducing-allergy-migraines.

So to celebrate the anniversary of our mini container gardening, the heavens are rewarding us with..... non-stop rain! Days of it! It even rained 5 times a day 1 week ago! Now we can't complain about the 'showers of blessings' right? Hehehe... It's definitely time to move those containers under the shade!

Let me share with you some pictures of what we have planted so far in our humble little garden!

C is for Carrot!

Though they were tiny and there were only 3, they were the best smelling and tastiest carrots I have ever smelt and eaten!

C is also for Capsicum

O is for Okra! This is the okra flower.

Unopened okra flower buds

The red okra unopened flower buds

T is for tomato!

The bowling-pin-shape cherry tomato

Another bowling-pin-shape cherry tomato

Spinach!

S is for Siu Pak Choy!

The tray that was devoured by the creature below!

S is also for SNAIL!!!!!

The harvest!

Kangkung (Also known as Water Spinach. It is an Asian leaf vegetable)

Abundant chilli padi!

Bumper harvest of cherry tomatoes!

Day Three of Salicylate-Free Diet

Today is day-three! Yay!!!! Health is very good where salicylates are concerned. The stomach is not too good though because of the cabbage that was eaten on the first day. It caused the reflux to flare-up again. Will be avoiding cabbages for the time being.

Today's salicylate-free dish is 100% chicken soup. Or chicken broth to some of you. I stir-fried the 'pak choy' with garlic, a bit of salt and sunflower oil. And I made steamed beancurd. It was a very satisfying meal!

Chicken soup with rice, 'pak choy' vegetable and steamed beancurd

Mind Wide Shut

How many of us have minds that are so tightly shut that even with the use of an atomic and nuclear bomb together, it will still be sealed as tightly as ever and inaccessible. A mind that is tightly shut is a decaying mind. It is a haughty mind. It is a lofty mind. It is unteachable. It is a dead mind. It is a rigid mind. And if after reading this you are insulted, then I only have one thing to say to you. 'He who consumes chillies, will feel its spiciness.' Now if you hadn't, you wouldn't, would you?


A RIGID MIND REFUSES TO LEARN AND WILL NOT BE SUSCEPTIBLE TO ANY NEW INFORMATION


Patient: The only different thing which I ate today was the pear. The pear must have caused the allergy.
ER Doctor: What??!! Pear? That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard in my entire doctor-life!! Pear??!!

A RIGID MIND WILL ONLY THINK IN A STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY AND CAN NEVER THINK OUT OF THE BOX. IT IS LIKE TELLING THE LEOPARD TO PAINT ITS SPOTS PINK


Patient upon arriving at ER: I am having an allergy reaction.
Administrator: Please have a seat first and we will register you.
Patient: I am having an allergy reaction, NOT flu or cough. I need to see the doctor NOW!!
Admin: You have to register first before the doctor attends to you. It is our procedure. That is the way we do things here. Have a seat first!

A RIGID MIND WILL THROW HISSY FITS AND SCREAMS LIKE A BITCH WHEN PRODDED, POKED OR QUESTIONED.

Patient: Can you explain this to me in lay man's term and not in your mumbo jumbo medical-terminology-jargon to what you are saying?
Doctor: Why do you want to know so much? Why are you asking so many questions? You want my job issit?! Go to medical school lah then!!!!!


A RIGID MIND IS MISS OR MISTER KNOW-IT-ALL

Patient: Here is a detailed explanation which my immunologist/allergist wrote for doctors to understand me. (hands paper to doctor)
Doctor: (takes paper and chucks it aside at table without even glancing at it) I do not need to look at it. Everything I need to know is already in my mind. You already have eczema, so there is no need to go into details or to understand your allergies. You have allergies. Period.

A RIGID MIND IS A LAZY MIND. AND POOR ATTITUDE IS A SIGN OF A LAZY MIND

Patient: Good afternoon. I need to speak to the surgeon as I am having an allergy reaction to the painkillers. I only had the surgery yesterday.
Doctor's assistant (D.A.): The doctor has gone home and will be on leave for one week.
Patient: Can you get him to call me or can you call him to tell him of my predicament?
D.A.: He is on leave already. I don't have his number.
Patient: What do you mean you don't have his number? He is the hospital's employee. I'm just asking you to call him. I'm not asking you to call the doctor to go BACK to the hospital. I just had my surgery yesterday and it is hurting like hell crazy, and I can't take the painkillers he gave me.
D.A.: I told you he is not here.
Patient: Is there any other doctor I can speak to then?
D.A.: They are all very busy madame. Just eat the medication and you will be fine. (hangs up)

A RIGID MIND HAS NO COMMON SENSE

Customer: Do you have any products which are unscented? I am allergic to fragrances.
Sales assistant: Maybe if you breathe through your mouth when using our products, then you won't be affected by the perfume? Or maybe you breathe less when using the products?

A RIGID MIND IS OBNOXIOUS

Patient: I do not understand what you are saying.
Doctor: Why don't you just go home and surf the Net and find out? Even a child could do it!

A RIGID MIND DOES NOT THINK

Allergy Sufferer: I am allergic to fragrances. I can have a fatal allergy attack from being exposed to them.
Supposedly Friend: Oh ok.
2 Weeks later
Supposedly Friend: I hope you don't mind that I use perfumes, as I just love perfumes and I would just DIE if  I did not use perfumes!!!

Need I say more?

Day Two of Salicylate-Free Diet

So day two came and is almost gone. Yippeee! If the days pass faster, then I am able to get off this boring food cycle and eat some salicylate food AGAIN!!! I seriously can't wait. I want to eat french beans!!!!

Today is good though, because I can feel my threshold going up again. I can feel the body getting stronger. My mouth isn't burning like yesterday. And I can even tolerate 'foreign' smells from outside my house. Such as the neighbour's detergent and cooking with abundant spices.

I had minced chicken cooked with potatoes and celery today. Cooked the dish with a little sea-salt and sunflower oil. Can't wait for the 'compulsory diet' to be over!

But it's great to be alive. And WELL!!!!!!

Minced chicken with potatoes and celery

Salicylate Threshold Totally Maxed Out!

As of yesterday, my salicylate threshold had totally maxed out. My mouth was burning even from a drink of water. I even had a slight foreboding feeling that my body was going to end up in another anaphylactic attack if I did not IMMEDIATELY go on a salicylate-free diet. Though I have been on a rotation diet, I had been eating cucumbers, carrots, french beans (my favourite!), zucchini and tomatoes. And in future, I have to space them even further apart. Still in the learning process even after 32 months.

Here is a link to the salicylate content table:

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~kathskorner/html/sal_table.html

As of today, I have started my salicylate-free diet which consists of steamed salt chicken and lightly stir-fried cabbage. Not very exciting, but a must in order to survive. Tomorrow will be minced chicken with sliced celery. And the day after, plain chicken soup. And the day after that.... I have no idea. I will crack my brains and think of what to cook then.

But it is good to be alive. And well.

Rice with steamed salt chicken & lightly stir-fried cabbage

Fighting the Idiopathic Phantom

T.I.R.E.D. Overwhelmingly tired. Or should I say exhausted to the brink of insanity. Immensely, weary to the bone. Depleted of strength and energy. It is like waking up everyday, putting on the whole chunky-clunky armour and then going into the battlegrounds, swishing that heavy sword blindly into the air. It is akin to going to battle to fight against phantoms. It is like fighting in the fog. Random sword stabbings here and there, and a swish here and then maybe there. And after tiring yourself out, you find out that you are not even close to victory and that the enemy is still out there somewhere. And yet you are nowhere near to identifying what, who or when the next attack will happen. And the exhaustion is just so great that you collapse in bed and instead of knocking out in sleep, you are slapped with insomnia. And there are times when you have not even fully gotten out of the armour, that you hear the battle horn blaring again.

So how do we fight this? This so-called ‘idiopathic anaphylaxis’ that seems to be plaguing more and more people as the days pass by. One day we are enjoying the sun, the next second turning blue, collapsing and dropping dead. Doctors tell us that there is absolutely no cure, absolutely no idea with what is wrong with us and that the only thing that can give us a chance at life when we get an attack is the Epi-Pen. Without the Epi-Pen, it is definitely death, without a doubt. It is like an inhaler for an asthmatic.

So we trudge on. We put ‘life’ on hold while we fight for our lives. We start charting everything from what we eat, what we use, what we are exposed to and even what we smelt! We avoid all sorts of chemicals, chemically-shrouded-people-and-places, eat only organic and ‘chemical-free’ food, and basically regress back to the times when man lived in caves.

People tell us all the time that humanity should and ought to live like we do. ‘That is how people should actually live their lives you know; organically and chemical-free,’ a friend said. Well let me tell you how ‘organically’ and ‘chemical-free’ one can actually achieve in today’s world.

There are pollutants in the air. So if you are a living being, you will be breathing in pollutants. The only solution? Sell everything and travel deep into the Amazonian jungles and settle in with the tribal people. That is if they do not kill you for food first. Then maybe, you will be ‘pollutant-free’. I was thinking of the North Pole at first, but even the glaciers are melting by the green house effect. Not.A.Good.Choice.

The water that we drink everyday contains god-knows-what. I mean we have acid rain. Acid rain rains down into water dam. Water into dam goes into reservoir. Water is then distributed to people. Oh, didn’t you know that the water is treated before it is supplied to the people. How do you treat chemicals? By using more chemicals? Isn’t that ironic? And what do the people end up with then? Some would then say, ‘Drink only bottled mineral water!’ Are you 100 percent sure that the process of obtaining mineral water, bottling it and selling it do not contain chemicals? Oh, and that plastic bottle is made of chemicals and reek chemicals into the water when it is placed in the heat!

And so this acid rain gets rained down on our crops and into the ground. The pollutants in the air are absorbed by the plants. Which brings me to my question. How then can we label our crops ‘organic’? Of course it is pesticide and insecticide free! But they still contain chemicals. The vegetables that we plant do breathe you know. And it absorbs the poison that saturates the air. So how can we actually live a chemical-free life in today’s world? Think about it. How can people like me, with ‘idiopathic anaphylaxis’ or ‘multiple-chemical-sensitivities’ win our battles when we have in fact been long gone into the slaughter-house. We don’t even have any idea to who is slaughtering us. We just woke up one day and there we were in that people-killing-place. And there seems to be no exit doors in sight.

Like my immunologist/allergist who jokingly said to me, ‘Maybe you should live in a ball!’ I think I have an even better idea. Maybe I should buy a chemical-free spacesuit and breathe from tanks that supply ‘organic air’ and blast off to Mars where I can plant chemical-free plants, and maybe live happily ever after. With the chemical-free Martians of course!

Samuel the Speedy Snail

Samuel was the slowest snail that ever existed. Yes, he moved so slowly that even his mother said that Grandpa snail moved faster than he did. If it took the others to get from point A to point B in 1 day, it would take him 3 days. He was just generally slower than the others. And nobody knew why. His family tried training him with Speedy Snail (who by record was the fastest snail in their colony). But he still could not move faster-not even by one microsecond. His friends tried to build up his stamina by giving him the best of the plants. After being fed like a pig, he still did not manage to move faster. Instead he became fat like a pig and moved even slower! They then asked Mr. Millipede whether he had any extra legs which he could spare Samuel. He had some prosthetic legs which he used for his damaged legs. And when Samuel put them on and tried to walk, he broke the legs and came tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty. You can imagine his frustration and disappointment in himself. Why could he not move faster? Even his baby sister could move faster than him. And she was only 3 months old!

Life went on for the snails, but Samuel did not get any faster. In fact he got even slower. Day by day, he gazed longingly at the other snails who pass by him, shaking their tentacles at his slowness. He envied the butterflies who fluttered pass, the dragonflies who whizzed pass and the bugs who buzzed their wings and sped pass him. He was jealous of the caterpillars and even the worms. And he was 25 years old now, nearing the end of his life-span and yet he never had a breakthrough where speed was concerned. 

He had nightmares during the nights where he was in a race and that the snails who had just hatched from their eggs beat him shells down. By the time the little baby snails had turned 5 years old, he was still nowhere near the finish line. He had dreams where he tried to move faster and pushed himself forward with all his might that he popped out of his shell and died amidst the laughter of others. But he had dreams where he had the last laugh. In some dreams, he grew wings and flew amongst the dragonflies. In other dreams he glided along the path as though he had skates on. And there was once where he dreamt he came in second place in the 'Who Wants to Be A Speedy Snail Contest'.

And so it was just like any other day when it suddenly dawned upon his snail brain. And he wondered to why he did not think of it in all of his snail life? So he set his heart upon it. For one month he made sure he ate the best leaves in the garden and got all the rest that he needed. And he made sure he flexed his snail muscles everyday. And once the month was over, he started his journey.

'Where are you going?' asked his fellow snails. 'You'll see,' Samuel said with a smile. 'Oh come on, Samuel. Don't tell me you are still thinking of moving faster after all these years?' asked Slimy Snail. 'Yeah man, what do you think you are doing? You wanna turn into Slug Slime?' asked another. But Samuel ignored them all and persevered on. It took him another 3 weeks to reach to his destination. And then he waited.

'What do you think happened to Samuel?' 'I think he got crushed,' said Speedy. 'I think he expired before he even reach to god knows where!' said Slimy. And they all shook their snail heads and snuggled into their shells for their sleep.

The sun rose, the cockerel crowed. And the snails slept on as usual. That is until a rumbling from afar and a voice shouting for them to get up, jolted them up from their sleep. And the dragonflies shouted with excitement yelling for the garden community to wake up and to see what was happening. And they couldn't believe their minuscule eyes. Samuel was on the handle of the big bike and he sped pass them. And he was faster than all the snails put together! And he was having the time of his life. He was at optimum speed and clinging on to dear life as the big bike went roaring by.

And so it was night time when the big bike came roaring back with Samuel as the passenger. And the whole garden community was waiting in the garage for him. 'What was it like?' asked his fellow snails. 'It was exhilarating, crazily fast and awesome beyond words!' Samuel replied excitedly. 'I couldn't have asked for anything more!' he said. And they all went home feeling amazed that Samuel the slowest snail became Samuel the speedy snail in such an unorthodox way. He had the last laugh indeed! And he died a very satisfied snail.

The Glorious Heavens (Part 2)

'We can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness.'  - Author Unknown


'Though outwardly a gloomy shroud,
The inner half of every cloud
Is bright and shining:
I therefore turn my clouds about
And always wear them inside out
To show the lining.'
- Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler