Dad responded..

Today when we went to visit him in the morning, dad was awake and he was excited to talk to us but we could not make a word he is saying as no voice came out because of the tube that the nurses inserted in his mouth and prob due to the fracture of his bones and broken jaw. So, we felt he really wanted us to know what is in his mind..so we took out a pen and a paper and asked him a lot of questions and if it is yes, he should only blink his eye.

So, we asked him," first word-how many letters? 1..2..3..4.." So once the number reaches to what he wants, he will blink. Then we asked," the first word, first letter is.. a..b..c..d.." So, we slowly unraveled the characters. I would say it was fun and we were all in high spirits trying to 'solve the mystery' of what was in my dad's mind.

After a while, we finally understood what he was saying. He was talking about "ratana"-his god daughter from Cambodia. He told us that he saw her with a nurse who was in the morning shift. My dad loves Ratana very much and he planned to go Cambodia in August and bring her back to stay with him for one month and even think of finding a school here. So, my dad was pretty excited for her to go to Singapore. When he told us that Ratana came to visit him, we were all shocked..hehe.. Then my mum said that God put an image on him to assure and comfort him.

My mum was jokingly saying that "wha..his mind always on Ratana..I so jealous.." Hehe.. Cos we asked him if he is worried about us..he shake his head and implied, "no".

Dad is running a temperature today and because of that, the doctors cannot take an MRI scan and so, he will not be a candidate for the stem cell injection as they need a scan from him by today. But because he still needs the ventilator and not able to take the scan by today, he will be off the experiment. Then we met up with an admin liason person from Shepherd Centre, Atlanta who was telling us about their rehab prog there.. They have very good facilities and even start rehab for people in ICU. But the cost is crazy..about 3000 US$ per day.

Today, CT went back to work finally..and so CT's colleague who is a technician on shift gave us a lift to hospital as it is his day off today. But after meeting with the person from Shepherd Centre and after our sumptuous lunch at the cafeteria (had roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes,fried catfish fillet,raspberry pie dessert,french fries,jumbo hot dog with melted cheese which all costs only US$12), we asked Pam McCarthy (Ct's american colleague) to send us back as she volunteered.

After going home, we prayed together as a family to submit all decisions to the Lord as we need to make some decisions on whether to stay for rehab or go back singapore. We wanted to commit everything to God. After praying and singing, we all got the impression to go back singapore for rehab...even though we know the rehab here in Atlanta would be much better cos of the facilities and the resources they have here.

We will be asking my mum's friend who is an orthop surgeon in singapore about his opinion as well. And he replied after our prayer and said that if best,just fly him back to Singapore. So, it was a confirmation and assurance. We felt at peace even though we know that Singapore will not be better as America has so many cases on spinal chord injuries and so they have a lot more resources and study done. But we feel, our trust in God will be the best as God is our healer.

We will be visiting him at night again when CT comes back from work. So at the mean time, we went for swimming. Me, bro, Pam and Gek Teng (Kok Fong's wife) went swimming at about 3 plus pm. We had so much fun. I was teaching Gek Teng how to do a somersault in the water. She learnt it fast and was doing it already. SO happy.. I was also playing with bro who can hold the breath the longest in the swimming pool.. We held it about 2 mins. My legs was still hurting a bit but can still swim. Pam was wearing my costume as she forgot to bring hers..I wore my new bikini..to get a nice sun tan.

At night, CT's colleagues went to visit dad as well..so his room were filled with people. Dad again was trying to talk to us so we used the same method, patiently, and we got what he was saying. He wanted to know what was today's date, who visited him, and told us to contact his friend about property,he also said he wanted to listen to music. So, I will bring speakers and player to play songs for him. He only could communicate by blinking his eyes..so, we had to slow read out the alphabets and numbers. Sometimes when we ask him questions, his eye brows knotted cos he was thinking what are we saying..hehe..he looks very cute and it is quite diff for him.

The best thing was when we were going to leave, we said good night to him and told him that we love him. Then he mouth something back..and we said, is it I love you? He said yes. So, he actually said "I love you too".. So sweet. I teared a little cos my dad is so strong in faith and so loving..

PS: Pls pray for dad's fever to go down..he was feeling cold though his body was so hot. Pray he will keep better.