back from lecture..

had an interesting lecture just now, by a patient with Thalassaemia. She gave us a presentation on how the illness affected her life, and how it did not affect her life.

Being diagnosed with the illness at a tender age of 3months old, the amount of changes that she had to go through, as a child, is enormous. The kind of emotional turmoil as a child, having to go through monthly blood transfusions, daily chelation therapy to get rid of excess iron in her blood... the teasing she got from immature friends her age...

it just makes me feel that what i am going through, or what i have been through, is nothing.

and here she is, at 36 years of age, with an illness that was believed to affect people's lifespan, which is normally around teens. To her, each birthday is a blessing. and now that she has her family, going through what normal people can do.. she made me think about life.

Her optimism. her outlook in life. yes, she told us she got real depressed last week. and yes, she's married. but she told us that it was her friend who made her wake up, and told her to get her life back, for she has to look after her family now. so now, what does this say? when u are depressed, sometimes your friends are the one who can make you feel a lot better. Funny how she didn't really mention how her husband helped her to overcome her depression.

but the main point is that, there isn't anything that is impossible to do.

you can have an illness, an obstacle in life, something that's hindering you from making progress or moving forward in life... and you just want to give up. First people to be affected are ur immediate familiy members.. then your close friends. but what is affected the most is your own mentality. You start to be pessimistic. you start thinking that nothing is going to work out, and everything.

but one thing that we always fail to see immediately... is that there are things that we can change, and there are stuff that we cannot change. For one, we cannot change the fact that we have a disease, but we can change our outlook in life in order to cope with the disease. We cannot change the fact that we have difficulty grasping facts, but we can change the way we see things, in order to grasp them better. We cannot change the fact that we are facing stress, but we can change the way we handle stress, and find ways to relieve it. we cannot change the fact that we can feel sad or depressed or hurt, but we can change, and have different reactions to our emotions, by firstly, acknowledging them, knowing that they have the potential to take over your life, but not letting them ruin your life for you. and that can only be done, if you take the first step, to open your heart out. and don't be afraid, of doing things that will make you happy. and when you are happy, don't think about "what if you are not happy...".

was walking home from school cos i have self help (otherwise i would have stayed in the library to study.. the rest went to Trinity to have breakfast).. and well, i teared. dunno why, everything just felt foreign to me again... it's like this swelling of emotions.. similar to that felt when i first stepped on Melbournian ground. I am sure that everyone here has felt this way some time or another, some more so than others... and we are constantly distracting ourselves so that these emotions will not take control of our mind... yea. so i was listening to my iPod.. and walking, and hiding my tears...

came back, saw Yingyi, who was on her way to school... and yeah.. felt better after that! ;)

test tmr... everyone's stressed out, or rather, not everyone...

Weiyong told me this over MSN yesterday.. "eh.. i think you have to study much harder than the rest of us.. you can understand the facts as fast as us.. but the facts don't stay in ur memory like us.. that's why you have to draw the diagrams to help you in remembering information... look at KC.. he's the perfect example of studying without having to take notes... he just reads and he remembers... so.. JIAYOU! :)"

bingo dear friend.

we are just one of the homeotherms...

and ma n pa.. don't worry! :) i am fine.. really! :) stronger girl now...