Naturally Nesh

OMG I have been missing from my blog far too long. *Yikes!* No I’m not dead yet. Been around but not at my computer that’s for sure. Don’t ask.

So what’s been happening with me lately?

I went for blood donation! *Weeee!!*

I was adviced by my mother’s friend (who have been donating blood for more than 50 times) to head to the government hospitals rather than private hospitals. This is because private hospitals sells blood to patients more expensive than the government hospitals.

I mean, think about those poor people who needs blood badly… The same amount of cash for one packet of blood from private hospitals might equal to two or more packets from government hospitals. I couldn’t care to check the exact price comparison though I definitly believe that private hospitals sure to charge everything super expensive!

Besides, what’s not to listen to a nice lady who donated blood more than 50 times? What a great inspiration!

My mother and I planned to do this Mother-Daughter Good Deed Project (Blood and organ donation to be exact) thing. I want to make a habit of donating blood every 3 months and make a pledge to donate my organ when I die. I shared this idea with my mother and convinced her wants to join the fun with me!

We headed to Hospital University at PJ. One of the nearest government hospital from my home. Take note that parking is free for blood donors. Just bring the parking ticket along and give it to the counter at the Blood Donation room to stamp chop the ticket.

Sad to say, my mother is not allowed to donate blood. No, she’s not infected with funy diseases if you are thinking about that. The reason is that her platlet count is low. So she is adviced to not go through blood donation. Anyway she get to see me sleeping on the bed with my blood drained out!

Here’s the process for first time donors like me:

First, I was given a form to fill out. There’s loads of questions to be answered but easy to answer. Just have to answer them honestly.

Then I was directed to the doctor’s room to check for blood pressure and asking me questions according to the form I handed to him.

When everything was fine, the doctor will sign the form and I was asked to bring the form to the counter table. Gave them the form and I was asked to give the nurse my finger. She poke my finger with brand new needle to get my blood for testing.

I am a Blood A person!

After the blood test, I was issued with a brand new book! It is the Sijil Penderma Darah (Blood Donor Certificate) book!

There’s personal information inside along with information of when was my last blood donation and how many times have I donated!

A person can donate approximately 500ml blood but for first timers like me, they will limit to 300ml to be safe. Thus, I donated 300ml of blood that day!

At the last page of the book, they list out the privileges one will get according to the amount of times a person donated blood to the hospitals.

You wanna know the privileges? Go donate blood and you’ll have this book too!

Once issued with the book, I was immediately brought to slay down on a long chair. There were 5 - 6 chairs there. Gosh it was filled up even on weekdays! I am not afraid of needles, instead I was crazy excited to do this thing!

The nurse explained which needle will hurt and which will not but she confirmed it will not be SUFFERING. Yes, there weren’t just one needle.

The first injection was a very fine needle. Hardly felt it. I think it was anaesthetic. Possibly. The second needle was the ‘main course’. Kinda big. The nurse quickly push the thick needle in, hurt for few seconds and then instantly I can see my red and really dark blood flowing out!

COOL!

Oh the nurse also gave me a squeeze ball to squeeze it. It’ll pressure the vains thus allowing faster blood flow into the packet.

Halfway there, I noticed the nurses started to run to the furthest end of the chair and fanning someone with papers and giving him a cup of orange juice. Turned out he was about to pass out! Poor fellow…

Anyway after about 10 minutes and 300ml lost of blood, the nurse came to me to remove everything and let me lay down for a while to settle my body with this sudden drop of blood count. She asked me what drinks I would want to have too and if I am feeling better and stuff… treated like a King/Queen!

Oh they also have food on the table for those who have lay down long enough and needed some food to gain energy! I didn’t take the food though since I was fine. Just needed to drink the milo.

The saddest part was when my mother asked about the organ donation, they said it is only available at the general hospital located at Kuala Lumpur. So Mother-Daughter Good Deed Project: Organ Donation plan B to execute next time!

Came home with a REALLY STRONG PLASTER on my left arm where it was used to donate blood.

Took it out at the end of the day only to realise the scar looks just like mosquito bite!

I was given these iron tablets and I need to take them once a day to replenish new blood in my body.

The whole thing was fine for me. Come on, us girls face PMS once a month and lose lots of blood. This is considered one of the BETTER ‘PMS’ DAYS cause I am ONLY losing blood with the exemption of stomach cramp and feeling REALLY happy about it.

The downside of this is that during PMS, we only lose blood gradually. In blood donation case, a sudden drop of huge amount of blood will cause heavy tiredness! I slept like a log when I went back home. Felt kinda floaty too when I woke up. It’s a 24 hour thing… this feeling will go away after that! Besides, my mother’s friend said once we do it often, our body will get used to it. She’s a living example. She donates blood in the morning, she will go for hiking later in the evening!

Anyway I hope that this will inspire you readers to go for blood donation atleast ONCE in your lifetime. My mother suddenly asked me a real serious question on our way back from the hospital “Why do you suddenly want to donate blood and organ?”

I told her that I watched a programme on Astro about the patients in hospitals and I felt really sad to see that there are still so many people (young and old) in need of blood and most important, organs. I was very moved when they showed a man, total stranger to this dying patience who is in need of a kidney, offered his kidney and saved her life (turned out the patience’s body is very ‘choosy’ in accepting random kidneys).

Also, I am not rich so I can’t afford to donate money. What better way than to donate blood and organ!

Oh donating blood not only makes you feel good that you have saved someone’s life, having to drain out the old blood, your body builds new blood which is REALLY HEALTHY for you!

Cheerios!

It’s a sad day for Malaysia but NOT DISAPPOINTED.

Yesterday, I was practically facing the sky and PRAYED that Lee Chong Wei would defeat Lin Dan and bringing a memorable history to Malaysia while watching the Badminton Mens Singles Final, Olympic Beijing 2008 live on Astro. Hey, which Malaysian wouldn’t want to see one of them grabbing the very first Olympic gold?

The challenge was quite obvious. Lin Dan was just too quick on his feet for Chong Wei to keep up. At the first game Chong Wei was defeated at 12-21. As much as the Malaysians would hope for a glimpse of light on the second game, Chong Wei was again defeated and lost his chance in grabbing the Olympic gold at 8-21.

I can imagine the instant silence in Malaysia as we watched the defeat shown live on television. I felt sad just watching Chong Wei’s disappointed face during the award ceremony. Sigh… he must have placed lots of hope to make Malaysia proud, to make his family proud of his achievements.

Well I have news for you Chong Wei, to be able to fight your way from the bottom all the way to the Olympics and even made it to the finals, it is a proud moment to remember not only for yourself but for Malaysia. We are all proud to see our own people fighting his best. You did your best and now ranking 2nd in the world, you will become a role model to many who dream of achieving the best in sports.

I can imagine Chong Wei’s face all over Malaysia promoting for whomever who seeks him to be the ambassador. Maybe a billboard of him holding up a Milo packet drink on one hand and a thumbs up on another hand saying “I made it with Milo!”

HAHAHA!

Anyway, Chong Wei might not feel like a hero as he would love to be, he is already a Hero to the Malaysians to be able to reach that far!

Chong Wei: www.badmintonplanet.com

Good job Chong Wei!

The title says it all! Air Asia is so mean and so money minded!

My stepdad recently made a booking for a vacation in few months time. The offer is only AVAILABLE online based and cannot be given through phone booking. LAME.

Having to know that he is not a computer literate person, he just straight away click NEXT, NEXT and NEXT without seeing the SMALL PRINTS that the baggage charges and insurance charges are being CHECKED. So in the end, my parents have to pay UNNECESSARY amount of money because elderly and computer illiterate people like my stepdad make obvious mistakes that I can bet Air Asia would wish more and more mistakes such as these would appear!

Okay fine, my mother talked to the customer service to cancel the unnecessary charges and guess what? It cannot be changed! So my mother asked if there’s a way to APPEAL for it and the idiotic customer service girl said, “Yes you can but there is no guarantee that your appeal will be accepted.”

So when someone made a booking, NOTHING CAN BE CHANGED!

Okay FINE! Because the date clashes with a wedding, my mother wanted to change the flight date. No problem about that… except for one: INSURANCE CHARGES!

Note: I used my phone to take pictures so it’s blur but I will explain it.

Refering to the above picture, that is the original charges for my parents including the insurance charges (red arrow) at RM36. Since it has been inserted in the charges, my parents have no other choice and continued with the change of date.

So after doing the date changes online, guess what my parents see? MORE CHEATING SCHEMES FROM AIR ASIA! My parents are being charged with a penalty fee of RM300 (white arrow). Fine that is acceptable. But the CHEATING PART comes in. Refer to the red arrow… the top one is the original insurance fee and oh what’s this? ANOTHER INSURANCE FEE BEING CHARGED! (Second red arrow)

What the f*ck! Why the heck is Air Asia double charging my parents when they haven’t even FLY and USED the first insurance fee! Instead of the usual RM36, now my parents have to pay RM72 because of the double charges! I can bet if my parent’s change the third time, the THIRD FEE would appear!

My mother talked to the customer service person again and their stupid lame and idiotic answer was, “This is the system. We cannot do anything.” Of so if you cannot do anything why don’t you quit your job because your job is to help assist angry people like us and not answer stupidly!

My mother discovered the section where it says “”Click here to remove the insurance from your itinerary”

GUESS WHAT?

It cannot be clicked at all! You can click 1000 times and NOTHING.

So because of the date changes, from the original RM 1,102, my parents is being charged for RM1,568 because of the penalty fee and the stupid double charges for the insurance which Air Asia DELIBERATELY charge for no reason with a stupid answer “It’s the SYSTEM”.

F*CK AIR ASIA! Trying to cheat elderly and computer illiterate people by offering promotions that’s only AVAILABLE ONLINE and charging extra stupid stuff and telling the customers ‘IS THE SYSTEM’.

I told my mother that we have the rights to make a drama out of it! It’s our rights! Make noise, send complaints to the newspapers, anything!

I will NEVER fly with Air Asia!