4 Senses and 1 Non-sense

For as long as I can remember, I have  banished the words "I can't" from my vocabulary. My motto in life has always been "I can and I will". Growing up with 2 brothers  has made me resolve never to be pushed aside and be told that I couldn't do what boys could do, just because I was a girl.

However, as age catches up with me, I find that there are some things that I find harder to do. Objects I could lift without any problems a few years back now feels rather heavy and my back would complain.

A few weeks back I caught what I thought was just a common stomach virus, but it turned out much worse than that. It started with bouts of diarrhea and throwing up, but when I couldn't get out of bed because the room would spin and there was constant ringing in my ears causing my hearing to diminish that I began to worry a little. Thankfully, the doctor at a clinic nearby had the good sense to refer me to the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist right away. 

At the ENT doctor's clinic, I was told to get a hearing test done. My usually optimistic ENT doctor who would usually say, "Don't worry, lah. I'll prescribe some medicine and you'll be fine in no time." took one look at the results of my hearing test and looked a bit worried after I described all my symptoms. A virus had attacked the nerves in my ears and affected my sense of balance as well as my ability to hear certain frequencies of sound. On top of that, I had totally lost my sense of smell. So he gave me a high dose of steroids to try and help me regain my hearing and sense of smell.

To cut a long story short, after 2 weeks of constant medication I have regained about 95% of my hearing although I have a constant high pitch buzzing in my ears that I have since learnt to ignore. I can drive around again as things don't seem to spin in circles around my head anymore. In short, life has gone back to as normal as it can be after some damaged nerves in my ears. 

However, the nerves in my nose are still not functioning. Of course I can't do a lot of things in life but this is a major "I CAN'T" for me..."I can't smell" :(

To some people it doesn't seem like a bad thing to have 4 senses out of 5. I am grateful that I can still taste, though. But I derive a lot of pleasure out of baking, and for someone who can tell how many more minutes before my cupcakes are done in the oven just based on smell alone, it is quite distressing not to be able to smell. Looking at the bright side, at least bad odours don't bother me anymore.

My doctor tells me that he can't do much about that. It might come back or it might not. But I'm really glad I still have my hearing and being a person very much involved in music, I would choose my hearing over my sense of smell. 

Being thankful for little things helps. Life goes on.

A Fun Escape

We didn't plan any trip this school holidays so hubby and I decided to take our kids to The Escape Room at Berjaya Times Square mall for a fun afternoon together.

The Escape Room is a challenge game with various themes. We looked at their website and initially wanted to go to eCurve but the time slots that we wanted were all fully booked, so we chose Berjaya Times Square instead. Booking can be done online, several days ahead without any payment. The staff will give us a phone call on the day we have chosen just to confirm our attendance and we only pay at the venue. 

Entrance fee is RM32 per person but there is a small discount for students with the Student ID card. Secondary students can bring their library card.

Each room has a fixed difficulty level, from 3 (easy) to 5 (difficult), and not being very adventurous we chose the one with a difficulty level of 4 - The Vampire Chronicles. The maximum number of people allowed in each room is 8, but no one else wanted our time slot so we had the whole room to ourselves.


We had to keep our bags and mobile phones in a locker so I couldn't take any photos to show on my blog, but there's their official video here to give you an idea of what's it's all about.


The challenge is to get clues within the room and solve the puzzle before 45 minutes is up. 

We started off the game by being handcuffed together -
all four of us. The our guide gave us instructions before
sending us into our allocated room.

We could find the key to unlock our handcuffs and managed to solve the first puzzle. Unfortunately we took too long trying to figure out some mathematical clues and didn't manage to escape in time. Our guide was good, when our time was up he came in and explained all the answers to us. It turned out to be simpler than we thought and goes to show that sometimes we think of complicated ways to solve a puzzle when the the solution is actually quite simple.

We went "Uh-oh" when our timer showed this.

So in the end we had to take a photo with a big LOSER sign, haha. Those we escape before 45 minutes would get to hold the WINNER signboard instead.