There’s been a lot going on in our life recently. To update
with the February posting, Alhamdulillah the result of the biopsy was negative.
It’s just a benign calcification. That’s really a blessing. I felt like I was
the luckiest person in the world.
We went on with our plan. We moved back to our home country,
Indonesia. To a small city called Balikpapan. We live in company housing so the
accommodation is excellent. Several days after we arrived, we were reunited
with our daughter. I couldn’t describe how I felt. It just felt surreal, like a
dream.
However, things weren’t like a Hollywood movie where
everything just stops at the happily ever after scene. Life goes loooonggg
beyond that point. For us, here comes the adaptation time.
It’s the adaptation with the time zone, with the weather,
with the surroundings and most of all with our little daughter. It was a hard
time both physically and emotionally. A mind in a body with prolonged sleep
deprivation would not tolerate chaos really well. The mind would just go wrong.
That’s what I felt at least. I was extremely exhausted from so many days of
sleeping only 3-4 hours each day. I could have slept well but as a mom with a
little kid experiencing a jetlag, you know how impossible it is. Feeling sleepy
all of the time, I had to manage the house and stop the kids from fighting
every second. Managing the house was easy breezy, but managing the kids was a
headache. I didn’t know why my kids just couldn’t get along well. Why they were
fighting, screaming, crying every second. I felt like my head was just going to
explode.
And that’s not all. My kids were getting sick. First, my
daughter was having a mouth sore followed by a mild fever. She was crying all
day all night for 2 days. We took her to the doctor and she got better. Next,
my son was having a very high fever he was shivering. Something that never
happened before. My husband and I were panicked and took him to the emergency
room in a nearby hospital, twice. Once in the middle of the night and once the
following day. He was better after couple of days. After that, our bathrooms
ceiling were collapsed during a very heavy rain. It was so bad the repair would take 2 weeks
time and we had to move to a temporary housing. Moving in and out and in and
out and in, packing and unpacking, and packing and unpacking and packing and
unpacking. Gosh, I felt like I was about to collapse as well.
And there I was. Having a bad cough and runny nose for a
week, I started to felt a pain in my right forehead. A pain that brought tears
in your eyes without you need to cry. Another thing that never happened before.
I went to the doctor, got an MRI and was even told to have a biopsy in my sinus
considering my medical history. Oh my goodness gracious….
However, besides all of the terrible things we were lucky we
had a very solid support system. Our big family was helping during our early
arrival. They stayed several weeks helping us with the adaptation. Our big thanks to our beloved family! A maid,
driver and baby sitter were also easily available for us. So, little by little everything went into
places. The kids even though are not always playing together nicely they fight
a lot less. Our sleep even though is not
a straight uninterrupted 8 hour long is so much better. We started enjoying our
new life here. Appreciating the beautiful landscape, the friendly and safe
neighborhood, the fresh air and healthy atmosphere. So every time I wake up
from my nap with the kids, I’m always grateful for the greeneries and blue sky
I see over my windows, for the life I’m living right now. If you just hang in there
and keep believing, there’s always a light at the end of a tunnel.
