I have been blessed with excellent health in 2014.

The last part of 2014 was meant to be a very busy time with lectures in Taiwan and Malaysia, and a professional conference in New Orleans etc. December 2014 was another interesting time, as I had been preparing for running a half marathon and was ready to run a decent time in the 2014 Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon.

Two of my high-school alumnus came all the way from Hong Kong to run in the Half Marathon on December 7, which made it special to me. As I had been running regularly with a group of excellent boys and girls the past few months, I had lost a few pounds in the process and I knew I was prepared. In addition, two weeks before the run, when my wife and my two daughters were in Kuala Lumpur, I was on my own in Singapore and I had a good week of rather intense training – just perfect as a final preparation and I had a week of rest before the actual run. I knew I would have fun hanging out with two younger boys from my school and the sweet part was that my wife and I would be off to Bhutan for a week long holiday a few hours after the half marathon. All set!

As usual, day time at the office was busy, very busy. Work was piling up fast but was clearing up fantastically well as our team of excellent clinicians and non-clinical colleagues at the office worked together like a charm. I knew I could count on them anytime.

Three days before the half marathon – December 4 – started off as a usual day with nice sunshine in the morning. I was looking forward to having an easy run in that evening in preparation of the December 7 event. Moon and I had a lunch meeting with a friend from India, Divya, a young mother but also a successful businesswoman who had started some meaningful operations in India. We went to our favorite dive and I had my favorite egg mayonnaise sandwich. The afternoon was busy at work as usual and I wanted to have a 30 minutes quick power nap before I headed off for running with my daughters in the evening. Little did I know that this was the beginning of my longest ever bedtime in my life!!

It turned out that the tiredness I was experiencing was the beginning of a bad case of food poisoning. After about 14 hours in bed, I woke up and tried to change for work but came to conclusion that I was so weak that I would have been a danger to my patients. My colleagues at work promptly helped me to cancel that full day of work and my patients were all-understanding. In between almost passing out, Moon managed to drag me out of the bed and I went to see our family doctor, Dr. Fabian Ong. Dr Ong reassured me that I would recover with his miracle medicine but running the half marathon over the weekend would qualify me to see a psychiatrist!! There went my Saturday morning clinical work and Sunday morning run!!

It was only after 40+ hours in bed, I dragged myself out and had a quick shower before my run mates from Hong Kong arrived in Singapore. I had to break the news to them and let them know I could not be with them at the starting line…

One thing I know for sure, I may not be in any position to go for the long planned trip to Bhutan: the last Shangri-La…