Counting down to 3 more days to my operation on Saturday. My windpipe has indeed been displaced by the big lump on my thyroid which my previous doctor had failed to detect so that explains why I have been experiencing discomfort and difficulty in breathing.

I’m glad that I’m now in the good hands of an experienced surgeon who knows exactly what to look out for and who will try his best to minimise the risks though again I must understand there is no 100% success rate regardless whether my surgeon is an expert or not.

Basically, he will remove my left thyroid where the biggest lump is and then have the pathologist do a sampling test of the lump tissue to check for cancer and if that’s positive, he will have to proceed to remove my right thyroid (total thyroidectomy) before I undergo radio-iodine therapy.

My greatest concern now is not whether I have thyroid cancer because even if it is, I’m very sure it will not be deadly (because I manage to seek treatment early) and treatment will not be as excruciating as other forms of cancer.

Rather, I’m most concerned about the windpipe issue because the windpipe is made up of a very thin wall membrane and at this point in time, there is no way to know how long or how badly the lump has been pressing on my windpipe (it’s ‘S’ shape now instead of being straight) so there may be a need to open a hole in my neck into my windpipe just so I can breathe. Nothing I can do now but I will try my best to stay calm and positive.

In the meantime, I will continue to blog and will probably schedule some posts for next week too if I’ve time to write more and I will give an update again when I’m up and about after the operation if all goes well.

Thank you to all who have sent in your best wishes and have given me tremendous support and encouragement during this difficult time. I may not be able to reply everyone but I’m definitely reading your messages. Be well, folks!

Looking at pictures of those really kawaii (‘cute’) bentos that my fellow bloggers have put up on their blogs or Instagram accounts never fail to make me go ‘awww’. It’s just amazing how simple ingredients in our daily cooking can be made into pretty pieces of art.

I was inspired to try out basic bento making and though I wouldn’t say I was hooked onto it because I seriously lacked that creative flair (haha), it was still quite a fun and enjoyable experience to try to fit ingredients within a box in the most presentable manner which was really quite challenging because I found myself arranging and rearranging everything the first time I made my bento.

Anyway, one fun thing about making bentos is shopping for bento accessories and Daiso (the $2 store) has quite a number of interesting things that I can play around with.

Lunch boxes (I just have to get the pig and strawberry ones cos’ they are too cute!), food picks, silicone cups and food drawing pens

Sushi rice moulds, sauce bottles, egg moulds, egg cutter and cookie cutters

Introducing Geri’s Bento #1 that came with steamed Japanese rice sprinkled with toasted black sesame seeds, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, Japanese cucumber, green bell peppers, stir fried beansprouts and Korean style bulgogi chicken 🙂 There’s room for improvement in terms of presentation but I guess it’s still not too bad for a first attempt, lol.

KOREAN CHICKEN BULGOGI RECIPE

Ingredients
250g skinless & boneless chicken leg meat, sliced thinly
1/4 cup reduced-salt light soy sauce
1 tbsp white sugar
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 yellow onion, peeled & cut into slivers
1/2 tsp minced ginger
1 fuji apple (skin intact), cored & blended
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tbsp toasted white sesame seeds
2 stalks of spring onion, finely chopped

Instructions
1. Marinate the chicken with all ingredients (except sesame seeds and spring onions) for at least 4 hours or overnight for best results.
2. Pour the chicken mixture with all its marinate sauce into a pan and cook till meat is no longer pink.
3. Add in spring onions and toasted sesame seeds. Stir to combine.

Tags: bentobento makingbulgogichicken recipehomemadejapanese foodkorean foodreciperecipes