Dear readers,

I think some of you have been wondering what I've been up to the past few months and why I am not responding to your emails. I will reply soon but do send me another email if it's important as I have tons of email to sift through after weeks of neglect.

I met with a cycling accident a little over a month ago. I lost control, mounted a kerb and flew off my bike. I think I crashed into the exposed root of a huge tree before rolling to the other side of the root, where my friends found me with my left arm completely twisted like a wrung towel.

I broke 2 bones, dislocated another, tore the ligaments in my elbow and hurt a nerve. The pain was so bad that the hospital gave me as much morphine as I could medically be prescribed. It helped with the pain but came with side-effects like nausea, disorientation and drowsiness.

I had an operation to piece back the jigsaw puzzle under my skin. I now have 3 metal plates, more than a dozen screws and a very long scar. I need many months of physiotherapy to regain elbow, forearm and hand functions, though some will be lost permanently.

This experience though thoroughly harrowing and painful showed me who my true friends were, that even perfect strangers are capable of random acts of kindness and highlighted the important things in life. I also know for sure that I could never be a morphine junkie because I hated the side effects so much, I avoided it as far as possible post-surgery!

I acquired new nicknames...like "Tree-Hugger" and "Bionic Woman", just to name a few.

Luckily, I'm right-handed so I can type fairly quickly as far as one hand goes and am still very adept with chopsticks.

During my sick leave, I have been honing my fridge-raiding skills in addition to quickly getting a bite of forbidden food, as my well-meaning mum and grandma have imposed a dietary prison sentence of sorts - all in keeping with avoiding food that Chinese old wives tales say promote scarring but defy modern logic. I became a one-armed food bandit!

Thankfully, it's been a month since my surgery and some of the rules have been relaxed. I now have a crazy craving for ice cream (Cold Stone's Dark Chocolate with Almonds & Oreo Cookies, Cedele's Salted Caramel, Udders' Rum Rum Raisin and Udders' Tira-Miss-U) all in the name of increasing calcium-intake for my bones. :P

Till my next post, take care, eat well and thank you for reading my food blog! Have a fab weekend!   :)

* Making some progress with my rehab, hoping it keeps up because I'm determined to use my arm like I used to as soon as possible. Thank you for the encouragement, friends and random strangers whom I had the pleasure to meet! *