Me and my sleep apnea

I have been suffering from sleep apnea for quite a few years already. It started to show when I was still with OSCC some 6 years back when I would sometimes "accidentally" sleep at my cubicle. Early on I just dismissed it as because I was growing fat (we ate a lot at OSCC.. :P and I barely went anywhere except my cubicle) and also because of babies. Oh babies.. those cute little things that keeps you awake at night so that they can be so cute and charming when your friends and relatives come over the next day. So it was dismissed. Later on I got more and more used to sleeping at work, started associating it with my lack of motivation and sometimes feeling of downright depression. And I kept growing fatter and fatter, which I assumed was the reason why I was getting more and more tired.

But then around 2 years ago a friend of mine suggested maybe I've got sleep apnea. And a few other people suggested I go to a sleep clinic and all that. Put it off for quite a while. Until I feel I couldn't put it off any longer. My condition got so bad, that almost everyday I worked around half day only, because by noon I could barely keep my eyes open, much less think to do my work (and as a programmer, thinking is a big part of the job). Last year for raya we didn't even go anywhere because I couldn't trust myself to drive long distances. The year before we went back to Kedah, I only got up to Rawang, then I got so sleepy I couldn't drive anymore, my wife drove all the way to Gurun. I started dozing off on my motorcycle and barely miss dividers and lorries (ON MY MOTORCYCLE.. can you imagine how tired I was to doze off on a MOTORCYCLE!!! I was controlling it, I wasn't riding it and dozed off while someone else was controlling it, I WAS CONTROLLING IT).

And that's just the beginning. Not to mention the amount of depression I had to fight off because I wasn't getting my jobs done, my datelines was flushed down the toilet, my freelance jobs I had to cancel because I couldn't deliver, the debts I had to take to keep on going with less income, the whole spiral of self blame and self loathing, the doubt, the second guesses, the shame....

So late last year I started to take action. Asked about my company policy on footing the bill for sleep apnea treatment and Alhamdullillah they will foot the bill for treatment by any panel specialist. So I started doing research and found that the Sunway Medical Centre had sleep study facilities. I went to a panel clinic and got the recommendation letter to see a nose and throat specialist for my condition.

Over at Sunway Medical Centre I was treated by Dr. Gan Tong Nee. He's a great doctor with many years of experience with this kind of problems. I wanted to go into the sleep clinic immediately but he suggested I try the nasal spray first. So went on the nasal spray for around a month. Still not much improvement. So we actually had an MRI done. From it you could actually see the nose polyps build-up in my nose. He suggest to have them removed first because he said even if I was to use a CPAP machine I wouldn't use it for long because it would be very uncomfortable. So I had a MINOR surgery to have them removed. The doctor said minor, but let me tell you, if they cut you up anywhere near your face, mmm... minor is an understatement. I had to have someone collect my piss for 3 days because I couldn't get up. Maybe it's also due to my being a little bit obese so it exaggerated the problem, but seriously, NOT MINOR. But what a difference it made. In the first few weeks after all the bandage came off, I felt like I didn't even have a nose anymore. It's like the whole front of my face was a gaping hole and air came in and out as it pleases. It felt nice. But as soon as my medical leave was over, and I went back to work, the whole problem started again. So this time the good doctor put me in a sleep study.


This was how I looked like taking the sleep test. All wired up like some fat ironman. And the sleep study concluded that I still had sleep apnea despite the surgery so I'll have to start using a CPAP machine. But after thousands and thousands of ringgit paid for by my company for all the check-ups and surgery, they won't pay for the machine because that machine would be brought back home and I guess owned by the staff or something like that. Whichever way it is, it wasn't covered. If I bought it from Sunway Medical Centre, it could set me back at least RM 10k-12k depending on the model I choose. So, since I have to pay for it myself, I looked for a cheaper alternative.

After much search and googling I found http://cpap.com.my/. I bought the Apex iCH Auto CPAP for just RM 5800 (including the full mask) and have been using it ever since. I changed to the nasal mask because the full mask kept on leaking probably due to my many many facial hairs. But apart from that it has worked pretty well. It has a built in humidifier which helped a lot to keep the nose comfortable without feeling stuffed up in the morning. But most days I don't even fill it up with water because my kids sometimes play with it while I sleep. There was once my youngest one actually toppled it when there was water inside. Good thing it fell on the pipe out side and so the water didn't get into the machine and damage it but ever since then I only use water if my kids are all asleep already.

And what's my verdict? Well, Alhamdullillah I have been productive at work ever since I got the machine. I'm putting in a full day worth of work and I have caught up with most of my work at the office. I still haven't taken any serious freelance job yet but can actually look forward to taking on some soon once the opportunity arrive and I've cleared some personal projects. And most importantly, and that's why I'm writing this today, is yesterday we just came back from Kedah. I drove the whole 10 hours crawling there, and the 9 hours crawling back. I was tired by the end. With the last few hours I had to keep on massaging my neck and thighs to give some relieve to the tiredness I felt, but apart from that, Alhamdullillah we are safely back home. And so it has been proven beyond any shred of doubt that the RM 5800 I spent (and additionally RM 500 for the nasal mask) and all the surgery I had to go through was well worth it. Alhamdullillah.... I'm not completely out of the woods yet, but at least now there is hope and insyaAllah I can get there...

Dream Come True

Ever since I was small (both in age and in size), I've always wanted to write my own games. The first game that I remember playing was digger when I was just around 7 years old. I didn't have a computer back then, I went to my friend house after school to play. Then when I was around 9 my father told me that those games were written using "programming" and that I could learn to do programming too if I wanted. At that time my father was doing his PhD at Warwick University and we lived in Coventry. And sure enough at the public library there was books for programming games. I was so excited. I copied them into the computer (my father had one at home then, it didn't even have a color monitor, just green shades) and mess around with them. That was how I started to learn programming. I cut my teeth on Quick Basic writing mostly text based games from books I borrowed from the public library. That was a long time ago...

But that have always been the dream. I've learned a lot along the way. Even picked up windows and directx programming when I was 17, trying to come up with something more than just proof of concept and that I can actually promote without feeling too ashamed at the final outcome. And back in the day, distribution has always been pretty hard. But now, with app stores and the likes, and phones that people play casual games rather than hard core 3d games which I can never catch up with by myself, I've finally produced something that somewhat resembles something like a publishable game. Introducing my first full game released to the general public, Space Diamonds.

Basically the aliens have come to steal your hard earned diamonds. Your friend Bob is working as fast as possible to save them onto your space ship, but someone got to fend them off in the meantime. That is your job Hero. You've got to shoot them aliens down and make sure they don't get away with the diamonds. It gets harder every time but you can do it.

So if you have an android device, with a presumably big screen (I think most probably the game won't work very well on small screens but I haven't got any device to test), please download the game and give it a whirl. Maybe you'll like it and give it a good rating and review... :) maybe...

Thank you... this is a dream come true... :)

Introducing Vehicle Service Log

Download my latest app from the app store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abdullahsolutions.vehicleservice

One thing great about being a software developer is that if you need some software or app, and if the software or app is not available or you didn't bother to look for one in the first place, you have the option of writing one yourself. And Alhamdullillah that's what I've done.

You see, I vaguely remember that I used to fill my motorcycle fuel every other week. But sometimes I get this nagging feeling that it is becoming less fuel efficent. I seem to be filling it almost every week sometimes. So I want to know for certain. I could probably jot down when I refuel everytime in a journal app or something, but I choose to write my own app for this specific purpose. So in short, I'm scratching my itch.

So I began writing an app with the goal in mind to keep track of when I refuel my motorcycle. But then I though, why not I just add a little bit more and add when I've serviced my car too. So finally that's what it became. And app that could keep track of when you refueled or last serviced your vehicle.

When you refill, you fill in the value of the fuel and it would automatically calculate the amount  based on the price of the fuel. You could change the price by clicking on the gear button and clicking on the fuel type. Or if you are using fuel apart from RON 95/97. you could add those fuel type and their respective price. In the settings page there is also a value for service interval and refuel interval. These are the default value added to your vehicle mileage when you add the event. You could adjust it to your preferred amount. I didn't put any metric on the amount nor any currency to the value so that this app could be used more universally although you would definitely would need to adjust the price of the fuel for your country. If for example the amount calculated is wrong, or you live in a country where the price of fuel change from station to station, then you can fix in the amount manually after you filled in the value.

You could keep track of events for more than 1 vehicle. But they would have to be of type car or motorcycle. You could probably just lump suv, jeeps, lorries, busses into the car category too for now since I don't own any of those vehicle and doesn't really see the need to see them differently for now.

My plan for this app is that eventually it would be able to sync to an online service so that me and my wife could both update the same car. And it would give a better reading of the current fuel efficency of the vehicle and how much you spend on fuel. But that's quite a bit far into the future for now.

So please to try it if you have an android device by downloading it here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abdullahsolutions.vehicleservice

I would value any feedback given and might even incorporate some suggestions if you have any. I can't make any promises though as this is just a side project, more of a hobby thing, but I will try my best to accomodate. Thank you for your consideration.

View sql log in grails

Today I've learned from https://burtbeckwith.com/blog/?p=1604 that if you want to view what is the query that is actually run by gorm you just have to add:

debug 'org.hibernate.SQL'
trace 'org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder'

into your Log4j configuration at Config.groovy. Pretty important info.

Yang mana satu pilihan hati...

Alhamdullillah.. finally I've taken the time to finally make this idea into a reality. What's the idea? Well...

Aren't you tired of standing around for half an hour with your friends at lunch time and having this conversation?
"Where to eat today?"
"I don't mind. You chooselah"
"No. You chooselah what you want"
"Come on guys, make your mind up"
"I've already chosen last time, your turnlah pulak"
"I don't care whatever. Just chooselah"

Or how about buying a car?
"What color would you like your car to be?"
"I think blue"
"Oh wait.. red looks nice too"
"Oooooh.. but black looks more businesslike"
"Eh.. the silver is not bad"

Or how about waiting in like to get circumcised?
"You go first"
"Nolah.. You're older, you go first"
"Ehehehe.. cannot... his father is a big dato', he should go first"
"I want to go last"

Ok. Maybe not the last one. But basically just making a choice which in the end doesn't really matter and is quite probably just some random chance. Rather than racking your brain and pushing the guilt around, why don't you let your phone choose randomly for you and blame fate for whatever outcome you get... :P

Just kidding.. really. This app choose an option at random and you really shouldn't use it to make any life altering choices. But if it's nothing big and important, it could probably help. Download "Pilihan Ku" from the android app store today and finally get on with your life... :)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abdullahsolutions.pilihanku

Getting my feet wet with phonegap

Finally took the time to at least install and run phonegap. For future reference, basically I had to:

1. Add the "tools" and "platform-tools" folder into my path setting
2. Install package "nodejs" and "apache-ant"
3. Run "sudo npm install -g phonegap"
4. Run "phonegap create "
5. Run "cd "
6. Run "phonegap run android"

And if everything is dandy and up to date (I had to run updates for my android sdk first) you should be able to see 

After that it is just a matter of editing the files in the "www" folder created by phonegap. And once the app is all good to go, add the project into eclipse by creating a new android project from existing code and select the "platforms/android" folder created by phonegap.

Can't wait to poke more at this... :)