Shutih...The Final Goodbye...

Here's a brief history of this lil kitten. Shutih is one of Aragorn's three babies; the others being my adopted kitten - Shaggy, and Shepet, which was adopted by my lil sis. Shutih has always been wild, we've never had the pleasure of playing with her for long periods of time. She was the most active of the 3 babies, and seemed the strongest. And hence, we thought that out of the 3 babies, she would be the one to survive whatever ordeal in her preferred surrounding - outside the comforts of our home.

Shutih was named as such...er...because we ran out of ideas what to name her. Since she's white (putih) and her other siblings are named SHaggy and SHepet...we err..thought it's convenient just to name her SHutih. Heh...

There were only a few times that I saw Shutih around the back of our house. I think she only came over to share some food with her uncle Gimli and mama Aragorn on two, maybe three occasions only. All the other times, I saw only fleeting glimpse of her, running around the neighbours' house.

So, it was a surprise for me to find her sitting quietly on the plastic chair when I went to do laundry this morning. As her uncle Gimli and mama Aragorn rushed to eat some cat biscuits I put out for them, I called out to Shutih to come over and join them. I didn't realize it at first, but then I saw her limping, and her left leg appearing weak. What surprised me more than that was her stomach, which looks empty, like a cat who hasn't eaten in a long time. She looks weak and listless, and uncomfortable for all the time I was watching her. A contrasting picture of her, being an all out active cat before this.

Worried that she got sick, I rushed her to the vet for a quick checkup. The early prognosis wasn't good. The vet, Dr. Intan said that she suspects that Shutih's diaphragm had ruptured and most of her organs had moved up to her chest and are crushing her lungs, making it difficult for her to breathe. What could cause this, could be blunt force trauma, like a motorcycle knocking her, someone accidentally kicked her, or deliberately hit her abdomen. She needs an xray to be sure on how extensive the injuries are. Dr. Intan also added that there is no chance of survival in 80% of these type of cases. If it is confirmed that the rupture is too big for surgery, euthanasia may be the best option to stop Shutih's suffering.

Since I had some errands to ran at that point of time, and it will take time for the xray, I decided to leave her with Dr. Intan and come back a few hours later. It was a long, long wait. When I called the vet at around 3pm, she sounded calm, so I was hoping for the best. But when I arrived at the vet, and she showed me Shutih's xrays, my worst fears are confirmed. The rupture was big enough that the only organs left in the lower part of the body is the large intestine, which is attached to her anus and had been pulled, appearing to be just a long straight line, with most of the mass pushed up to the upper part of her body. All the other organs had been pushed up into her rib cage and are crushing her heart and lungs. Added to that, her left leg had been dislocated, which caused the limping I saw earlier. The best option is for Shutih to be put down.


I was left speechless. It was my first time facing that decision. Although we are not the owners, and neither are we her guardians, but seeing her suffer and faced with that decision just broke my heart. I just stood there in the treatment room, looking at Shutih, and just could not find the words to express how I feel. When I turned to the vet, I realized Dr. Intan had tears in her eyes as well.I called my wife and she cried when I told her what happened. Being cat lovers, this is not an easy decision to make but it was for the best.

I asked for some time alone with Shutih to say my goodbyes. She looked as if she knows what I was talking about. She has never been close for me to stroke her soft fur before, and we had our moment to be friendly to each other for the first...and last time.

The procedure was to take place during the night, and I decided to trust Dr. Intan to do what's best for Shutih. I went back home, feeling drained. Shaggy must have felt what I felt and she jumped on me and just makes her self comfortable on my chest. Must be her way of giving me a hug.

At around 2200hours tonite, my phone beeped a received message:

"Salam, I would like to inform you that Shutih is no longer with us. She refused to take up any food i offered to her. During the procedure she did not struggle at all and finally sleeps very calmly. My condolence goes to you and family but believe me this wud be the best and the last we cud give to her.Tq. Rgrds;Dr Intan"


Shutih is gone. Goodbye lil princess, it was fun knowing you in your short life.

Yellow Pages Hunt...and the winner is...

It was the largest cash prize on offer so far, in terms of the hunts I've joined in. RM8,888 (!) for the 1st prize winner...waliauwei. The entry fee also cost a wee bit high for an outstation hunt, RM888 per team (which works out to RM222 per person for a 4person team...d'uh).

I had been dreaming about how it would feel to win the prize ever since I saw an FB update on Michael Pang's status. I think it was a couple months ago, I'm not so sure. Unfortunately, my regular treasure hunt team could not join as 1 half of the team is going to Bandung on the same date...huhuhu.

But fate would intervene, as 1 team did not manage to form a complete 4-person team. Apparently, 'someone' had suggested my name to the team members, and about a week before the hunt was held I had received an invitation to join this team.

Thank you, Linda Shamsuddin. Ehem.

This is no ordinary team, it had all the veteran/masters hunters in it before I came along (haha); Hagi Shuhaimi, Ahmad Zahrol and Khairol Nazib. Talk about a dream team, huh?

It didn't start that well. It rained heavily in the early hours of the morning, which made everyone just that little bit late reaching the flag-off point in Bukit Jalil. In retrospect, this is what we call hujan rahmat in B.M. And when we did flag-off, we actually got stuck on the very 1st question. Sounds like what the Macam2 Adaaaa team would do, or is it because of the W.Kamal vibe, I wonder? Hehe...

Anyways, all along the route I felt very2 dizzy. I was one of the passengers sitting at the back with Hagi. Zahrol navigated and Khairol drove his wife's brand new Alza. Quite a comfortable car for treasure hunt. I later discovered on the way back from Penang that if I sit at the left side of the passenger seat, I didn't feel as dizzy as I did by sitting on the right-side during the hunt. Which is weird. I've never felt like that ever before. All in my mind kot.

The questions, in retrospect that is, aren't that hard to crack. It has enough difficulties in it to have us scratch our heads, but not that hard that it would deter any newbies that came in to hunt, IMHO. Apart from the route questions, we also had the usual treasure questions and the JKJR questions; as well as the Yellow Pages puzzle and the E-yellow pages questions. What these 2 Yellow Pages sections requires us to do is to use the Yellow Pages book to solve the puzzle and the softcopy of the YP to solve the E-YP questions. For the puzzle, I had Hagi to thank for helping me out on that. Have you seen how thick the YP books are? It took a lot of patience to go through the book, but you have to know which section to look first before you can find the answer.

Oh, one other thing that this hunt has was the field challenge. It was simple enough, kick a mini soccer ball and knock down as many water bottles you can, and throw as many ping pong balls into the basket.

Okay, here's the complaint: some of the sectors are a wee bit too long as compared to other hunts. For example, one of the sectors has a length of 6km plus. If you didn't see the answers the 1st time, u have to double back and drive again through the sectors. Do that a couple of times and u suddenly have a very high mileage meter displayed on the screen, and much less time to do the hunt. And yes, that happened to us. I think it happened to the other teams as well, because in the end there wasn't enough time to complete all the sectors. After much discussion, we decided to drop the last sector of the hunt and head to the finish point.

At the end point we saw some of the regular teams arriving about the same time as us. I think only Claire's team arrived within the time frame, and all the other teams received penalty points.

We all felt that we didn't have that much hope of finishing among the top teams, much less win anything. I was more preoccupied with how hungry and tired I was as opposed to what the results were. Dinner was served late, which did not help my mood; never disturb a hungry lion as they would always say. Most teams (closed category) had arrived late, as they went thru the tulips/directions and completed the course. Hence the late arrivals and dinner. What helped though was this bunch of happy, jovial people from Yellow Pages that joined our table. They were so friendly that I felt we've known each other for years. :)

Halfway thru the dinner, the answer presentation came on, which spoiled my appetite. I was very2 nervous about how we answered in the hunt, as I was the one who wrote down the answers in the submission sheets. After tabulating the scores, it didn't help our confidence at all seeing the marks on my notebook. It was a whirlwind finish to our hunt and for some reason I couldn't remember what I wrote for the answers, especially for the treasure questions.

As the night went on as the lucky draw closed on the final prize, which none of us won,the YP guys on our table had this to say: "takpe bang, tak menang lucky draw, mesti boleh menang grand prize treasure hunt! team nombor apa?...19? ok, kitaorg jerit nombor tu karang..." To which I smiled my most polite smile.

As the top 6 teams were announced, Hagi was at one corner of the hall, Khairol went to the bathroom and I got up to take pictures of the top 3 teams in the hunt. After Razif's and Claire's team had gone up to take their prizes for 3rd and 2nd placing respectively, it was time to announce the winner. When the MC asked "Who is the winner for the RM8,888 cash prize, champion for the 1Malaysia 1Yellow Pages hunt?", the YP guys at our table shouted in unison our team's number: "19!!!" To which the CoC stopped, look up to see who shouted and took a deep breath.

There I was in front of the stage with my camera waiting to hear who won, and the guy took a looooonnnngggg time to announce it. Or is it just me? hehe. He continued with "Let me announce the name of the driver..." *dup-dup dup-dup* goes my heart beat. "Team Driver Khairol Nazib...." to a chorus of cheers from a group of ladies *ahaks*. My 1st reaction was "hey, I know that name"...with the CoC announcing everyone's name which I couldn't hear and ending it with "...team no. 19!" to cheers from the YP guys at the table. I think it was the loudest cheer any team has gotten in the hall...:)

RM8,888 was ours. :)

I would like to congratulate the team for a job well done: Hagi, Zahrol and Khairol. And thank you so much for inviting me. I had fun with the team, which is so important to me in any hunt. And we received a bonus: we won! Thanx and congrats guys!



Full results are here and here.

It has been that long...?

OMG...I've just realized that I haven't update this blog for quite some time (yet again)...must do better management this time...hopefully.

A new post, coming up soon!