I Feel 17 again

something tells me i've gotta enjoy these short 3 wks of hols as much as i can. coz they are so very precious to a medical student. so blogging seems to be the lowest on my priority list now. especially since i bought a pair of roller blades! i've got to blade to make all $180 of it worth my while. and then there're long lost friends to meet up with, old friends whom i used to hang out with everyday now seem only available once a month... and as i get older i find my social circle getting smaller year by year. there're only a small handful whom i've managed to retain over the years, and new ones seem so transient, except for the one or two really really nice and beautiful people i've met through clinics.

and as usual my brother impresses me with his deep insight... like how he managed to let me see the light on how everyone falls short of that perfect ideal. even the good man who's done good deeds all his life. even him. but yet we do have salvation. i think i've found a mentor in my kor. just spending two hours with him stoning at the yellow benches was more than enough to remind me why i know i have the best kor in the world. yes. the same kor who fetched me at 11.45pm at night from char's house just as he was getting ready for bed. and it also serves as a reminder that no matter how many levi's shirts i buy him in my role as his fashion consultant, he's still gonna be the same old "i'm so not-zai" guy. humble and old fashioned. that's my bro for you.

and after meeting up with the rest of the youth ministry for the first time and finally feeling part of an entity within covenant, i realise that this is growth. good growth.

and to top off a wonderful weekend, we went kayaking at macritchie!!! all in the name of finding more exciting ways to pak tuo. and it was real fun alright. ended up with a few cuts from the fibreglass, but all was well as there were no currents in the still reservoir waters but only the winds to blow us forth towards the golf course of singapore island country club. the things you'd never see while walking on the foot trail in macritchie, like monkeys fighting with each other, tortoises sunbathing on stones, and then plonking themselves into the water once we neared them with our paddles. and we saw two tortoises doggy-paddling in the waters! and many many water spiders, the insects that we learnt about in primary 3, who were known for ice-skating their way around the surfaces of ponds, we saw all of that! and appreciated nature for all its glory. singapore is rather nice a place. no need for overseas trips really. if i had tourists to bring around, i'd bring them to do what we two did just this evening. :)

and just as everyone thought ah kong was going to go... for the 3rd time these past two years he has defied all odds and rebooted his system and made gradual improvements. he's started to eat more.. from just sips of water to a few teaspoonfuls of tau hui every few hours and other liquids. he makes more noise now......and everyone's immensely pleased .. esp after pulling so many all nighters to keep vigil. it has all paid off. prayers work. thanks jo. :)

a time to get inspired. and i must say i really have. just started my 6 week elementary clincs at ttsh. amazing how things in the textbook suddenly come alive. but facts from a distant memory still elude me after being jolted left right centre by probing questions posed by scary tutors. though i have yet to meet the really mean ones yet. time to revise! and put on a smile though waking up at 5.20am to get to ttsh by 7.30am (thanks to a certain mr handsome who gives me lifts) takes some getting used to. it's nice to know that even when we end at 5pm my clinical group of 8 still laughs and supports each other in our la la land of question marks.

my apologies go out to ryan-pattern-in-the-sky, trini's friend, whom i sort of recognized at ttsh but wasn't keen on saying hi coz i wasn't sure if he did recognize me. so very very sorry.

hmm. for everything, thank you Lord. :)

and as my parents and my bro, the 4 of us, returned from tokyo at 3am on saturday morning, we came back to hear the usual noises from my ah kong who hasn't had a restful night's sleep since a year ago, when he had his first heart attack. the 2nd one that occured sometime during chinese new year this year was one fraught with anxiety and confusion, my interpretation of how he must have felt as his heart suddenly ceased momentarily pumping blood to his brain, causing him to have what i learnt later from the 3 doctors present- was termed a transient ischemic attack... which strangely enough was treated with drugs in this year's pharmacology CA syllabus on systemic drugs.

ah kong's condition stabilized for a month or so since then. since our return from tokyo just 2 days ago, i've been bombarded with conversations that go " he's waiting for all of you to come back; he's marking attendance for all his children to visit; he's lucid; he's mentally aware;...i see my ah kong now, in the jaws of death, waiting, suffering, desperate to hang on but not knowing how to. when we were away in tokyo, uncles and aunties who took care of him while the four of us were away said he hadn't been able to eat solid food.. imagine how hungry he must be feeling, now that he can't manage to swallow and at best, takes 2 sips of honeyed water during mealtimes while lying down. he can't cough the phelgm out. everyone's wishing he would go away silently... but we're taking shifts to keep vigil through the night.. simply because he can't let go yet. he's calling out names, saying he's suffering, my family (plus anna included) can't bear to go back to our rooms to sleep, so we're taking shifts through the night to pacify him, to pat his cheeks and rub his chest to lull him to sleep for that 3 minutes or so that he keeps silent before waking up again in grunts of pain.

during supper tonight, he grabbed the cup of milo in desperation.. ah kong was very thirsty. but he couldn't swallow. he couldn't drink. and because of this scene, it was the first time i saw my auntie cry.

when you've got doctors in the family, medicine and diagnosis is just a bedside away, my whole extended family camps over during the day. but my ah kong's not to be put on a drip, they say, for they don't want to prolong his pain. this time is different from the last. my uncle didn't even attempt to give him a jab of frusemide like how he did the last time just this february which miraculously saw him bounce back in a week.

i was called home day before yesterday with news that ah kong's blood pressure dropped from 150 to 90. the lowest ever. i rushed home to find him sweating, to find him with cold hands and feet.. but still clinging on. ah kong even called me once " ah ru" he said, then closed his eyes.

i'm suppposed to wake up at 4.50 am later on.. for my turn. but i'm scared.. don't know what to do to pacify him...  even the doctors don't know how to. we don't really know how much longer his suffering will be, but we can only try to give him peace and assurance that someone's beside him ... by rubbing his chest and stroking the nape of his neck. no medication whatsoever, just love.