Turning the Decade

To my older brother, on his 31st birthday - Happy Birthday! May this next year be one filled with friends old and new, discovering new experiences and finding a deep joy in life!

Random Memories: Eight Years Old

My brother and I used to sleep in the master bedroom by ourselves when we were younger. I am not sure how we got away with that, but I suspect that my Dad's inability to climb the stairs easily and both my parent's generosity had something to do with it.

The master bedroom holds a lot of memories for me as a child. I remember the pillows that adorned the bed - interspersed among the proper sleeping pillows were our bantal busuks (literally 'smelly pillows' in Malay, equivalent to a security blanket.) I had this yellow Doraemon pillow which I must have drooled on incessantly until it changed colour. (Ewww...)

The master bedroom was also the scene of the death of our childhood dreams - I remember how as little children we used to have these wonderful T-shirts with capes at the back of them - it was the height of the Superman (Christopher Reeve, not Brandon Routh) craze then. We were pasar malam heroes in our T-shirts - I was the Malaysian Hero with my red flowing cape while my brother had his blue Batman one.


My wonderfully artistic younger sister's recreation of what I looked like in that caped shirt as a child. I wish I knew where the original photo is.

We were a handful, both of us boys, tearing through the house like chimpanzees on steroids, our capes flowing behind us. We would scream the house down, and I think that one day we were jumping around and making a little too much noise when Mum decided that she had had enough, so she grabbed the sewing scissors and then proceeded to cut the capes off our T-shirts, much to our juvenile horror.

We didn't fly around so well after that. Our tiny imaginations couldn't bring us beyond the jagged edges of cloth that hung limply from our superhero uniforms where our brave capes once flowed.

I remember as well the nights before our sleep when my brother would tell me stories sometimes or we would talk about everything and nothing before falling asleep. There was a period in his ten-year-old life when his only aim was to make me laugh until I begged him to stop.

The magic words that would cause me to laugh uncontrollably would somehow always involve a bodily excrement or function and some bad words (read: shitting, pissing and farting) and I would be so tickled that I would still laugh about it the next day.

Twenty one years on, and my taste in toilet humour has not weaned off one bit. Just ask Karen.

Happy birthday, Jo.

Wong Fu Productions: Up In Da Club

Wong Fu Productions is the inspired trio of Philip Wang, Ted Fu and Wesley Chan - three Americans of Asian heritage who started off in their budding directing and production skills in college.

They struck Youtube gold (or should I say yellow) when they uploaded their first clip - Yellow Fever several years ago and since then, the trio have never looked back, coming up with their own production company, becoming more adept at both their directing and acting skills, and indeed have created a nice little niche market for themselves.

Indeed, their brand of militant niceness and astute humour have struck a chord with many people, Asians or not, and they continue to serve as an inspiration to many aspiring talents.

Watch all 4 parts to the end - I laughed my ass off - and I know that you will too! (I know that some connection speeds are slower than others, but it is worth the wait!)

Chew On This

Almost true representation of events.

(With apologies to my friends who are dentists, who I am sure are kind to small animals and little children. Occasionally.)

The top 3 things that humans fear most:
1. Public speaking
2. Death
3. A visit to the dentist

I have not seen a dentist in 20 years. I am not particularly fond of them, they don't get Christmas cards from me.

My teeth are, surprisingly, in perfectly good condition, thank you very much, apart from this unbearably horrible toothache that I get when I eat. And when I don't eat. In fact, it hurts all the time.

[The chances of Heng Khuen seeing a dentist is found in the equation

P = Pt x ft > Fd

where P is the probablility of Heng Khuen visiting a dentist, Pt is the pain from the toothache, multiplied by ft which is the frequency of the toothache and Fd is the F@^&ing dentist, er I mean, Fear of dentist.)

I finally dragged myself to the dentist and he tells me that I have multiple cavities, which are holes in my teeth. He says that I have enough holes in my teeth for him to play a whole round of golf.

I am not laughing.

I also have this set of impacted teeth, which means my mouth was too small (contrary to popular opinion) to fit in all my teeth, so two of my molars were squeezed in to sit under my tongue, which I often show to little kids to scare them into obedience.

But my dentist says that my impacted teeth have to come out, or else more cavities will form when food gets stuck there. I think of the piece of apple that I had last night now stuck between my teeth. It now has a face. And a beard. And a pickaxe. And it is furiously chipping away at the rock of my teeth, laughing gleefully like a maniac, as it digs harder and harder to find the nerve that will give me Unbearable Pain which is its Revenge for me eating it.

I walk into the dentist's room. There is a chair in the dentist's room. It is not like an electric chair. It is an Ergonomic Reclining Chair with soft cushion padding, which fits your body snugly so that you can lie in it comfortably. It is like a La-Z-Boy couch which you lie on to watch the game on your big screen TV.

Except that it is not a La-Z-Boy. And there is no soccer match in front of you.

They slap on a pair of sunglasses and then suddenly a light descends upon you from above. The light stand is angled like a curious dinosaur bending it's head down to get a closer look at you. Except that it has the Sun for its face.

It is like you are in an interrogation. A comfortable chair, and a not-so-comfortable interrogation.

There is a tray. There is a tray with many instruments which look like they belong to a villain in a Bond movie. There are instruments with hooked pointy little ends which look like they could cause a lot of pain. And then there are the clamps. Which could fit on your little finger, squeezing it tighter and tighter. There is a needle, which looks like it could have truth serum in it. There is a pair of pliers. For ripping out teeth. And fingernails.

Suddenly your breath stops as your eyes land on the most horriblest instrument of all. The drill. The tiny little sharp rotating drill which sounds like a hundred little tiny fingernails scratching on the blackboards of your mind.

The dentist comes in, and he is all smiles. You expect a Villain Monologue during which time you will shoot out the lights with your gun, kick him in the balls and then make your escape.

You have to keep your mouth open the whole time while he does unkind things to you. Not unlike another profession that I know of. (With apologies to my friends who are in that other profession, who I am sure, too, are kind to small animals and little children.)

He reaches for the drill. The dentist tests it first. It gives a satisfying buzzing whirr in his gloved hand, vibrating the air around it. And then he reaches it into you. Hundreds of tiny fingernails scratch slowly but eagerly along the blackboards. The high pitch whirring resonates in your head, threatening to detonate it from inside.

Your body arches upwards. Your face scrunches in pain. Your fists grab the comfortable La-Z-Boy beneath you and threaten to rip it to pieces. You want to scream but there is no sound.

He has to inject you with an anaesthetic, he says. It will feel like a pinch. Or a mosquito bite, he promises. But it is not like a pinch. It is like a mosquito bite except that the mosquito is from a place called Hell, and it has eaten a mouthful of red-hot cili padi and volcanic magma before stinging you.

Your mouth gradually goes numb as if Muhammad Ali threw a few punches at you, but only managed to hit the left side of your face.

The dentist reaches for the pliers. You feel the steel rubbing on your tongue and clunking against your teeth as he clumsily rips your tooth (fingernails/eyes/nipples) out. The tooth is curved like a scimitar and red from the stab wound into your gums. Your mouth pools with blood. You taste it on your tongue.

He gives you a cotton swab to chew on. He smiles and expects a thank-you nod for his hard work torturing you today.

He leads you out of his room and you think that you are finally safe. Thank God that is over.

The worse is yet to come. Your half-numb mouth hangs open at the amount that you have to hand over for the forty five minutes of torture that you had just walked out of. A thread of saliva steals out from your open mouth like an art thief's rope at the Louvre, and it dangles over the three digit number on the bill before you.

Like a masochist, you swallow your blood-stained saliva and dig deep into your wallet to pay for the pleasure of the pain today.

The receptionist flashes you a perfect smile and takes your cash. You pray that somewhere in the back of her mouth, the tiniest little piece of a Mars Bar is patiently chipping away at the those pearly white teeth.

Do Not Go Gentle Into the Good Night

So I walked into the ED one Sunday night and it was chaos. It looked like a bomb had struck the place after a hurricane and a tsunami had hit it. The crap did not only hit the industrial strength fan, it also hit the full-blast air-conditioning and the heating in the ventilation.

But enough bad analogies.

Just before I had walked in, there were three simultaneous codes - a 91 year old man who had a large aneurysm of his aorta (swelling of the main blood vessel in the tummy area), another seventy something year old gentleman was having seizures from the newly diagnosed brain tumour in his head, and there was a 30-something year old mother who had overdosed on a whole heap of medications who no one could wake.

And she was vomiting out blood as well for good measure.

And so the whole department was abuzz with doctors and nurses flying from one end to the other, trying to put out as many fires as they could.

Every bed was taken in the Emergency Department that night, as evidenced by the full waiting room outside, as we had neither the time nor the place to see anyone.

My boss went out and told the waiting patients in no uncertain terms that tonight the ED was really busy, and unless they were willing to wait for a long time or thought that their ailment needed attention this very night, they would be better off coming back tomorrow. Or never.

Please, thank you, come again.

The surgeons were in the room seeing the gentleman with the 10 centimetre aorta that was about to rupture, trying to convince him that he needed an operation urgently. His wife and daughter were there by his side keeping vigil.

His wife stood there by his side telling him that he should probably have the operation. For the longest time the man kept silent while she talked on and on about how he should have it. She was trying to cope with the sudden bad news and her mind was grasping at straws at this stage. She was about to lose him and she wasn't ready yet. So, yes, yes to the operation. Yes to hope.

20 metres away in another room, a young mother was trying her best to die on us. Her family had checked in on her at six pm that day and thought that she was sleeping so they had left her alone. It was only when she didn't rouse that night when they called her to dinner that they feared the worst.

They rushed into her room, the pack of empty pills by her side and she would not respond to their frantic calls trying to coax her back from Death's edge. Her brother had tried to sit her up, and she had vomited out blood in his arms, and the family were beside themselves as the call for help went out.

Many women have tried to take their own lives, but more often than not, it is actually a cry for help and most survive. I have never seen someone come so near to death on overdosing on pills before.

And so we were trying to put the tube down her throat to help her breathe, and all this time the blood gushing out of her stomach made it very difficult. Then we had to get lines into her to give her the medications that would keep her blood pressure up.

We had to keep reaching for some shots of adrenaline to bring the blood pressure to a level where it would perfuse the vital organs in the body.

The man with the brain tumour had finally settled from his convulsions with the medications that he was given. His family sat next to him, distraught at what they had just witnessed. Just this morning he was fine - he was their father, their husband - having breakfast with them, laughing about things and now eight hours later his body no longer belonged to him.

It was weak on one side and would not respond no matter how hard he willed it, and when he fitted, he jerked around as if he were being drawn on the strings by an invisible puppeteer.

We had to attend to the man with the enlarged aorta because he had suddenly lost consciousness. As we stepped in, the surgical registrar dramatically waved us away, his arms cutting open in a fashion like No Deal!

No! he exclaimed. Don't do anything!

The surgical registrar recounted to us what had happened, his eyes wide open in surprise. It was the most amazing thing! he exclaimed. So we were just telling him about the operation when this man suddenly turned to his wife and daughter and said, angrily -

"I've had enough! I don't want anything done for me anymore! See you! Goodbye!"

And with that he just... went.

The surgical registrar's voice trailed off, amazed that the man could dictate his own death.

[Mr A leaves the play, never to return. Exit Stage Left]

My boss went out to talk to the family to confirm the man's last wishes, and he returned to the room, his single nod confirming that this man should be kept comfortable only.

Back in the room with the young mother, we battled on and had to throw a heap of medication at her in order to keep her blood pressure up, in order to stop her from the death she wanted so much. She was finally flown away to another hospital that night, her family still coming to terms with their grief and now needing to find their way to her tonight.

There is time to breathe, and reflect. Here was one man who had lived a good long life, and had seen many things in his time, and who was just sick of it all. He somehow wielded the power over the timing of his death -nature had finally taken its course, and he wanted no more of our withcraft to try and stop it.

On the other hand, here was a young mother, who at a very young age decided that she had seen enough in her time and was just sick of it all as well. And in some strange way, she wielded the power over the timing of her death as well, but the love of her family, and the same modern medicine that brought her to the brink of death was trying its best to pull her back to life.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To School

Well, it's officially 200 posts now since I made my move from my previous blogdrive account. Thank you to everyone for reading. And for sharing your stories with me.




Freedom

As relayed to me by my favourite friend storyteller.

So we were from one of those La Sallian brother's school lah, you know, and it was an all boys' school, run by the Catholic brothers. It was horrible in an all boys' school because we would get into all sorts of trouh-ble, you know.

And no use caning us, because you know lah, as boys, after awhile we don't feel it... So the brothers had to be very creative lah you know, about their forms of punishment.

There was this one that they came up with - called the Statue of Liberty.

So what happens is that the punished boy will be standing in the middle of the field in the hot afternoon sun, and he will be holding a Coke bottle in his hands, lah, you know. The old type of Coke bottle one, you know - in the glass and with the steel bottlecaps.

And he'll have to hold it with his arm outstretched lah, you know, like the Statue of Liberty.

And so it would be like a sort of sadistic torture lah, you know. You would be melting lah, melting you know! in the midday sun, and the bottle of refreshment is just there in your hands but you couldn't drink it.

Huhuhuhuhuhuh.

Terrer (Awesome) right? The Catholic brothers were pretty pleased with that punishment - I guess even compassionate men of God lose all compassion in a boys' high school!!

So one day, right, there was these three boys in the middle of the field lah. Sweating, sweating all, with their Coke bottles in their hands. Punished to the max.

Then suddenly ah, there was this boy coming out from nowhere, you know. Like a bolt of white and green lightning he suddenly appeared from out of the blue, and he just ran like crazy lah... We saw him running and then we thought to ourselves, Eh, what the hell is this guy doing lah?

Faster and faster he approached the three students in the middle of the field, and then suddenly we realised what was going on! Someone must have dared him or offered to pay him some money to do this lah - he had a bottle opener in his hand and in one swift motion, three bottlecaps flew off three Coke bottles, and then he ran back to the cheers of everyone sitting in the terraces.

And the three boys were gloating now, drinking their Cokes victoriously. The look on their faces were like Ah, feel the fresh taste of freedom! Hahahaha!

Then, half an hour later, right, that bottle-opener boy was standing in the middle of the field, being pa-nished, with a Coke bottle in his outstretched right hand. Ahahahahah! Padan muka! (Serves him right!)

But he had this grin on his face, you know, because just for that moment, he was a hero lah!

To Catch You Up On Places I've Been 5

Road Trip Australia: Bellingen and Dorrigo

It had been an especially difficult twelve days for me, and it was with great relief that I greeted Friday, and subsequently fell into the slumber that welcomed the weekend.

I had planned a trip with my pharmacist friend, C, and her partner, W. It was the weekend where the markets were going to be on in Bellingen, and then we would take a look at the stunning rainforests of Dorrigo, a World Heritage area.

And so we piled into W’s Subaru Forrester, which he had just purchased having lost his old second hand BMW. He had done this driving one night on the roads leaving CH, when a kangaroo jumped out of absolutely nowhere, and he had slammed on the brakes, causing his car to swerve and skid, the car coming to a complete stop only when it smashed into an electric pole, taking out the electricity of the entire CH with it for six hours.

But the Subaru was a beautiful car, replete with sunroof just made for a day like today. The sun had decided to come out in full force, brightening the skies to a vivid blue, spotted only by the few wispy clouds that had decided to work the weekend. Everything else was just more vibrant in the cheerful sun – the grass were especially green and the waters gleefully danced with the rays in the soft Saturday breeze.

For the first time in a long time since I obtained my drivers’ licence, I was able to sit at the back of someone’s car. A day like today transported me back to my childhood days and all the long family trips we would take – Mum and Dad and three kids in tow – I felt like I was a nine year old boy again, eyes wide open with my mouth slightly agape inhaling all the sights that flew by us at a hundred kilometres an hour.

It was a day so beautiful it was almost obscene.

Mere words cannot explain how in love I am with nature on a day like this, watching it once more through the eyes of a child.

When it comes to nature, I lose all my adult practicalities, and marvel instead – to see trees and not see lumber, to see land and not to want to own it, to marvel at the stars and galaxy and not feel the need to conquer it. To just stare in reverence, awe and whispered thankfulness.

=============================================

We drove past some really small towns on the way to Bellingen, and passed some acres of farmland. It is at this point that I comment to C and W that in my next life, I have decided that I would be reincarnated as a cow. I watched them with great envy, sitting there grazing grass lazily in the Saturday morning sun as if they had worked hard all week to deserve it, when the truth of the matter was, to a cow, everyday is Saturday.

But then you would have to be slaughtered in the end, protested C.

Looking at those cows right there, I thought to myself – is that really such a bad thing? If you could spend a lifetime of incomparable daily bliss and contentment, knowing perhaps that your ultimate destiny is in the abbatoir or on someone’s plate, wouldn’t you feel completely calm and accepting of your fate? I know I would.

W pressed a button to pull the sunroof away, and suddenly the fresh air came rushing in, bringing with it the musky smell of cow manure. I asked them if I could stand up, and C laughed , saying I should do the whole Titanic thing.

W laughed along and then I decided I would. I stood up in my seat and poked up half my body through the sunroof and for three glorious seconds felt the hundred kilometre winds and sunshine on my skin.

W and C told me to sit down, and their hushed admonishing tones suggested that it wasn’t all that funny in the end to them. Humans are such contradictory creatures sometimes!

==============================================

And so we arrived in the town of Bellingen, a wonderful hippy-esque town which has sprung up in the middle of nowhere, and thrived.

There were cars parked for miles around, mostly tourists here for the weekend market.

Our first stop was a quaint little shop ingeniously called the Yellow Shed – a gaudy yellow warehouse-converted-into-a-shophouse place which sold oddities and a mish-mash of antique collectibles, crystal decorations, pet lover paraphernalia, jazz CD, aromatic candles and books on New Age religions. It was like Hippie Heaven, yeah.



I bought myself a few CDs (Peace out, dude.) and was almost tempted to buy a cat lovers’ book when I realised that I was actually looking more for a cat recipe book.

(I love cats. They taste like chicken).

We sauntered along the whole town, and C really wanted to see the local pharmacy, because she heard that it was really pretty – like it had stained glasses and all. It was a really pretty pharmacy, in fact, but the thing I like the most was the old style word “Druggist” sketched into the colored glass.

Druggist. How apt. Like a drug pusher. My own local drug pusher. So much more personal than the term pharmacist, don’t you think?

We wandered around a little more and found the biggest shop in town – The H and W – which had served the town for a hundred years. It was one of those wonderful shops with a ceiling as high as a cathedral, and a mezzanine floor (fancy way of not saying first floor). They were selling clothes and apparel on the ground floor, and – you guessed it – junk and antique collectibles on the second floor.

There were so many interesting things up on the mezzanine floor that I could barely begin to describe it – old wooden closets and treasure chests, the swinging incense chandeliers and Indian cushions, Thai Buddhist idols and doorknobs.



Yes, you heard right, there were doorknobs. Not just one, not just one hundred, but trays full of them. In case you woke up one morning, you know, and misplaced your bedroom doorknob. In which case you wouldn’t be able to leave the room anyway to buy your doorknob. (The marketing team of these doorknobs need to rethink their sales strategy).

Having wandered through a few more quirky shops and bohemian restaurants, we finally chanced upon a nice bakery to try and quell our complaining tummies. It was a marvellous find – C and I agreed that we have never had pastry so fresh and good before. My coconut slice with its adjuvant fresh fruits was life-changing.

We wandered through the Bellingen markets and it was a beautiful day out for the family as fathers and mothers and little children trawled through the many food, jewellery, plant and health food stalls available. There were even tarot card readers who would sit and talk to you with “No time limit for $25.”

After one and a half hours of trudging through the hula hoop dancers (Spot the Pothead, as W pointed out) and me being refused a ride on the ponies there, we finally made our way out of the Bellingen Markets.

===================================================

Our next destination was Dorrigo, along the scenic and promisingly named Waterfall Way. It was the perfect season to catch the waterfalls – the recent rains had ensured that there was enough water for the promise of a spectacular cascade but had damaged some of the roads in the process. The recent run of good weather ensured that all the roads were fixed and opened up again.

It was quite a steep ascent as we climbed up one side of the Great Dividing Range, and in all fairness, the waterfalls along the way were quite nice, but not spectacular, you know?

As we reached the top of the Dividing Range, a peculiar sight greeted us all – the top of the mountain looked like the bottom of the mountain. We drove through flatlands with hills in the distance, and paddocks just like down below. I had sort of expected the top to be, I don’t know, not flat.

We finally arrived in Dorrigo National Park, and the first thing we did was walk out to the Skywalk – this was a carefully constructed wooden walk that stretched out above the forest below you. It offered a breathending (breathtaking just doesn’t seem to cut it) view of the hills and trees below. The perfect calming blend of green, blue and white brought to you in true Technicolour.



We decided to brave the rainforest walk as well, a good hour long walk to see the waterfalls secreted in the middle of the forest. It was a wonderful walk through the forest – the leaves of the impossibly tall forests overlapped in such a way that it took the craftiest of sunrays to find their way to the forest floor. Even the wind could not find its way through the maze of branches and leaves to rustle the underlying grass.

There was almost a reverential hush within the forest, as deep as a basement in a cathedral – the quietness was only disturbed by the sound of our footfall, and the occasional bird brave enough to lose its whistle in this immense jungle.

There was a clear pathway for trekking but you could often see where fallen trees had to be cut cleanly through with a chainsaw to allow more tourists to walk through.

The quiet was a welcome intruder into my soul, troubled and noisy from the work of the past twelve days, needing once again to center with my God, and His universe.

One Night Stand

It is a noisy bar on a Friday night. The bar itself is a beautiful concept - set in the bohemian capital of Brunswick St, it has attracted crowds of young people, backpackers and artistic souls alike. They were there to have a good time, to celebrate an anniversary, to people watch, to be watched, to drink a workweek's worth of frustrations away.

The place is decorated beautifully - coloured lights string the ceillings reminiscent of a seventies' American pubs in Vietnam, and, in keeping with the theme of the bar, toy soldiers were waging their little battles all along the pipes lining the walls of the bar.

The converted warehouse's high ceillings reverberate with the cacophony of chatter from the separate cliques of friends there that night, interspersed with the sparse background trance music which was present but not intrusive. Beer is flowing freely from the taps as people trade their red and yellow dollar notes for golden glasses of courage and forgetfulness.

It is in this gamut of frenzied interaction when you couldn't help but notice her. She stood alone for an extended period of time, which seemed really out of place in a joint like this. She was really tall for an Asian girl, and that made her stick out even more like a sore thumb.

She was dressed for a night out, you could see that she had paid extra attention to her make-up tonight. Her sky-blue sloping platform shoes snuggled the overly long legs which were covered with orange socks that travelled up to her knees. From then on, just the slightest peek of her thighs before her dress takes over, its rectangular shapes and array of colours matching her patterned handbag. Her hands were covered in delicate gloves, its lacy patterns perhaps belonging more to the wife of a Chinese kingpin from half a century ago.

Maybe that was her in a past life, then, the wife of an unscrupulous Chinese drug lord, and she is paying off her karma in this life, trapped in the body of this man instead.

Her/his chin is the first giveaway - masculine in its strong angular definition, his upper lips showed the faint shadow that layers of makeup could not hide. No amount of mascara could alter the downward turn of the edge of his eyes which completed his decidedly male facial features which a blind man could spot all the way from the other side of the bar.

The bar is as noisy as a protest, the loud chattering murmur punctuated by drunken laughter and shouts of recognition as new friends continued pouring in. Several girls were being chatted up by men of all ages tonight, but no one comes to talk to him.

The occasional pauses of conversation allowed the Friday night patrons eyes to wander, and inevitably, a few fall on him. The reactions are plethora - some snigger inwardly, others try to point him out discreetly to their friends, and others are not as discreet. But the question on their lips after "Is that actually a dude?" is "What is he doing here?".

His intentions are uncertain, but he looks like he is waiting for someone to pick him up or buy him a drink. Or just to talk about everything and nothing, like ordinary people were doing all around him.

He twirls his cascading hair, his eyes downcast and he is lost in thought. His body sways slightly as he dances in the arms of a make-believe lover. There is a ghost of a smile on his face as he returns to a different time.

Perhaps he is in a bar once more in Phuket, and it is Friday night there too. But there, he is among his other friends who had grown tired of being boys. Tonight, he would be out with them in a bar not unlike this one, but they would be laughing, getting pissed on a girls' night out in town, and perhaps he would be taken home by a nice man (they usually weren't) if the night went well.

Instead, he is here tonight, a stark phantom of loneliness haunting the bar where people tried their best to ignore him. He wanders to the menu board, trying to look interested and telling himself not to pay attention to the gnawing loneliness he felt inside.

Hours pass and the only person to talk to him was a girl who had been kind enough to exchange a few words with him when he compliments her on her sweater as she walks past him to get to the toilets. The conversation doesn't last beyond a few minutes as she ambles back to her laughing group of friends, leaving him once more to drift aimlessly.

He finally sits himself at the bar, and his eyes trawl the blackboard menu above the bartender's head. He decides on a beer, and he silently thanks the imaginary nice Caucasian man who had offered to buy him drinks tonight, who had held his hand as he recounted how his drunken dad once beat him so bad he had to be in hospital for weeks, and who had laughed at the story of how his mother caught him trying her clothes and high heels at home one day when he was sure that she was away visiting Auntie Pom in the hospital.

He reaches for his purse, and pays the bartender for the pleasure of another night in hell. And so he dies a slow death every night, doomed to pay off all his past sins, as he whispers a quiet prayer for a better life in his next reincarnation.

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

I will finish my reminiscence off of my time in NSW soon but here is a page from a day when things got a little bit hectic at work. Please forgive the medical jargon, and just fast forward pass the bits that don't make sense. It is the humanness of the story that I am interested in the end, as always.

11 July 2009

I love cardiac arrests. Nothing stirs you from the slumber of a lousy ward day than a bona fide full on cardiac arrest.

Today I didn’t manage to save a lady from dying. She was in the hospital for chest pains which we had investigated at length but all our leads ended in cul-de-sacs. She had developed some abdominal pain and low blood pressure overnight, and the consultant this morning wanted to do a scan on her to make sure that she didn’t actually have a weakening of her main blood vessel, the aorta.

And so the arrangements were made for her to be brought to the nearby big hospital in PM for her CT scan. She was never to make that journey as I was asked to see her later that morning as she was becoming more breathless and dropping her blood pressure.

I must admit that my mind was still ambling at the pace of a ward round, and I suggested silly reflex things like ventolin or Lasix when obviously this lady was dying right before my very eyes.

And soon the fog cleared up and I asked them to bring the BIPAP machine (a tight mask that fits over her face to help with her breathing) to her bedside, by which time she started becoming unresponsive. The cardiac monitors still showed a heart trace, but we couldn’t get a blood pressure and her oxygen saturations were dropping faster than a stock market in the Great Depression.

We got her dentures out and put in a Guedel’s airway which sat rather awkwardly in her mouth. I tried to bag and mask her unsuccessfully as I had difficulty getting a good seal. One of the nurse slammed the emergency buzzer on my harried command, and soon help arrived. We proceeded to put a nasopharyhgeal airway instead, and tried to ventilate her better with the bag and mask.

But we were all fairly junior and standing there like lost deers, before the consultant came by, and joined us in standing around like lost deers. This lady was dying before us and we didn’t know how to fix her.

We couldn’t get a blood pressure and the cells in her body were slowly dying from the lack of oxygen. We were throwing aramine and gelofusin at her, but the blood pressure still could not be detected. The decision was finally made to put a tube in her throat to make ventilation easier.

I picked the short straw and had the unenviable task of putting the tube into her gummy mouth.

I asked for suction to clear out the saliva pooling at the back of her throat, and then moved in the steel laryngoscopic blade and pulled her tongue aside. It was touch-and-go for a moment when I tried to manipulate the back of her throat to visualise the vocal cords better, but finally there it was in all its slitty glory, opening up for the plastic tube invitingly.

I didn’t need a second invitation. I whispered a quick prayer and put in the tube, a little too far in, admittedly, but there was great satisfaction in seeing her chest rise and fall as the bag was put onto the tube and pressed to inflate her lungs. The anaesthetist finally appeared, pleased to see that the tube was in, albeit a little too far in, and got it readjusted.

All this action became a little too much for her to take in the end, and her heart finally gave way. We started resuscitation, threw in the adrenaline, atropine and lignocaine combination but to little avail.

Her son was sitting at her feet all this time. They said he would be really lost without her, because he had a mental illness and was staying with her in a dependent manner.

Somehow, by the grace of God, there was no frantic hysteria as Mum entered her last leg of her race in life.

There was almost a peace that passeth understanding permeating him, as he held Mum’s hand and told her that he was there.

Sitting there at the end of the bed, he watched the doctors and nurses panic with their dilated pupils, their nostrils flared, their arms shaking, conjuring up all their magical spells and charms to try and ward off Death one more time.

The son, complete with straggly hair and unkempt beard, stood calmly before us when it was all over and we broke the bad news. It was almost like watching Mum pass away and watching the staff do everything they possibly could was therapeutic or a release of sorts for him.

There was an almost eerie clarity and purpose as he said, “ Nope, I’ve got to go to the solicitors and sort out Mum’s last will and wishes, and get some things from her cupboard, but thank you for all that you have done for Mum. I don’t have time to cry yet, but I will soon, but now is the time to get things done.”

Some people fall apart in the face of the death of a loved one. Others gain a lucidity and an energy to move purposefully to do the necessary things, and honour the wishes of their dearly departed, knowing that in this whirlwind chaos of activity that follows death, they will somehow find that little pocket to grieve for their loved ones, but not just yet.