Humanity

Was running around the neighbourhood this afternoon when I noticed in the distance a few not-so-elderlies crowding around an old car with all its doors wide open.

"Most probably another case of an old car breaking down. Or broken into."

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

Since there were around 5 of them & I was without my phone, I didn't think I could help much. The only thing out of place was their restless eyes as they scanned each passing vehicles; me included.

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

As I jogged pass the car - as with most Malaysians - I KPC'd & took a quick glimpse inside, half-expecting a broken window or two. Instead, there was a body on the driver seat slumped to the left over the passenger seat.

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"

"What do I do? Do I stop & help? Maybe he needs CPR or resuscitating?"

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

"But what if he has some kind of illness? What if he has COVID-19?!"

"You have a newborn! Think about your family! A good Samaritan means nothing if you end up sacrificing your family!"

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

These inner monologue raced through my mind & my legs were like a defendant, ever-ready for judgement to be passed on them.

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

I'm ashamed to admit I just ran on. But that's the thing about running. As the legs pressed on, the mind churned on as well. This gives you ample of room & time to internalize your argument.

To self-doubt yourself.

To question your decision.

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

As I reached a junction, I talked myself into running back to the scene & perhaps ask the group if I could be of any help. But as fate has it, an ambulance zoomed pass me from the back & I couldn't be more relieved.

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

Still, I couldn't help but to question my own humanity.

Would I have stopped if there was no COVID-19 in the first place? Would my decision be any different if I didn't have a newborn?

Needless to say, the run back home wasn't a pleasant one at all.

— talexeh (@talexeh) July 20, 2020

Adenovirus

This marks the 3rd time kiddo got hospitalized. The first 2 were due to influenza while this time around it was adenovirus.

When he was <3yo, we seldom brought him out due to fear of infection but at the price of him suffering from delayed speech.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

After we got him enrolled into nursery - apart from him at 3yo - he has ended each year in hospital.

I believed I was pretty prepared when people told me to get ready for illnesses to spread among kids but no one warned me about the scenario of accompanying a hospitalized kid. pic.twitter.com/7djI8NKY73

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

Being hospitalized myself is totally not the same as taking care a kid who got hospitalized.

There's this sense of dread & isolation after being in the same room as kiddo for a few days. pic.twitter.com/viQEdBYeUe

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

You have the mobility to move around the room & yet, the window is literally the only thing that connects you to the world out there. pic.twitter.com/xl4t2G1hmC

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

All those people out there are totally oblivious to what you're going through & it's just another day to them while to you, it's hopefully another day nearer to recovery.

You can't help but notice mundane stuffs like the daily cycle of sunsets & clouds floating by. pic.twitter.com/1BMGyKsuAR

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

Finding ways to entertain a cranky kid is no easy feat either.

Pleas of going home are heard every few hours but those are music compared to witnessing him coughing out thick phlegm & throwing up after each meal. pic.twitter.com/Tuh87r7ftE

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

Paediatricians stopped by twice a day to follow up while nurses were basically messengers who only appeared when called or sent.

Funny how this is their turf but I felt that the burden fell the heaviest on my shoulders. pic.twitter.com/dAaoNJzLXo

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

Anticipating for the arrival of my wife after she is done with her work is akin to waiting for your bus to appear around the corner; they both come with big relief.

I sometimes wonder if that's exactly the same feeling a housewife felt when her husband came home from work. pic.twitter.com/0osDIoGXsS

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

I guess that's part & parcel of being a parent these days; get a good insurance & hopefully you don't ever need to use it.

AT ALL.

And oh, it certainly helps if you have unlimited mobile data or get ready for hell to break loose when kiddo's iPad can't load his favourite apps.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

Mobile data boosters are useless. It took kiddo <2 hours to use up the 1½GB-for-RM10 additional data that I just subscribed.

Else I wouldn't be here tweeting with NBTD while he's taking his nap.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a lot kindier to us all. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/5W7srrDIIw

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 21, 2018

Amnesia

1st basketball game after resting for >1 month due to appendicitis surgery + acute pulmonary oedema, I knocked my head against the floor hard & had short term memory loss now. #FML #BlackKidKing

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

Needless to day, my wife is seething with anger & worry now. Pretty sure she's asking herself why can't her husband just be like an ordinary father who just laze at home & grow a tummy.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

It's like the benevolent being up there wants me to stop sports altogether.

Appendicitis after a marathon? Checked.

Knocked my head silly with memory loss during a basketball game? Why not?

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

It's all a strange twist of events; I've been playing basketball for >20 years now & you would think that I would have suffered the worst injury in the early years. Furthermore, it wasn't like I was playing with experienced adults, they were all lower secondary school kids.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

There were 9 of us so we played 3v3. My team won the first game comfortably though I was a lil' rusty. It was in the middle of second game when I was knocked down & next thing I knew, I was writhing on the floor in fetal position, great pain emanating from the back of my head.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

Kids were pointing fingers at each other, retelling the chronology from their POV. Some blaming, some defending but 1 thing is for sure, they were at a loss on what to do. After I managed to get myself into sitting position, I rested a while & then it dawned upon me.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

I have no freaking idea on what I did earlier in the day & how I got here. I have no memory of myself walking all the way to this basketball court. Panicked, I kept recalling my own name, my wife's & my son's. At least I remember these. I knew I had to get home fast.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

Up to this point in time, I still failed to recall how I got myself home in one piece. Good thing was that I didn't leave any of my stuffs behind at the court.

Wife said I took a bath but I have no recollection of it. I even candidly told her that I wasn't sure if I shampoo'd.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

Anyway, told her what happened, I did. That I fell down & hit my head & that I was having difficulty recalling what took place earlier in the day. She broke out in tears but after she helped to fill me in on what we did, the memories started coming back.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

So, apparently I had both retrograde & anterograde amnesia. She kept asking me how I fell but as hard as I tried to recall, I couldn't make out the episode. I went back to the court to talk to the kids but none of them could jolt my memory back on what took place.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

A part of me kept telling myself that it was just an ordinary fall & there was nothing to worry about. My mind kept replaying the few times my kid fell & hit his head hard & him bawling his eyes out.

Actually, that got me thinking if he suffered any memory loss back then. Hmm...

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

Another part of me reminded myself that it wasn't normal since this was a concussion of which I've never had.

Wife insisted that I visit a clinic as a start so off I went. Doctor advised to monitor myself for the next 24 hours.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

If I were to experience confusion, giddiness or vomit, I need to get myself to the hospital. The last time I was given such an advice, I ended up with perforated appendicitis so this was definitely not a welcomed déjà vu.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

Bedtime became a horror to me again. It wasn't easy for me to accept sleep after the previous episode where I almost kicked the bucket & now the dread crept in again.

"Will I still be able to wake up?"

No thanks to this, I had a rough night with constant waking.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

The swelling at the back of my head didn't make it any easier for me to sleep either.

It's more or less 13 hours post concussion now & hopefully the fact that I can tweet all these out is a positive sign that the worst is over.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 7, 2018

Compared to the appendicitis incident where 2 doctors misdiagnosed me, this time around I was better prepared by asking for a referral letter from the doctor just in case I needed to seek further help at a hospital.

Touch wood, not looking to use it at all.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) January 8, 2018

Appendicitis

This has been on my mind for more than a week so I'm going to try pen them into a series of tweets with the hope that they'll serve as a grim reminder for myself not to take things for granted, no matter how small they are.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Back in Form 6, I had my first real brush with death when the car that was driven by my schoolmate went plunging down the cliff while we were on our way up to Air Itam dam. I came out unscathed but the car was totalled due to it coming to a stop upside-down on its roof.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Back then, my relationship with my gf (now wife) has not been made known to my family so the very first thing that came to my mind was "how's she going to know that I'm dead?" It was a split second thought but it was still vivid to this day.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

That was the past & it has now become constant jokes when I met with fellow passenger who was in the same ill-fated car. I guess that's human; you tend to make jokes of things that you once thought were terrifying but survived. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Sunday November 26, I managed to complete my 4th full marathon (PBIM) in less than 6h. I completed last year at around 6h15m even though with better preparation so I was genuinely surprised that I performed better this time around.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Monday evening after late dinner, my stomach got badly bloated to the point that I couldn't sleep. At around 2am, I visited 24 hours doctor & was prescribed medication to relieve the air. Unfortunately, it got worse with pain radiating from my right lower hip.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Tuesday 2pm, I paid my office clinic a visit. After she identified the spot where the pain originated, the doctor gave me MC for the rest of the day & asked me to visit hospital if I started to vomit or have diarheaa. Not appendicitis, she said.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

That night, I started to shiver badly in bed even with the air-conditioner off. My wife sent me to Gleneagles A&E & a school junior who I couldn't recognize diagnosed me with appendicitis. A CT scan confirmed this further & I was told to have the surgery on Wednesday morning.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

This isn't my first surgery as I've had my varicocele surgery back in 2008 so I wasn't too worried. Appendicitis surgery has always been pictured as very minor & almost risk-free; at least that was what both me & my wife thought.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

During the pre-surgery questioning, I told everything as honestly as I could except for asthma. I knew I was warded for breathing difficulty back when I was still in primary school but that was >20 years back.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

I don't have any supporting documents that label me as asthmatic so I've always left the checkbox empty when I donated blood & also during my first surgery which all ended the way they were expected to.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

The appendicitis surgery completed successfully but according to the anaesthesiologist, my lungs failed to kickstart by its own even after 2m. Normal person's lungs start at around 30s but mine was rock hard & not cooperating.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

It was only when the oxygen level decreased to dangerous level that my chest started to soften up & he reinserted the intubator but all that came out was blood. My lungs were apparently filled with blood & in his 40 years as an anesthesiologist, he has never seen this case.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

I was sent to ICU & boy, it was a total 180°of what I imagine an ICU would be. A nurse (not the right term since they're more qualified than a nurse but still below doctor; I stand corrected if I'm wrong) is stationed to each patient & cubicle.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

When I came to, it was almost evening of the same day I had the surgery. Both my wrists were tied to the side bed posts, I had an intubator taped into my mouth, urine tube inserted into my dick & wearing adult diapers. Words can't describe the state of WTF I truly felt back then.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

My wife told me that she was at home expecting a message from me, informing her that surgery has completed. Instead, she received a call from hospital asking her to urgently head over to the ICU. Her heart sank & she feared for the worst.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

In the ICU, I was on full panic mode. I was supposed to get some sleep but the intubator in my throat made it hard to do so. I felt hot all over my body even though thermometer reading showed normal temperature.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

The nightmare started when the nurses perform "suction", a procedure where they insert tube into my throat/lung & vacuum out the bloody excretion. When they disconnected my intubator from the oxygen supply, I felt so breathless & came to realize my lungs were truly fucked.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

So in between when my lungs were still filled with air, they re-insert the tube deep in & asked me to cough as many times as possible. With each cough I made, the less air I have so they would remove the pipe & re-pump air into my lungs. I could literally feel them expand.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Suction was the very thing that strike fear into me during my entire stay in ICU. Everytime a nurse came to my bedside, I dreaded the word "suction". It wasn't only painful, it was a procedure that required skill from the nurses.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

So when some nurses did it ineffectively, I felt that the effort was both wasted & demoralizing for me since I paid in pain but received not the equivalent amount of secretions vacuumed out.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

The fact that my trachea was pretty deep (I assumed that was what the term "peak 8" meant) forced some nurses who preferred the more-comfortable-but-less-effective closed suction to use open suction instead so that's another layer of fear for me since they might drop the tube in.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Wed night nurse was a new Chinese female.

When I wrote on the pad (the only way to communicate apart from nodding/shaking) that I was thirsty no thanks to the intubator forcing my mouth to remain open, she poured some drinking water into the tube that went into my esophagus.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

That sensation was god sent. Even though I was still thirsty since the water didn't flow through my throat, I could "taste" it & this was the very moment I knew I've taken drinking water for granted. Replenishing thirst from running a marathon is nothing compared to this!

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

However, I guess there's a limit to this so sometimes she just wet her finger & applied it on my lips to quench my thirst.

Thursday morning nurse was an experienced senior Malay female. Her open suction skill was the best among all.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Thursday noon nurse was a Chinese female. She was sometimes assisted by a SYT Chinese female who has tendency of calling me "boy".

Thursday night nurse was a Malay female. While her suction skill was OK, she didn't perform it as frequently as the other which was both good & bad.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Friday morning nurse was an Indian female. When she realized that closed suction wasn't suitable for me, she tried asking for her senior (another Indian female) to perform open suction on me. Her senior said she would assist but she (my assigned nurse) needed to do it herself.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

This was the very first time I feared for my life since I took it that open suction was harder due to the risk of dropping the tube into my trachea. Compared to the other, I believe she used a tube that was too thick because it didn't reach the level that could trigger my cough.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

During suction sessions, after the nurses were done with the trachea, they usually clean my mouth & nostrils by inserting the same tube there. In most cases, they were a relief since they signal the end of suction agony.

This nurse though was the other way around.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

She somehow always managed to get some secretions sucked out when she clean my mouth & nostrils so she kept extending the tube in.

This resulted in very painful gag reflex. I almost wanted to write a note asking for no more suction by her or to have someone do it instead.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Somehow or rather, during the second suction session, my intubator popped out a bit & the ventilator air leaked out directly in my throat. Both nurses tried to resume the suction but when they realized that they couldn't shove the intubator back into position, they all panicked.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 7, 2017

Judging from their repeated phone calls to the anesthesiologist, I took it that only he has the right skill to reinstall the intubator. The few nurses, including some from other patients all moved their chair outside my cubicle monitoring me from afar. I felt like a specimen.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

My Thursday morning nurse (the experienced senior Malay female) happened to pass by & she managed to have the intubator locked into position again. I was very cooperative when she was nursing me so she told my current nurse to untie my wrists.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

When the anesthesiologist came in, he recommended for ventilator (or the oxygen machine; I'm not very well versed with the terms) to be disconnected from my intubator so that I can try to breathe by my own. Nurse was told to monitor my O² level.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

I knew that the anesthesiologist has been decreasing my O² supply progressively to get my lungs to work again but I was still quite surprised that I could breathe this well without the ventilator.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

When the ventilator was connected, it periodically click & send O² into my lungs. So even if I wasn't breathing, the ventilator will make sure I don't run out of breath. Now that it was disconnected, I became wary of the danger of falling asleep.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

After all, it has been 2 days of relying on it now so has my lungs got used to being assisted? After a while, I started to get tired. I wrote the nurse that was getting sleepy but deep down, I was terrified. Is this tiredness a sign that I was losing consciousness?

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

Or perhaps my lungs were not ready yet & I'll have to stay more nights in ICU which equate to more suction sessions? The anesthesiologist came back & my body O² reading wasn't up to his expectation but I guess it was good enough to extubate me. I was ecstatic for sure.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

With the intubator removed, I found it easier to breath now. I guess being able to control my jaw instead of having it taped open allowed me better breathing technique. On the other hand, my lips, tongue & teeth were now hard & crooked like a rock.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

Since my O² reading wasn't satisfactory, the anesthesiologist got the nurse to put on an O² mask with reduced supply. Bummed but still better than having an intubator in my throat. The nurse didn't tell me but I assumed that no intubator = no more suction.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 8, 2017

The few times the nurse walked to my side, I was so scared that she was going to utter the word "suction".

Friday noon nurse was surprisingly the SYT Chinese female. Compared to the other, this one communicated, advised & assisted me the most.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

She replaced my mask with a nasal cannula which wasn't only simpler but helped me practise breathing using nose instead of mouth. I was assisted to sit up & she even initiated a few calls to my surgeon asking if it was OK for me to start taking very soft diet.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

She advised my wife on the kind of porridge that she could cook & bring over for my dinner. For the first time, I was allowed to sit on a chair for my meal instead of having milk solution poured into my esophagus. Did I say she brought me a TV to watch Titanic too?

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

She was such a dedicated nurse that I've to admit I was infatuated. Still, back in my mind, I guess this was a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome so I wasn't going to delve too much into it.

Hopefully one day, her passion & effort will earn her some recognition or awards.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

For someone who almost lost his life, my head was definitely in chaos with wild thoughts running amok.

Friday night nurse was a partnership between an expecting Chinese female & a very new Malay male.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Apparently, the expecting nurse recognized me, telling me that she was my wife's schoolmate, even though she has forgotten both my wife & her twin sister's names.

The world is a small place after all.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

I slept the most this night. Even though the cannula has no capability to automate my lungs like the ventilator do, I guess I felt secure & comfortable enough to doze off.

He only woke me up a few times for the nebulizer session, which has now replaced the suction session.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Nurses, especially those in night shifts have always remarked that I was always wide awake throughout their shift when they briefed my replacement shift nurses.

Truth was, I was way too panicked & scared to sleep.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Even if I did fall asleep, I kept having tripping psychedelic comic superhero themed dreams or how sometimes the whole glass wall in front of me transformed into giant TV screens. Not nightmare but certainly nothing pleasant the same; all they did were to add to my confusion.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

And the group of night shift nurses happened to be the loudest & most happening of all.

I was without my glasses so things looked blurry but I could hear them making silly jokes, placing orders for McDonald's delivery & how one of the patients there was giving them a hard time.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

This patient called "uncle" was most probably an Alzheimer since I could always hear the nurses asking him to cough (most probably for suction) & open his eyes. I guess each patient present the nurses a different set of challenges & this must be why our wrists need to be tied up.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Nurses are human too & at the end of the day, all these procedures like suction are things that the patients actually need, whether we like it or not.

Saturday morning nurse was the same nurse who assisted my nurse when my intubator popped out.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

By now, I was able to speak though with a hoarse voice. I was supposedly to be moved out of ICU today so I asked for my urine tube to be removed. She got another senior Malay male nurse to perform the removal & surprisingly it wasn't as painful as it was back in my first surgery.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

The drama this time around centered on my left arm IV catheter which has reached it's 3-days lifecycle & now causing red inflammation marks on the skin along the vein stretching half my arm.

My nurse wrote a report that somehow point to the previous shift nurse for missing this.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

To be fair, I didn't feel any pain or itchiness which was supposed to come along with this inflammation. Still, I had a few "nurses" (of officials, I don't know how the roles work here) coming over to take a look & interview me.

I was prescribed another cream to soothe the spot.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Nothing eventful took place after that..

For Saturday noon, I received the same nurse as I did when my ventilator popped out (the Indian female who preferred closed suction). It was during her shift that I was moved out to normal ward.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Looking back, as much as I dread her suction session, it was during her previous shift that I broke free of the intubator & things have progressed very well ever since that.

I might have vilified her in earlier tweets so here's a big thank you to her for all her help!

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Why did I bother listing out all the nurses that have been assigned to me? To be frank, I don't know. When I was on the ICU bed, a part of me wanted to etch down all these details like some kind of revenge plot.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Maybe it was the medication messing with my head but this is one of the reasons why I contemplated so long before tweeting these down.

On the 2nd or 3rd day in ICU, my wife told me that she was asked to swipe RM21,000 since my company insurance hasn't responded.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

I guess this is the price to pay since I had a few doctors consulted by then. Apart from the appendicitis surgeon, there was heart doctor (result: my heart was very healthy) & a chest doctor who concluded that the lung issue was an infection from the perforated appendix.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Based on what I heard (like I said, I didn't sleep much), the surgeon & anesthesiologist remarked that while the appendicitis was perforated, it was still sealed & if there was an infection, the abdomen would have been the first victim.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

All these differing opinions certainly didn't help in giving me a peace of mind.

The anesthesiologist will write me a letter that I'll have to pass to the anesthesiologist if I were to have surgery in the future.

Heart doctor said it's mostly sepsis but nothing conclusive.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Chest doctor showed me the high reading of procalcitonin in my blood test (was 23 during my ICU admittance) which was supposed to be <0.5.

One thing for sure is that I'm not running marathon anymore. Both my brother & sister truly believe marathon to be the culprit.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

While my wife didn't say so, I know I should stop proving to myself that I'm capable of anything & everything. Time to put a stop to the almighty & yes-can-do attitude of mine & start focusing on fulfilling my role as a husband & father. I owe them a lot now.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

It also certainly didn't help when my son was admitted into the same hospital for Influenza A while I was 3rd day in ICU. Even when I was released into normal ward, I still couldn't visit him due to my weak lungs so everything was shouldered by my wife herself.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

She has always exuded an aura of weakness due to her stress at work & constant fatigue but this time around, she has indeed came out the strongest. This is definitely a wake up call for me to stop making her into a clone of mine. Everyone has their own strengths & weaknesses.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

My son's babysitter (my sister) ended up in hospital on the same night I went into A&E while her husband was admitted too just 2 days ago. The former was respiratory issue while the latter was work stress.

Both of them are now back home healthy & fine.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

I guess I'm the new Black Kid King now though I certainly don't look forward to holding it for long.

It's been a crazy roller-coaster ride for me & I still fear bed time for I have no idea when my lungs are going to give up on me again.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Every morning when I wake up now, I have to pinch myself hard. I know it's silly but it gives me reassurance; that I'm still alive for another day.

I've walked a line thin enough that sleeping is not going to come easy for me for a very long time to come.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Growing up, I've been placed hope & a certain level of expectation by my mom. Even after she passed away, I think I shifted & yearned for approval from my brother instead, hopeful to be someone that they can be proud of.

"That guy is my lil' brother."

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

I don't know if my wife ever realize this still, I myself has been fighting to put off this facade of mine. Guess now is the best time to finally take off the mask so that I left no unfinished business behind.

I think that will come around when we get ourselves our own home.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017

Apart from the family members, doctors & nurses, here's a big thank you to the following for paying me a visit: KP (wife's boss), Wei Hong, Ee Liing, Kok Tat, Soo Mei, Manfred & Soon Siong.

I really appreciate you spending your time listening to my story while I was in ward.

— (e+ho)ng (@talexeh) December 10, 2017