A long entry for a short holiday from blogging....My holiday from blogging (i.e. not to have my entry posted) only lasted for few days. Today I came back to post entry. Why? It is probably the only means for me to express at this moment of time. I am not productive today.
My sup had to go under the knife for heart by-pass surgery. Last week he asked me if I could help his wife during the period of his operation. Being newly married and not yet familiar with this place and also not have many friends around, she needs friend. I told my sup, I have no problem at all to assist in any way I can. After all we are foreigners here and will need sometimes to get familiar with life here. I met his wife twice in campus but I never really had a chance to know her much. She is very lovely Persian lady, beautiful, very soft spoken and humble.
Two nights ago, his wife (R) called me to ask if I could accompany her at her house as she was afraid to stay alone. My sup was already hospitalized to prepare for next day scheduled operation. I only managed to reach her home which was only less than 5 minutes driving from my flat nearly 12 midnite. And she said she don’t mind as long as I could be there. I was with adik F, a proof-reader of my T, since early evening that night. We spent many hours continuously going through parts which need clarification and idea on how to make the story clearer.
At R’s house, R and I had short chat before she showed me the room and went to sleep. I am familiar with her house because my sup had once invited me & big man for tea and showed around. I continued to do some reading for while and went to sleep. I was totally in deep sleep.
The next morning as I woke up, R was already in front of PC in the living room. We had breakfast together. We get to know each other more as we talked about our background, our family and our life. I let her talked more because I knew from looking through her eyes, she was really worried about her husband’s operation. I could only comfort her by saying that many people had gone through this delicate operation and the success rate is very high although high risk associated with it.
Let’s just wish that everything will be fine for him. We know that he is very determine and full of courage to go through and recover from this operation. Furthermore he is still young (47 years old), so we should not worry too much. The rest we pray to God for his help. Once in a when as I saw her eyes full of tears, I hug her so that I could be close to her heart and her feeling at that time. Her eyes were stuck on the watch and saying that by this time her husband was already under the knife. I knew and I told her if I am in her shoes I would felt the same. But there must be someone around to comfort us and gave us strength. I have to act as the strength and pillar for her at this time.
I left her home and back to my flat. I went to office to do my work. I asked her to call me anytime when ever she got the news from hospital that he regain conscious and allow her to see him. I received her called to let me know she could see her husband in ICU at 7 pm. I cancelled my meeting plan with adik F that night as I don’t want him to rush and have only 1 hour discussion then rushed back as he also have to meet his friend.
I drove R to hospital. We had a lot of talk along the way until I didn’t realize I took the long route to hospital instead of city by-pass. Anyhow we managed to get there on time. When we were in the car, R mentioned to me that his husband always tell her about me. She said she is proud of me and admire me etc etc. I gulped. I just slowly said thank you to her and explain to her why I have to be like that.
Obviously, the life here had shaped me to be the way I am in some part of life. I have to be very independent and take responsibility since I am far from my love one. I don’t want to talk too much about me but I tried to inject loads of courage to her to be strong especially at this time. I understood from her that her life was never been difficult because she came from rich Iranian family. Once I heard she said "life is hard here". I have to agree with her but I said that we will not learn about life if only our life is all smooth sailing. We really get to know much more about each other during journey to hospital. We talked endlessly. We laughed on small little things. We talked about our parents and sibblings. We talked about how to survive in stranger place to us.
As we reached hospital, I can see how nervous she was. But I didn't want to let her feel very down. I felt nervous too inside me as I could not imagine going into ICU. But I must be strong for her. Alhamdullilah I had that courage in me. I remain calm and compose as always. It took a while for us to get into ICU as the hospital is so huge and we needed to wait for confirmation on the patient that we want to visit in ICU.
As we entered into ICU, we had to wash our hand and wore plastic apron. We could see a long row of bed with patients and all of them were unconscious. R was already had nervous breakdown as she thot her husband was one of the unconscious patient. She almost cried but the nurse said that her husband was at the other end. As we walked toward him, we had a better feeling as we could see he was on the upright position on the bed and was very well awake. Oh..thank God for that....
I could see how happy R finally to see her husband in that condition. Although he was wired everywhere on his neck and other part of his body but at least he could speak and greeted us. He thanked me for bringing his wife. I winked and smiled at him. I kept on saying to him “you look good”. I didn't recall how many times I said the same word to him whenever he said something to me or looked at me. Ohh…how speechless I was! I lost all the words from my brain. Although he appeared OK but I was sure he was in pain. Sometimes I could hardly hear what he said as he was wearing oxygen mask. He asked the doctor if he could take it off. The doctor didn't allow him. Instead the doctor change to tube into his nose.
Earlier on he introduced his wife and I to the doctor. Doctor told us that he made a very fast recovery. He might be transferred to ward anytime tomorrow if the progress continue. I let R and he have a moment together while my eyes was wondering everywhere to observe all unconscious patients laying on bed and all gadget around them. It felt really very scary if I let my emotion and sad felling control me. I don’t want to describe much what I saw. I felt that some of them might be fighting for their life. But I don’t let the emotion conquer me. I look at them as if I don't have any feeling of pity to them. Mainly because I asked my brain to think like that at that point of time and nothing much I can do about it. Deep inside me I thanks to Allah for blessing me with health and strength. Pray that those patient will recovery soon and lead a normal life again.
Once in a while I had a short glimpse at my sup and her lovely wife talking in Persian to each other. I could see how much love they have for each other. I told my sup while rubbing her back that he should not worry about her. She will be fine. I was jokingly said to him that he got a tattoo. A black ink written his name on his arm instead of having name tag on the wrisk. R told me that she was asked by the doctor to write his name there.
After a few minutes we were there, I saw R kisses her husband’s arm and stood-up. She said to me "lets go". I asked her if she was sure to go out now. She insisted. So we said good bye and left the ICU. On the way out, I could see her almost teary eyes. I hold her hand and rubbed her back as we walked to the lift. I told her don’t worry. He was really in better condition than others. Surely he will recover very fast.
In the car, I saw her face as if she was feeling sick. I asked her if she was not feeling well and I touched her forehead. She said she felt like vomiting after seeing other patients in the ward. That was why she could not stand to be there too long. In the car I tried to distract her from thinking about her husband and ICU too much. I asked her about her hobby and things close to her heart.
She told me that she loved reading such as psychology and she wanted to continue her education in Linguistic. She worked as a translator from English to Persian when she was in her country. I told her that I love reading pyscology, material about health, woman and home etc. I offered her some magazine that I have so that she could do some reading while alone. I proceeded to sent her home. And she asked me if I could stay with her tonite. I promised her to come back around 11 pm after having my dinner and settle a few things. She said she will wait for me no matter what time I decided to come.
I went home for dinner. I placed some magazine into a bag to bring to her. I had maghrib prayer and continued until Isyak. I suddenly felt very exhausted and I falled asleep in my telekung. I knew that I could not be able to move much instead just set myself on the bed. I woke up as I heard my phone rang. It was R. I apologized to her as I felt asleep and I was too tired. She was worried about me. She asked me not to come instead get some rest. She said she would be fine alone. I settled myself on bed until morning.
As I woke up this morning, I called R to see how she was coping. She sounded better although she said she could hardly sleep last night worrying about her husband. I offered to send her to hospital but she insisted not to do that because she didn't want to take my time and also she could manage herself there by bus. Many times she told me that her husband said to her not to take so much of my time since I was very busy at this time. I left it to her to decide and I offer her to call me anytime if she needed my help. I will also call her from time to time.
I was thinking back the reasons of me being excessively tired last night. As I recalled I saw some blood lump coming out together with stool at the office yesterday before I went to hospital to visit my sup. I was not sure if it all blood as I didn't notice at first. At that time some worry I felt but I settled myself not to worry and wait and see if it happened again. Today, I still felt tiredness and some pain in my stomack. However, the pain is tolerable. I did not go out from my flat and didn’t do my work either. Instead I did some cooking, blog hopping and emailing. I slept when I started to have cold feet.
I called home twice to speak to my mak. We talked about a new maid we finally got after a long waiting. She is from Acheh. She is 29 years old. Used to take care of children but not good in cooking. Mak will have to teach her what and how to cook. Alhamdulillah mak don’t have to sacrifice for me again. I don’t know how to pay mak & ayah for being there to take care of my family. I could only pray for their health and happinest in life.
Mak has so many stories to tell me on the happening back home. I can listen to her endlessly and I like to do that especially when I missed home much. I also told her about R and my sup. Mak reminded me to help people in need no matter busy we are. The sacrifice that we make for them is a “pahala” for us. I just listened to her as if I was still a little baby to her. Indeed I feel as if I am a little baby at this moment.
Mak was also telling a story of her one day event in kampong. She and ayah had to go back on emergency as her cousin passed away. At the same time she took the opportunity to visit many relatives who are sick thinking that she might regret it if something happen to them and she may not able to see them again. She described to me every single detail of our sick relative’s condition. She had really a busy one day event for running here and there. I envy her as she was blessed with so much energy despite of her health. I guess she has to do that to have energy for her to move on. Mak told me every where she went people asked about me and send their salam to me. Too many for her to list down name to me and mak just asked me to accept their salam.
I called home for the second time when I was on bed to talk to big man. I told him that I felt exhausted and didn't do much today. I mentioned to him about blood lump. He asked me to see doctor but I said wait to see if it happen again. I suspect it got to do with food that I eat. And what I need now is just to sleep hoping it will help me to regain my energy and to control my food intake not to have the blood lump recur. Losing excessive blood from body could be the main reason of my excessive tiredness. Not to worry though. If this does not improve, I will go to my GP.
I woke up for Zuhur and Asar. Received text message from Adik F. He could not make it tonite for discussion as he has meeting with his bos on strategic business and it will take very long hours. He asked for rain cheque. I agreed.
Then, here I was ...which I have no clue, I wrote this long entry and posted it here! Keyboard off!
August 24, 2006 8:40 pm
