Showing him her wedding gown
At the corner of our eyes, there we caught but just a glimpse of a girl glimmering in white, amidst the row of dim and dull hospital rooms lining the ward corridor. Isn’t that Jerry’s room?, we asked immediately — indeed it was, and we couldn’t help but to turn our steps around to sneak a peek.
She was Jerry’s granddaughter. She just turned twenty not too long ago and she was getting married soon. She spun around once in the room, her hands in elbow-length white gloves held the hem of her white flowing gown high to show her grandfather, and I caught a glimpse of the ring on her finger. She was partly embarrassed, partly proud, and Jerry watched with part smile, part unbelief. Jerry was the most pleasant elderly man, even with the physical pain we knew he was going through at his terminal stage. A week ago he was still walking about when he saw us in the clinic, but a few days later we paid him a visit in the Emergency Department, and now a nasogastric tube hung from his left nostril, draining material from his bowels. His bowels were no longer working due to a combination of cancer and scarring from previous surgery and radiotherapy.
But for that moment, I thought, there was so much overwhelming joy in that little crowded single room. The two of us stood there as uninvited guests, but thankfully welcomed by Jerry and his son and his daughter-in-law to join in the thrill.
If I could capture those moments in video — the girl with the puffed bouffant skirt of her gown trying to find a comfortable position stooping beside her grandfather on the hospital bed for a photo, her mother trying to work the camera with her presbyopia, her father standing beside in his tradesman work clothes, and the relatives watching and laughing and making comments amongst themselves — I don’t think I would even need to put music to it to bring a tear to those watching it.
The daughter of the man without a nose
There was this man who had his nose completely removed after being diagnosed with nasal cancer. He has been walking around with a plastic nose prosthesis tied to his face with rubber straps. When he came in for his follow-up appointments he would take it off for us to examine, revealing an uncomfortable big triangular hole in the middle of his face with the six delicate bony turbinates clearly visible, and their pink glistening mucosa extending into the black, unlit cavities of his nasopharynx.
It all started about a year ago when he was playing with his little daughter. Somehow she hit her dad’s nose, and it became immediately swollen. In retrospect, he must have had a pathological fracture with bone already unknowingly eroded by the then-insidious cancer, but initially he thought it was just a bruise. Not only did the swelling not resolve, it grew larger and yet larger, until anyone would know something was quite wrong.
He was a blithe person who liked to pull off jokes all the time. After being diagnosed with cancer, undergoing surgery and then radiotherapy, he was still in good spirits. He would joke to his daughter now and then — “Look what you’ve done!!” or “It all started with your punch!” he would say, and then laugh heartily. I’m sure he didn’t mean any of them.
But during the times when he brought his lovely daughter along to see us, it was apparent that the little girl had carried some guilt with her.
Despite our reassurances that her dad’s condition had nothing to do with what she did, I’m not sure if she’ll ever let it go, even as she grows up. Not all jokes are funny.
Grandpa passed away
Grandpa passed away on the day I arrived home just before the last Christmas. It was a weird week that followed, beginning my holidays back home after several years overseas.
Weakly could he still nudge his head when he saw me standing beside his bed that morning, but it was a swift deterioration, and he passed away – so quickly – about nine hours later.
In retrospect, should I have spent more time with him earlier the day? Should I have insisted more strongly for him to be admitted to hospital earlier? I don’t know; in retrospect there will always be many what-if’s and if-only’s. But I’m thankful I arrived home in time when he still had enough consciousness left to recognize me. I know he had always wanted to see me for the years I was away.
In the week that followed with the funeral service and relatives visiting, I realized, too, that there are many things so close, yet not usually talked about.
What other times in our lives do we talk about finding a good and suitable cemetery to buy a spot, in preparation for the future? What other times in our lives are we so open, even in the extended family about life, death and the next generations?
So I suppose I have grown up, my friends are getting married, my parents are soon retiring, and my young cousins now able to walk and talk. The people I have around me – many so very dear – are changing, and will not be around forever. Sometimes this is closer than we think.
Indeed we are all but a mist, that appear for a little while and then vanishes. Yet God has set eternity in the human heart. It amazes me, but I know many avoid the topic.
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oming to you
from a junior doctor who is color-blind, cleft-lipped and left-handed — this is where
I largely write about my
somewhat weird and wonderful encounters in Medicine. I wish,
though, more often than not,
that I could rather spend my days
drawing colorful pictures and bringing stories to life...... -
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