Thursday, June 5, 2008

Silent Birthday

I actually prepared an earlier post on F's birthday. But I had the draft deleted because it was just too mentally draining to continue it. I felt too sad.

When I passed F the 2 small angpows from YP and myself that evening, he was all alone at the balcony. The angpows were given to him quite hastily because I was rushing home to get dinner for the boys.

F looked the same as the last time I saw him. The pigmentation problem on the face seemed to have improved - his face looked more 'even coloured' now.

But he had a bad cough, so I asked him if he had seen the doctor about the cough that had recurred. He said he had just seen the doctor, pointing to the bag of medicine sitting on the dining table. They were antibiotics, he said, because the doctor told him that his lungs were infected. Sigh.

Then I reminded him to take his medicine regularly for his L, too. And I told him to call me if he needs anything or any help. Before I went home, he told me to remind R to help him change the external water filter soon.

Within minutes of my reaching home, R went down to get the water filter job done.

That night, R told me that he had observed that F's hands were cracking very badly. We both discussed and concluded that F probably needs to boost his nutrition. We also agree that his prone-ness to recurring lung infection may be due to deficiency in nutrition, too.

So, we decided to get him Ensure. To make it less of a hassle and therefore more 'enticing' to take the nutrition-packed beverage, R suggested that for a start, we would get F the canned version. D had these passed to F already, with instructions to make sure that the Ensure and antibiotics are taken at least 4-6 hours apart. But we aren't sure if F had taken them.

I think I will go check on him tomorrow.

1 comment:

KayAngMo said...

Not many people may know this, but when I was a child and I "know" our F, I became very disillusioned about this man.

Not quite how to say it clearly, but my naive mind actually even made up my mind NOT to bear any sons, in case my son also have the "same negative opinion" about me as his father.

It could be the result of many factors, and certainly the daily barrage from M's criticism of our F, day in day out.

But one thing is very clear to me. Our F is an eccentric, as I am. Why I say this? I am almost 100% a duplicate of this man, and I know myself best.

I am selfish.
I am a loner.
I do things my own way, right or wrong.
I am angry with critics.
I am always right.
...the list goes on...

I am afraid I will die a lonely man. But having put some effort in raising my children, I sure pray that this will not be the case.

I cannot say the same for our F. And to add injury to insult (for lack of better words), he contracted this L disease.

Sometimes I am almost imagining him having an affair outside with even a "big family" in tow. WIth this type of treatment he receives from M and us (mostly scolding him b4 his illness), it is quite a likelihood.

Like Sharon Stone said, Karma?

I am very sad about F's situation, but something in me, also don't want to do anything about it.

ONe part wants to "know him better' before his time is up, the other part just tells me to bocharp.

Sigh. the irony of life.