That familiar sound of death

Thanks to the kind intervention of Tengku Azmil and Tan Sri Lim Ewe Jin, Mom and I had the hard-to-come-by experience of flying home on Business Class yesterday. Our seats were bunked up so that I could be better rested.

I could sleep in a 180 degree position. Between the flight from LAX to Taipei as we crossed the Pacific Ocean, I was awakened twice by headache. The first time I awoke, it took me awhile to remember that I was in a plane and not the hospital. I wanted to use the restroom and contemplated whether I should get down myself, call the nurse, or wake up my mom. On seeing the extended TV screen overhead, I remembered that there was no nurse to call. I surveyed the mess in front of Mom’s seat and thought that it could be disastrous for her to try and get up in that mess. Mom plied the floor with the newspapers she read earlier. It’s a habit of hers which I found annoying, what’s the logic in doing so?

In the end, I figured that it was alright to get out of bed alone. There was a curtain separating my seat and the kitchennette, and then another curtain separating the kitchennette and the bathroom. A steward sitting vigil between the curtains hoped onto his feet when he saw me coming. So maybe it was alright to call for the ‘nurse’ after all.

When I returned from the bathroom, I felt that it was safer to stay awake and sit up lest I slip into unconsciousness. A stewardess saw that I was awake and brought a basket full of goodies. I was feeling hungry and picked a bun when she pointed out the Hershey milk chocolate bar. Thinking of what word to say which was simple enough not to stumble, I managed an awkward, “Aawkay” and “thenk yew”. I thought of asking for a drink, but what drink? Remembering how I would call for milk at the hospital whenever I woke up in the middle of the night feeling hungry, I ordered just that. They promptly brought it in a mug instead of the milk carton.

The second time I awoke, the headache was worse so I woke up my mom for painkillers again. Only she could navigate through that mess. I also wrote the address and phone number of St. Vincent Medical Center onto a paper and slipped it into my wallet where it could be easily seen. If anything happened to me and I require medical attention during our stop over at Taipei, they could give the hospital a call and the hospital could then alert Dr. Lekovic. I also wondered if I need extended medical attention, where should they send me? Back to Malaysia or en route back to L.A.? I was hoping that they would send me back to the care of my doctors. Upon considering it right now, that will only happen with special interventions as it means a different flight altogether.

We were very worried. It felt as if all my blood went to the brain. When I had my surgeries at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital, patients who had brain surgeries often suffered from high blood pressure and severe headache. It was a common ward and we could hear them crying in pain. Next thing we knew, we heard the familiar sounds of the mortuary staffs followed by a loud “clang” as the patient’s body hits bottom of the steel cart.

Those were the days. We never took the trouble of counting how many people had died during any particular stay. Whenever a patient passed on, word got around and we’d feel the loss of a familiar someone who just awhile ago could be seen and heard alive. Pity.

I was very lucky for being at St. Vincent’s when I got into a seizure and not anywhere else.

The headache went away and my blood pressure levelled after taking a nap right before we landed at Taipei so I didn’t require treatment after all. Phew!