A Desperate Link

When I was working in Client Services in a hospital in Singapore many years ago, the first thing I would do each morning when I arrived at my office would be to visit the Intensive Care Unit. A walk round the unit is a very humbling experience, at least for me, to see the patients, young and old, in critical condition, with numerous tubes attached to them, some conscious but weak; some sedated and some hooked on to respirators to help them breathe, all of them clinging on to dear life. I can't help but be moved by compassion for them; it brings me down to earth, to appreciate what I have and to be grateful that I can walk and do my day's work, no matter how demanding. Yes, I was the observer here, but in the uncertainty of things as we know, I could be on the other end, the observed. It can happen to anyone...

Here in the Intensive Care Unit or ICU in short, is the place where patients and their families are most vulnerable, and here was where my staff and I found the most job satisfaction - to be with them, helping them to serve as a conduit to the doctors, sometimes arranging the religious to visit and joining the families in prayers. In short, providing the much needed emotional support during their times of need.   

Once my colleague, Masai was looking after a young Japanese couple, Hayato and his wife, Mieko. They were on honeymoon in Bali when the van that took them on an excursion met with an accident and Hayato was thrown out of the vehicle. The impact caused a serious head injury that sent him into a coma. Mieko on the other hand suffered only minor cuts. Hayato was taken to a local hospital where medical care was limited; and on the second day, he was evacuated by air ambulance to Singapore, where Masai was called to help to translate for the doctors trusted to his care.

Hayato remained in coma for 5 days. During that time, Mieko did not leave his bed side. On each of our visit, we could see her tenderly caressing his arms, touching his face, whispering into his ears, kissing his hands, sometimes tearful; at other times, a strong resolve could be seen on her face, as though she was certain that this would be a short ordeal and that soon she and Hayato would be able to return to Japan to start their new life as a married couple. 

Masai visited her daily in the ICU to reassure her and soon a bond developed between the two of them. Masai would buy food for Meiko to ensure that she got her daily sustenance; they would pray together at the bedside of Hayato or sometimes she would be just sitting silently by her side, holding her hand.   

I will always remember the morning Masai called me on the phone, telling me that Hayato had passed on. I rushed up to the ICU and found Meiko huddled on the floor outside her husband's room crying, and Masai holding her arm by her side. After the doctor had certified the death, we went into the room with Meiko to see her husband. He looked peaceful; but Meiko was inconsolable, crying and calling out his name. We were crying with her as we tried our best to console her. After sometime, the nurses came in to explain that they had to do the usual preparations; the tubes were disconnected, drainage bottles removed, intravenous fluids taken down.  

It was at this moment, in her deepest grief and seeing the lifeless body of her husband on the bed that Meiko made that decision - she wanted Hayato's sperms preserved; she wanted to have Hayato's child! She wanted something of Hayato to hang on to, to keep this desperate living link with him. At this request, we had to start the process fast as time was crucial to ensure that Hayato's sperms were still viable. A Urologist, Dr Tan and a Gynecologist, Dr Wong who specializes in IVF procedures were called in. Together they managed to extract the sperms which were then kept frozen in Liquid Nitrogen in the hospital's sperm bank. As everything was explained to her and the necessary documents signed, Meiko felt safe in the comfort that a part of Hayato would still be with her. She knew that when she was ready, she could come back for the procedure; but if by x number of years she did not come to claim it, the sperms would be destroyed. 

Hayato's parents came from Japan the next day; it was sad to see the old couple mourning for their son, the father kept his eyes closed as doctors explained the condition to them. It was as though by closing his eyes, it provided a shield, that what he was listening to was a narration of another person, not his son's. The following day, with the help of a funeral director, Hayato's body was flown back to Japan with his family. 

We never heard from Meiko since, but I can imagine the sorrows she went through as a young widow, having to pick up the pieces of her life again. Time heals I'm sure, and she would have had the support of her family and friends to help her. 

When I met Dr Wong many years later, he told me that Meiko never came back for the sperms, hence they were destroyed. For Meiko, a chapter of her life has closed; she has moved on. Our prayers are with her as we wish her all the happiness she deserves in life.    

                                   Can I see another's woe
                                   And not be in sorrow too?
                                   Can I see another's grief
                                   And not seek for kind relief?

                                                      -William Blake-        


P/s: The names mentioned here are fictitious, to protect the privacy of the people involved.                   

Such cruelty!

The Straits Times, Singapore 1 June 2011

This picture and news made me sick! A poor cow was viciously abused while being pulled into an abattoir box for slaughter in Indonesia. It caused an outrage and actually prompted the Australian government to suspend live cattle export to Indonesia at that time. Some of the cruel treatment cited and as quoted in the papers were: 

1) Abattoir workers break a bull's tail and gouge its eyes and nostrils repeatedly in failed attempts to get the animal on its feet despite a broken leg.
2) cattle are seen tied and trembling as they watch other cattle slaughtered and skinned in front of them.
3) workers hack animals' head off with blunt knives causing a lot of distress and pain. 

Such cruelty! Even if we have to have its meat for human consumption, animals should be treated humanely and more compassionate methods should be used for slaughtering in abattoirs. I sometime wonder if animals produce a certain hormone or a chemical reaction that may alter the composition and hence the quality of its meat in such distressing condition of agitation and pain?  Hmm..food for thought.

This reminds me of my friend Sushila, when she related what she saw in Colombo, Sri Lanka when she was 15 years old. A couple of men were trying to get a cow to slaughter and oh, how the cow resisted, refusing to budge, mooing and grunting loudly. "It was as though it knew that they were going to kill it!" Sushila said. Her detailed description of the cruelty imposed on that cow was the same; its tail was bent over and broken, it was beaten harshly with a stick, tugged roughly at the strings that was strung round its nostrils, kicked, pulled and shoved until it was down on its side. One of the men then took a big blunt knife and started to saw at its neck, amid a loud cry from the cow. "Blood was flowing all around., and the poor animal  was twitching," Sushila said sadly, adding "and I will never forget that cry from the cow!". At this point, she could not go on and I could not bear to listen anymore...but from that day on, Sushila became a Vegetarian and still is, 50 years on. 

Just to share my thoughts here. I feel cows are such gentle animals; they don't hurt us and they eat only grass. They give us dairy products and in many countries, they are used as draft animals for pulling carts and plows. Even their dung are used as manure and fuel! Then when they die, their skin can be used for leather goods. For these reasons, I don't see a need to eat them. Besides beef is red meat, high in cholesterol. 

I am not advocating that we all be vegetarians, but perhaps we can buy less, consume less, avoid excesses and consciously play our part in sustaining our ecological system with all our animals. They too have their roles to play in it.   

It is worth reading Nik Taylor's research, Distanced from death: animal cruelty at the abattoir  http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4588016.httml.  Something that we try not to think about, but is an everyday reality. 

                 
                  All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter 
                  this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals. 

                                                                          -Pete Singer-
             



                

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A close shave in Jakarta

10 years ago today, I had a close shave with death. I was in the Marriot Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia on 5 August 2003 when a suicide bomber drove a car up the driveway and detonated a bomb that totally destroyed the front portion of the hotel, its lobby and the Sailendra Restaurant by the side of it. 13 people were killed in that blast and 150 people injured. I was lucky to escape, but the blast has left me with a deficiency of hearing in my left ear. 

I had just arrived in Jakarta from Surabaya that morning and took a taxi to the Marriot where I checked in at 1130 hours. I remember being very impressed with the spacious hotel lobby and the ceiling-high glass that surrounded it. I was then shown to my room 23 floors up. As usual, I started to unpack, kept my passport in the safe deposit box and settled to call my clients to confirm meetings. When I could not get them on the phone, I looked at my watch, it was 1220 hours, lunch-time. I decided that I too should have my lunch before starting the frenzy of meetings and visiting healthcare institutions. 

I took the lift down to the lobby, and as I walked out, I noticed there was a queue to the Sailendra Restaurant on my right, which was packed with the lunch-time crowd. I thought I might as well use my time to explore the lobby instead of joining the queue; but something held me back. I was afraid I could not get a table for lunch! So I went back and joined the queue.  It soon came to my turn. A young waiter came to me, "Do you have a table for one?" I asked, guilty at the thought of occupying one table to myself when they were so crowded. He replied, "Give me one minute" and went into the cafe, turning towards the window area where one could look out of the hotel. I remember being elated that I was going to get a window seat with a view! 

That was when the bomb went off! Everything happened all at once, a loud shattering sound, the lights went off, and people screaming and rushing out of the cafe! I was still standing there, frozen, not knowing what was happening! A big pillar on my left had sheltered me from the blast! In their panic to get out, people were pushing me around. I turned and saw some people running to the left side of me, while some were running to the right. In my daze, I followed the people to the left and scrambling with them, we came to a stop and crouched down. I looked up and saw that we were outside the toilet door! A dead end! I noticed that the girls huddled with me were hurt and had blood running down their faces, with cuts on their forehead, neck and arms. They were crying. I was murmuring my prayers to God to help us. 

A few minutes passed, then we heard a voice shouting, "Lari dari sini!" (run from here). We got up and followed one another, navigating slowly through the thick shattered glasses strewn all over the floor. There was no lobby, just a big open gap and fire was raging on the far end to our left.  I could only take small steps as it was slippery walking on broken glasses; and was heading towards where I knew the entrance of the hotel to be. There was a big crater on the ground and walking round it, I managed to come out into the open air. I crossed the small road and facing the hotel, I realized what I had just narrowly escaped, a terrorist attack! 

I was still in a daze and saw people running out; fear and panic on their faces, some with their shirts drenched with blood. Outside was pandemonium, with the sirens of police cars and ambulances as they converged to the hotel. Then I noticed a guard sitting by the side of the road, his head and hands dripping with blood. Suddenly a girl with a glass shard still on her bleeding forehead came to pull me down the road, away from the site. I realized later that she had feared there may be another bomb, just like the one in Bali, where many were killed by a second explosion while running out to escape!   

A young man came by and took me to the Singapore Embassy nearby. We were the first to get there and when the Embassy staff saw my blood-stained blouse, they thought I was hurt - but on close examination, I had no injuries. The blood spattered on me were from those injured during the confusing rush-about. 

I give a lot of credit to the management of Marriot Hotel in the way they handled this emergency. They mobilized a team of people to help, called all the Embassies to locate their guests, arranged an alternative hotel for us, and reassured us that we would be able to get our belongings from the damaged hotel. (Indeed they did get my passport and money from the safe box to me late that night!)

That evening, as we gathered in the hotel, strangers became friends, emotionally bonded by a tragedy that could have taken any of our lives; as each of us tearfully related our story of how we got out from the carnage. Although all of us were shattered by the disaster, some were clearly traumatized. One man started to cry, as he recalled seeing a chandelier dropping on a group of young office workers who had just come out of a conference for their lunch break. He was sitting in the lobby lounge which was on the opposite side of the Sailendra Restaurant. Another told us how they had to break a window and tried to jump down to the car park but it was too high, so they followed a cook, and ran through an "endless corridor" until they came to the back of the hotel! Yet another said that while running out, his friend froze halfway, unable to run, paralyzed by fear! He had to forcefully pull him along!  

Many of us left for home the next day. As I sat in the airport lounge waiting for my flight to Singapore and watching the news of the bombing and casualties on television, a sudden overwhelming emotion swept over me and I could not contain my tears! It was more a guilt feeling that I had not helped those injured when I was there! Shock and disorientation got the better part of me that day. The sight of the bleeding semi-conscious guard was to remain in my memory for months!

Many of the injured, especially those who suffered burns, spent months in hospital. I shuddered at the thought when I read in the papers that one man spent 2 years in hospital treating his burns followed by a series of skin grafts!    

Divine grace saved my life that day, and I am ever thankful to a Merciful God who not only loves us but is the unseen presence with us, near us, guiding and helping us as we face the demands of each day. All we need is to be aware; to do good always and to live our lives pleasing to Him, our God of all good and compassion. 

I sing with the Psalmist: 
                                       "Make us know the shortness of our life
                                        that we may gain wisdom of heart."
                                                                          Psalm 89:12

See link to the news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3124919.stm