Well this post is gonna be slightly emo...
I was debating with myself whether I should write this post since I don't really like emo posts in my blog, but after realizing what I've gained throughout these days, it's a must to record my feelings and thoughts so that if there's anything worse in the future, I will remember what happened in the past and tell myself to stay strong.
Where should I start, maybe from the phone call that I received last friday
Mom : Mei, your daddy got an heart attack yesterday, now he's in the hospital.
At that moment I thought my world is gonna end.
Ever since my dad did his Angioplasty surgery last year (January), I've been living in fear, i always felt like my dad, or my mom, or my brother is gonna leave me at any second. All I had in my mind was
"so this is it?.....so fast? just one year? one year?"
Then my mom kept on saying
"Don't worry, don't worry." The more she says that, the more it kills me.
I've learn enough biology in A-Levels to know what exactly does a heart attack do to my dad's heart. I finally understand what people meant when they say they
"blanked out"....
I had so much in my mind that everything turns so cloudy and it felt like I couldn't see or think anymore.
Yea I know,
fear was taking control of me.
I knew I was going to cry but I told myself I need to stop imagining things. Kept telling myself that my dad is gonna be fine, but the worst part is when u know it so well that having a heart attack means my dad is not going to be okay...
I couldn't go home as I was still in Sungai Long, and it sucks, cause no matter where I go, I see my dad's smiling face and I would start crying...as if he's already dead...
In the night I kept on praying, thinking that
"it's too soon, please don't take him away"
Anyways, finally I got back home on Saturday, saw my mom and she looks tired. She told me how everything happened, and what she saw.
She didn't cry but I can sense the fear in her voice, in every word she says...
"Your dad was sweating so bad, he couldn't move", "He got wires and tubes strapped around him now." "He's still in CCU, Critical Cornory Unit" My mom must have gone through a lot, I imagined if it was me, I probably be too scared to even walk, let alone drive my dad to the hospital. It kills me to see how she had to put on a strong face when she had witnessed so much, and all the trauma that she went through, it must have been hard. When we're at home, something was wrong with the modem, I was trying to fix it and then my mom said
"see, now you realize your daddy is important." I knew she wasn't exactly saying it to me, but more to herself, I knew she was going to cry. Then there were times that she became so mad at herself,
"I should have forced your dad to continue his medication", "I should have made sure that he wont carry heavy things.", "I shouldn't have let your dad go through the angioplasty surgery"
I followed my mom to visit my dad, he was staying in CCU, aka
Critical Coronary Intensive Care Unit. Well I let out a sigh of relief when I saw his eyes are still open. Yes, my imaginations were going out of hands. hehe. The first thing that I said to my dad was
"Lousy la you!!" and he smiled at me. Then I started to register the surrounding, much to my fear, my dad had some wires on him, and behind him was a monitor that shows his ECG and blood pressure. There's all kinds of machine beside, all kinds of wires, and there's like one whole row of power source, probably use to power all the medical equipment in the room. Then next to my dad's bed, the machine that made me feared for the past year -- Defibrillator. Yea my imagination started to go wild again. Especially looking at my dad's ECG. I know enough biology to know how a normal ecg looks like and what is wrong when the waves are not right. His heart was beating to fast, up to 150 per minute, and it's quite obvious that he had arrhythmia, irregular beating...it's fatal to some people, so I keep on telling him to calm down LOL dont get excited. Then the T waves were like fluctuations, instead of one single wave. Then while I was away, my mom called and said that my dad's heart was beating so fast that it's quite dangerous and they even called a doctor to come inspect him immediately.
again, my imaginations gone wild, I really thought he's gonna leave.
The doctor gave him some drugs to stable down the heart beat and asked us to go home so that he wont use too much energy. I went home, thinking that I will feel better after I visited my dad, but it turns out I felt worse. Whenever the phone rings, the first thought I had was
"oh this is it, the hospital is calling, daddy's gone" Yea sounds like a long sentence but trust me, at that one second, this whole sentence just played in my head, word by word
. I feel like I was going to be crazy, cause I couldn't stop thinking about bad things, as if I'm anticipating them to come. Trust me,
I was having internal monologues for most of the time. and the conversation usually starts with "what if...." and ends with "don't worry, Jiawen"
When the night came, I didn't feel like sleeping, because I'm afraid of what will happen when I open my eyes the next morning. So I started reading some bible verses and also Daily Bread, hoping to find some cure to stop my fears and to give myself courage to face the worse. God did spoke to me through the scriptures, I felt much better.
But still I felt unsecured, despite of my faith in God, i still feel that
there's no one out there who can exactly tell me that I shall not fear. I told myself I should sleep, so I did my usual routine before sleep, brush my teeth, wash my face. My cousin (who share the room with me) was already asleep, and usually I will try my best to not wake her up. But while I was in the washroom (door opened), I started to sing a song,
unconsciously. When I realize I was singing, it was when I sing the words
"That's why I'm by your side, that's why I love you.", while staring into the mirror. I broke into tears, I wish I knew better english to describe how I felt, I knew God was talking to me, and
He wants me to know that He's with me.
I swear I didn't know I was singing, in fact I wasn't going to sing because I know it will wake my cousin up. I know it's God, definitely him. And that night, I slept soundly.
Then the following few days, my dad's condition was getting better. His heart beat fell back to normal pulse rate. He can even walk and also went for physio treatment. Afterall I guess I should Thank God, my dad's heart attack can be considered as a minor one, plus when he got the heart attack, he was working at Universiti Malaya, which is next to the University Hospital. Thank God he was able to get treatment in a short time, or else, I can't imagine what would happen. And I believe this incident serves to be a warning to my dad, so that he will start to be more careful with his daily activities and diet, and stop trying to push limits.
Okay what I'm gonna write next is gonna sound like a bio textbook's case study article hehe long time never write about bio stuff :D Forgive me, I'm still a pharmacy enthusiast :D
So it all started when my dad was carrying a very heavy equipment, too heavy for him obviously, but my dad is a stubborn guy
and thinks that he's still very young and so he carried that heavy thing and walked across the road to his car. Probably because he needed a lot of oxygen for his muscles, his heart didn't pump efficiently to the coronory arteries and the cardiac cells were deprived of oxygen (sound like a bio exam answer). So yea, he started to have symptoms, the chest pain, numb arms, the heavy sweating. My mom drove him to the hospital and the ECG shows that he had a blockage in his coronory artery.
The doctors suggested an immediate Angioplasty to clear the blockage. But my mom was worried because last year's angioplasty did a lot of damage to my dad, He became weaker, as in less fit. So the doctor gave him Thrombolytics, drugs that bust blood clots and also Nitroglycerin, a drug that dilates blood vessels around the heart and also Aspirin, a blood thinner, prevents blockage.
He was monitored in the CCU, they even strapped an oxygen tube on the first day so that he don't have to breathe that hard to get enough oxygen to his heart. I believe this is known as Oxygen Therapy.
2nd day, my dad thought he was okay edi
(or maybe he was too bored), and started calling people like nobody's business. His heart beat went up to 150 beats per minute. Doctor came and gave him some drugs that slow down his heart. probably anti-arrhythmic drugs.
In the following 3 days, he stayed in the CCU to rest and his pulse rate drops. Physiotherapy was given, he was asked to walk around, while his heart beat was being monitored, just to make sure his heart is able to cope with normal life activities like walking and climbing up stairs.
On Tuesday, he was discharged!! Yay!! A nurse gave us instructions about the drugs that he will be taking. There are 6 drugs in total!!! Aspirin and Plavix (Clopidogrel) to thin the blood. Statin to lower cholesterol. and some other drugs like anti-hypertensives and some heart strengthening ones.
Anyways, just wanna say thank you to people I love, and people who love me and cared for me, especially these few days, where I had so much fear, and needed someone to listen to me. I would like to thank the doctors, nurses, pharmacist and physiologist of the hospital. Seriously I think they are really awesome people!! Thanks for all the care and effort you put in to save my dad :D For my friends who are going to be doctors, nurses, pharmacist, and physiologist, please dont give up on your dreams! People will always need you! You guys must add oil arr!!
And thanks to my mom, for being so strong that we wont lose our hope.
Finally, Thank God, for everything, for listening to my prayers and fulfilling my wishes. Once again You just proved to me that anything is possible with you. Thanks for telling me that I should not fear, but should pray instead.
Thank You God, for bringing out the best in me, like no one else can do.
I'm grateful.
Here's the song that I sang when I was in the bathroom that night,
A song that I would like to sing to God
lyrics below
Blue - Best In Me
From the moment I met you I just knew you'd be mine
You touched my hand
And I knew that this was gonna be our time
I don't ever wanna lose this feeling
I don't wanna spend a moment apart
Chorus:
'Cos you bring out the best in me, like no-one else can do
That's why I'm by your side, and that's why I love you
Every day that I'm here with you
I know that it feels right
And I've just got to be near you every day and every night
And you know that we belong together
It just had to be you and me
'Cos you bring out the best in me, like no-one else can do
That's why I'm by your side, and that's why I love you
my happy family :D
Some extras
just to let u know how CCU ward looks like :D
scary or not u tell me??
defribillator
look at the drawer man....
all the tools and wires and the super conductive gel
for some reason those stuff looks cool
but trust me, I was praying that my dad would never need to use them.
