THE UNEXPECTED PHONE CALL

Out of being bored during the last weekend, I'd decided to do some housekeeping. There is this spare room in my flat that has served as a store room all this while and there are boxes and boxes of stuffs in there, some of which must have been unopened for more than a decade or so. I've always wanted to clear out some of those things that are of no use to me anymore and so I started off by checking out a few boxes that were labeled “doggy stuffs”. They were mostly dog grooming tools, piles of pedigree certificates, photos of dogs I'd owned in the past and etc, going back to those days a long time ago, when I was breeding and showing dogs. Going through the contents of these boxes had brought back some memories, of things that had happened in the past. Among those that I'll surely remember for a long time to come, was this unexpected phone call that I'd received not so long ago.

This happened about a couple of years back. A gentleman had called and as soon as he'd established that I was the person he was looking for, in a very serious tone, he'd started off by saying, “Mr. Low, I have gone to great lengths to find out your phone number. You see, I have to tell you that my wife is in distress and I think you are the person I should be talking to."

I can tell you now, that the Chinese saying, "If you have done no wrong, you will not be alarmed by the knock on the door at midnight" is not always true. For at that moment when I heard what was being said and in that kind of a tone, I was actually more than being alarmed, even though a decent man like me has got no reason to be so.

As it turned out, it had nothing to do with that sort of a misunderstanding that I'd at first feared it was, much to my relief (phew!). What had actually happened did have something to do with my past though.

It seemed that the lady who was very attached to her pet dog of 15 years was very distressed when it had passed away a few months back. That dog was bred by me. I was told that she'd adored the dog so very much, for its breed temperament, its intelligence and its loyalty. The passing of her constant and loyal companion, which in her own words, she'd loved like her own child, was difficult for the lady to come to terms with.

When she was finally convinced by the husband to get a replacement of the same breed, she'd wished that it could be from the same breeder so that she can be more assured of having one that could also have the same character and temperament, hence the phone call. I was told that they had been through a lot of trouble during the months that followed, trying to get in touch with me because my phone number and address were not the same anymore as the information that was given behind the pedigree paper.

Unfortunately, I'd stopped breeding dogs since a long time ago and that dog was one of the last few that I'd bred. Being already very out of touch with the dog breeding community, I was also not able to help very much. As sad as I was for being unable to help, it was also one of those rare moments that had brought me great satisfaction from whatever little that I'd achieved in the past.

Here are a few pictures of some stuffs from the boxes I'd cleared out during the weekend. I thought they would add some color to the post.

    

Uriah Heep - Stealin'

HOLY SHIT! I HAD A HEART ATTACK!

Just as I thought I had already paid the price in full, for all the years of self inflicted abuse on my health, the kelong referee from above had without good reason, decided to show me another yellow card last Saturday morning - 19th June, soon after the England-Algeria match.

"Bad refereeing! Curry chicken! @#$%^&*+_*%$#@!!! "
"HEY REFEREE! CAN I BRIBE YOU? WOULD YOU PLEASE NAME ME A REASONABLE PRICE?"

For smoking, I was already punished with a pair of bad lungs. My liver is bad too, from past indulgence in alcohol and panadol. I don’t sleep much, probably a habit formed from many years of gambling through the nights and for whatever other sins that I am not aware of, I have been continuously suffering the pains from a slipped disc. But I have no high blood pressure, my cholesterol is only slightly higher than what is deemed to be the good level and I am not even overweight like most people my age. SO WHY THE **** DO I HAVE TO GET A HEART ATTACK AS WELL?

It must have been sometime around 5 a.m. and I had just fallen asleep when the first wave of pain came. It was bad, like a knife being thrust into my chest pushing the pain right to the back. I had thoughts at first that it was all just a bad dream but the pain was too real and building up fast. I found myself clutching the chest with one hand and propping myself up with the other. As the pain subsided after a few minutes, the first thought that went through my mind was whether if it was an angina pain or just simply heartburn. I was pretty sure it wasn’t heartburn. Other thoughts soon followed quickly in succession.

You see, death is not something I am terrified of. Of more concern to me is that dying from a heart attack for a person that lives alone would be a bad way to go. I often read in the papers of dead people being discovered only after the stench of death was noticed by the neighbours. To me, that would be the most impolite way of announcing one’s demise.

My daughter who stays in the university hostel do come back to see me every now and then but I can never be sure if she will come back soon enough if I were to go this way. Then there is always a remote possibility that my friends may come and break down the door if I have not answer their calls after a few days but a few days may be all it takes for the body to start to decompose. Believe me, all these were running through my mind then.

As I was putting on my clothes, the second wave of pain came. I knew I have to act fast. This time the pain was worse than the first. I wanted to get out fast but somehow, the pain was slowing me down both physically and mentally. I could hardly move towards the door and I had difficulty trying to concentrate. I had managed to get the keys and the cell phone and fighting against the excruciating pain, I tried to think straight, contemplating whether or not to call the ambulance. The nearest hospital is only about 15 minutes away and I would have a better chance of reaching the hospital faster if I were to catch a cab from downstairs. The last time I saw someone called an ambulance from my block, they took like forever to arrive. I would be damned if I were to depend on those assholes. This is not the same as someone having an asthma attack. Time was running out fast.

The thought of getting out of my flat quickly, kept on ringing inside my head like an alarm bell gone crazy. If I were to collapse, at the least it would have to be outside my flat. I must certainly not allow myself to die and stink inside my own home. But it was getting increasingly difficult and the pain was reaching unbearable, as if someone had his hand inside my chest and was squeezing down on the organs. Out of frustration and anger, I heard myself swearing out loud and then the second wave of pain disappeared.
By the time I had gotten downstairs, the pain had already returned for the third time.

At this hour, there are usually lots of empty cabs plying the main road just outside of my block. I had counted on this to be the fastest means of getting to the hospital and sure enough, as soon as I had stepped out of my block, I saw one approaching from a distance. Just then, a man ran out from about 50 feet in front of me, stopped the approaching cab and boarded. I sat down heavily on the curb by the roadside, once again drained and exhausted by the clutching pain coming from the inside of my chest. I had wanted to lift up a hand to show the middle finger to the guy who had beaten me to the cab as it drove by but I could not. So I sat there confused by the pain, regretting not calling the ambulance and desperately wishing not to be left to die by the roadside.

The pain had again disappeared by the time the next cab came along. I had wondered then, how many rounds of pain I would have to endure before I will finally succumb. All the swear words uttered in protest must have been heard by someone up there and so I was in a way, blessed with a cab driver who drove like I was his own brother when I told him that I was having a heart attack. He had passed a few red traffic lights when he was sure it was safe to do so and we arrived at the hospital in less than 10 minutes.

For the fifth time that morning, the pain came again, half way to the hospital. This time round, it returned with a vengeance as if in protest for my surviving the previous rounds. Cold sweat was breaking out all over and I was finding it difficult to breathe as I stumbled into the emergency room. I was barely able to tell the nurse that I was having a heart attack and had to try very hard not to collapse into her arms. I was put on a wheelchair and pushed into a room to be given a quick ECG. A patch was slapped onto my left chest to ease the pain. I was also fed some dissolved aspirin through a straw but the pain only subsided when I was given some morphine later on.

They had put me on a bed and I was wheeled into what I thought was a preparation room. There were conversations going on outside the curtain partition and for a while, I was straining my ears trying hard to hear what the cardio doctor was saying to a junior medical officer regarding something on the reading of my ECG. What the **** is wrong with medical schools? Do they really have to train doctors to write prescriptions in hebrew and speak in martian tongue?

A lady doctor with pretty eyes gave me some papers to sign. She was wearing a mask and her face came quite close to mine as she explained very quickly that they would need my consent to proceed. Just as well that she had a mask on for I thought my breath must be smelling worse than my fart as I had not brushed my teeth that morning. Someone else was fussing around putting me on a drip and having a tube wrapped around my face to supply oxygen through my nose. By then, they had also taken some blood and had a few more ECG readings churned out. I was being prepared for a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention to relieve the narrowing and obstruction of the coronary arteries through the insertion of a balloon catheter via an artery at the wrist. I had also given consent for them to do an open heart surgery if necessary. The lady doctor was very comforting as she assured me that the risk involved for the procedure will be minimal. She had this ugly doctor’s gown over her but I could tell she was voluptuous and those eyes were sexier than I had thought earlier. Then someone started to strip me down.

Naked and covered only with a thin blanket, I shivered a bit. The nurse that had stripped me began shaving my inner thighs all the way up to where they meet the scrotum. She had explained that the catheter could also be inserted through an artery via the inner thigh areas should there be difficulty doing it from the wrist. That was how my sexy 'sideburns' were gone.

It was getting really cold in that room and I was thinking that something might have shrunken a great deal in size due to the cold, as it always does. I wished that the nurse would not make a ‘small’ joke out of it during the morning break. Holy cow! she ought to know better that it was freezing cold in there! 

The procedure was completely painless, to my surprise. I was fully awake and could see what was going on from the monitors. As it turned out, one of my arteries had completely collapsed and another in very bad shape. The cardiologist performing the procedure was a nice guy and he took me through each step of the way. He inserted two stents to support the arteries. They act like scaffoldings to hold up the walls and will remain there for the rest of my life. There are other areas that were also partially blocked but for those, I would have to rely on the oral medications.

So I survived my first ever heart attack and joined the ranks of those who carry sublingual nitroglycerin tablets in their pockets.

Humble Pie - I don't need no doctor