April Fools' Day

How time flies and April 2009 has started.

Since the school term 2 started on 23 Mar, days have been terribly busy and hectic.

Some sad news to share:
One of my colleague's mother in law, had a fall and found unconscious on the floor with a pool of urine. She was rushed to TTSH by an ambulance. The doctors said that half of her brain was dead. Over the next few days, the doctors found that the other half of her brain was also similar.

She is now in deep sleep ie coma. Food has to be fed through her nurse via a tube. She is not on any life-supporting machine as the doctors decided that giving her oxygen supply will not be doing her any good as this will prolongs her life. She is to breathe on her own until she can't.

Two weeks later, she was discharged and sent home! She is still sleeping at home. She can sneeze or yawn. It is just that she does not wake up and probably feel no pain.

Nobody knows for sure when she will passes on. It can be a few days, weeks, months or even years.

Next, my boss' father in law passed away in late March in Hong Kong. His wife made in time to see her father for a last time, though unsure if he was aware of her presence. In Hong Kong, the practice for funeral and wake is somewhat different. The body would be kept in the hospital's mortuary for some days before it would be released.

The funeral has been fixed on 2 Apr and the wake will be only a day. I am not sure if he would be buried or cremated. My boss and his whole family are now in Hong Kong to attend to this matter.

Like any other living things, we grow old and die.

Death is a start of a new journey to another world. Death can be a release from sufferings and tortures.

It is the journey leading to death that I am most afraid of.