written while warded...
we do not ask to be warded in hospital on most ordinary days. i took mine as a near-privilege, to be exposed to a hinterto unknown social setting, with a group of people i would otherwise be sheltered from. now i know how prisoners in wartime are able to bond in such powerful moving ways- a new patient walks in and others are eager to show him around the place...how to operate
THAT bed, buttons
not to press, meal rotations...just basic orientation but it does wonders to a bored and ailing physique-i find simple offers to help with lifting a chair even though my fellow patient was all tubed up and walking (!), sharing of daily papers (never mind your language proficiency), extra crackers, political gossip and minute news of each others' treatment process.
all nurses deserve a place in heaven. they embody the kind of qualities that heal people and make this progressive society a far better place. it's sad that doctors are still bestowed with more esteem somewhat...a regional staff of caregivers work here...myanmar, china, malaysia, philippines. they are multi-lingual, persuasive, humourous, instinctual, persistent, alert...each good soul bantered with patients in their own special way; one filipino teasing a stubborn patient with hokkien while the staff nurse shared her sadness about what her despotic government is doing to people in yangon. the only disturbance we felt were nights punctuated with quarterly measurements of temperature and blood pressure. we put up well with this small inconvenience. there is more than sufficient cheer and daily sunlight placed in an avenue (occasionally) visited by glum doctors.
am otherwise 'basking' gratefully with daily visits and care received...from my doc friends right from the first few hours of admission to kind and caring individuals from my family, 5th canticle, pioneer, and uncle philip who arranged for communion. am nourished in more ways than one - too distracted and moved by all these lightstreams of care to feel pity or worry about my lifelong condition or future. one of my neighbours, a sage-like uncle even came by and prayed for me in mandarin, sensing we both knew christ.
there is a caring note sent via sms each day and delightfully-shocking gifts from friends: from a
ta-pau version of crab bee hoon (john-check how the legs are split and sprawled..pun izzit?!?), to crayons (mee yoo), newsweek (gp colleagues), a collection of fresh and synthetic sunflowers (norien and ig) and playing cards from one strange uncle. i am still at a loss as to how some of this news reached the ears of my present batch of students, way before i was discharged even...thank u, people for your kind regards and care...i know everything is given in good faith.
pain. painful. pained. 
we flew into hakodate on an enormous 747 ANA jet unabashly coated with blobs and turds of pokemon fluff. amazed that they deployed a jet of this size for a mere 1 hour 20min flight from narita. thank God the stewardess did not serve us dressed as one of the creatures shown on tv! they are delicate maidens...with million-dollar complexions...
the route is rough and we have plenty of time on our hands...minimal shopping but plenty of exploratory drives and maximum reliance on earnest smiles, collins guide on japanese language and culture and an above-average EQ, i hope! it is a strange and unthreatening sense to be stranded here. so darn lost yet so assured to sense home in the warm manner and perplexed looks that meet us each time we pose a question of our whereabouts in this spankingly clean land of zero litter and quietly efficient recycling city...i have this simple faith that somehow, someone will come by and lead us to where we need to go. 
mrs nathan lashes wooden canes on bawling shelby..while she scotched-taped my vicious mouth, for having disrupted math class by proudly announcing to all, that your shorts were secretly pattered with poo. we watched godfrey chen's deluxe transexual kick with shock and awe...his tongue flickers like that red bitch from V while we countered him with tian long ba bu's yi yang zhi (laser-shooting fingers) and xiang long shi ba zhang (courageous dragon's 18 power blasts...)
we staged covert plots against mutual enemies like darren tan and competed like fools for jessie wong. where could she be right now? we talked about imposed spirit rumours in your haunted house; guan yin and virgin mary saying put even as your tank of curse-absorbent goldfish continued to bob, rot and die in spite of mom's weekly aquarium spree. there is macho chun and anna nicola smith giggling like macbeth's lost witches by a lone banana tree...while shaful generates his own paroxysm laugh at apple core's wife and mother soh who piles your sad desks with work and woe. you have never been off your addiction to transformers toys while i prefer to stick to marvel...my label that yours' amount to no more than tin-cans on the move still draws a dark spite from you.
To all- Julian is well: bright, warm and chripy. we are now discussing how his lifestyle is going to change following his discharge...he feeds on jelly daily. his stomach has been retained though it is only a quarter left. he can only whisper since the tubes and water-ban has left much of his voice-box in recovery. he looks very good, no loss of weight..his body bearing up with the terrible tauma it just went through. to all, faithful friends and even strangers who have sent very firm prayers...my friend has the courage to smile again. 
i woke up with images of death and anguish splashed on the front pages of papers. brought with me images of the cyclone & quake and its destructive impact on life. difficult images to meditate on, says jo. the first 45 mins was spent in aimless splattering of angry red juxtaposed against a deep & dark sky...frames of black were added later to contain the pain...the flowers are in ascension, beyond the transcendental white that separates 2 planes of existence...a sign of souls lifted upward, transfigured by the land's horrifying wounds. their colours are somewhat the same...not having forgotten what it is like, to suffer pain.
Stuart plans to be there tomorrow, and then Eddie arrives, so at least two old and trusted friends will be able to be with him and keeping a close eye.
my friend now lies in bed, waiting to receive surgery. and it's a major one. to those who may be reading this, please say a simple prayer to support my friend....
After another six weeks, if all goes well he'll be able to begin a course of chemotherapy.
The likely timetable now, so long as all goes well with the surgery and the convalescence, will be chemotherapy beginning about the middle of July. He's planning to take up an offer to stay with Dee and Simon, whose house is near the hospital and who've got a bedroom with its own ensuite on the lower floor. They'll be close at hand. in other words, but he'll still have his own space. He'll also keep his room at Lauren's house until it's clear what will be happening in the longer term.
He's decided not to go back to Singapore. His parents will fly to Hamilton about two weeks from now and stay for a week or two. He's not exactly sure it'll be a good thing, given that his relationships with them are fairly conflicted, and also given that his mother doesn't have a very good track record of nursing him when he's been ill! However, he's good at not taking shit, Julian, so if they end up feeling more like albatrosses around his neck than guardian angels he promises he'll send them packing. Cecilia and Julius are very staunch, but apart from them he feels that his close friends are his true family.
I'm staying in Hamilton till Monday. Gary will be here for the weekend. Stuart will come immediately after the operation. Dee and Simon will also be keeping an eye out.
All around us, we have known you; 
China - Disaster - Earthquake in Sichuan province
A man holds his dead baby, killed in Cyclone Nargis in Bogalay, one of the hardest hit regions in Myanmar. The Nargis cyclone which hit the country claimed 22,997 lives, left 42,119 missing and 1,403 injured as other sources claim the real death toll is closer to 100,000. 
