I had what I remembered to be an awesome idea for a personal blog post. That was 2 hours ago. I’m home now and I can’t remember what it was I thought about. Is this growing old or is this long COVID?
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Two More Lines
So for the second time, I have contracted COVID-19. I was infected the first time last year. It seems this time the effect is a bit more severe compared to the previous time, with my body temperature reaching 38.1° Centigrade for over two days. Even after registering with the MySejahtera app and applying for Quarantine Leave from work, things went on as usual. I ran online classes – thankful that my wits are still holding up. The only blow was that my friend Dan (and Star Trek Adventures player over Discord) was supposed to come for a visit. Because of this, he was forced to cancel. All in all, I think I have to monitor myself for Long COVID. How will this infection affect me in the long run? Has it been affecting me neurologically? I have no idea. Addendum: Ain too became infected the day after I was. We […]
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Two Lines
It has been almost two years since the pandemic officially kicked off in the country. After many mutations, the former denizens of the Tenth Floor (now in Transitory State) are now infected by the virus. At time of writing, there has been 440 million infections and 6 million deaths worldwide, while in Malaysia there has been 3.5 million recorded infections and 33 thousand has died because of it. Now we are part of the statistics. We are thankful to have been triple vaccinated, so the symptoms have not been as severe as they could be. For me I have been experiencing fever and sore throat, especially at nights. As such we are all now in a 7-day home quarantine since our first day of infection, while monitoring our vital stats to be submitted to MySejahtera twice daily. Here’s hoping for the best.
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A Vaccine Nation, Part 2.
Previously on “A Vaccine Nation”… Yesterday afternoon, I went to my second vaccine injection session snuggled between two classes. As of now, I am fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine. I hope Ain and Irfan get their vaccination dates on MySejahtera quickly. We need a lot more for vaccinated people so herd immunity can be effective.
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A Vaccine Nation
Today is Opah Irfan’s birthday. Happy birthday, Opah Irfan. Additionally, today was the date the MySejahtera app scheduled my first COVID-19 vaccination injection. However, Ain nor Irfan were still unscheduled. We believe that my blood pressure condition automatically grouped me early with citizens who are at high-risk. It cannot be stated enough. It is unbelievable that we are living through a real, honest-to-goodness planet-wide pandemic. Ain drove me to the vaccination site and waited in the car. When I was in line, I asked one of the medical personnels if it was possible for Ain to be given a shot today since she was close by. After the lady visibly consulted with two officers, she informed me: no. When my number came up it did not take long for me to reach the injection booth even though I went through the check-in table, the confirmation table, the briefing and signature […]
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Outbreak Measures
Malaysia has begun a 2-week movement restriction period throughout the country because of the Covid-19 outbreak. All teaching and university work has been suspended though the team kept in contact all day via Telegram. I spent the entire day with Ain and Irfan at home. I do have tasks to complete, knowledge to learn at home, which means I am back to my freelance illustrator work mode. It is just like when I was back in the city, except that I would not be drawing. Of course today of all days my Lazada order arrived from China: six sets of polyhedral dice. When it arrived, I immediately took it to the bathroom and dunked everything in a bucket of soapy water. Hours later, after they had dried, I split the dice with Irfan. Ultimately, we never even unlocked the gate until night fell when we needed to take the garbage […]
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The Dental Extrication Undertaking
Last week, Ain had a tooth extraction. This week is was my turn. Once upon a time, I experienced a hard time having a tooth removed. In the last couple of weeks, my right molars was acting up. By acting up, I mean giving me an agonising jolt every time I chewed on food. So on Friday Ain and I went to the public clinic and hoped that the extraction would not be that much of a hassle. Little did I know that the tooth had split in two along the centreline. It made it difficult for the dentist to pull it out. Not to mention, despite four times injected with novocaine or lidocaine or something, my tooth still felt like it was being stabbed by a white-hot needle. Like the previous tale told in the link provided above, the dentist required that I come back another day because of […]
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Anniversary at the Dispensary
It has been 18 Gregorian years since Ain and I were wed. This year we decided to celebrate by visiting the doctor’s office because when I was at work today, she threw her back. Thankfully it was just a minor sprain and not a slipped disc. Even so, it did cause her much discomfort and pain. After the doctor’s visit, we picked Irfan up from home and went to fill up our potable water bottles. It was at the Serunai Padi restaurant so we stopped for some snacks. Some heavy snacks.
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A Nasal Epilogue
After last week’s surgery, I had splint and padding up my nose to hold things together as the parts within healed. The doctors gave me little bottles of saline solution and a syringe to douche my nasal cavity to cleanse it of blood, snot and other assorted blood-covered snot. On Saturday, after my regular nose douche and a shower I felt something shift uncomfortably up my nose. The string taped to my nose which connected to the splint was slack. Something sharp and stinging had moved down my right nostril. More blood than usual was dripping down my nose. We went to a clinic to get it looked at, but the doctor there referred us to the ER at the hospital. There was a referral letter and all. The ER doctor who attended me called up the ENT physician on call. The ENT doctor (who correctly guessed who I was […]
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Suddenly, The Emergency Room
… but upon my return home from my three-day hospital stay, I discovered that Opah Irfan had a high fever and could not sit up. She was extremely weak from illness. So, we took her to the Klinik Kesihatan downtown before it closed, leaving Irfan alone at home to do his homework. When we arrived, Ain and Atok Irfan got a wheelchair for Opah. After a blood test, the medical personnel there discovered that Opah’s blood sugar, blood pressure and body temperature were sky high. The nurses there had to inject some insulin into her system. Then, they called an ambulance to transport her to the Emergency Room of the hospital next door – escorted by Ain – while Atok & I returned home to get her medical records. What followed was a six-hour wait at the ER for the lab to return a new blood test to see if […]
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Finally, A Surgery
Atok and Opah Irfan came to visit last Saturday for a medical reason. The photo of them above along with Irfan was taken the day they left for Sitiawan on the 12th. Several days earlier, on Monday the 7th, I was hospitalised and surgery was scheduled for the next day. There I was, once more unto the breach. This was my fourth attempt at surgery. A FESS to remove what was left of a couple of polyps and a septoplasty to fix my right air hole which was apparently too small. The first attempt back in early 2016 was postponed because of high blood pressure. The second was postponed on account of getting sick while under observation in the hospital ward, and I missed a work excursion to Terengganu in vain because of it. I was unable to go for surgery the third time earlier this year because of a […]
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One Foot In The Shoe – Not The Other
The human body is an amazing self-repairing machine. It consumes resources around it like oxygen, water and nutrients (usually shoved into pie hole) and allows me to ride this meatsack like John Cusack on John Malkovich. However, entropy has begun overtaking this unlikely biological Rube Goldberg device I wear. The years have started to reveal cracks in the system. For example, gout is pretty fricking painful. I have known from an academic standpoint that gout can be painful but to endure a whole night of one’s toe being smashed in by a sledgehammer at least three times a second is something I never thought I would experience. It took a needle with gout meds to reduce the pain to manageable levels yesterday. I am just glad to have medical coverage now and very grateful that I did not gravely and acutely require it when we were freefalling without any back […]
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Return Trip to the Hospital
After the last aborted attempt at FESS at the hospital, I have been waiting for five months for the next scheduled surgery, spraying mometasone furoate up my nose almost daily. Finally it was time to get this pair of nasal polyps out of my sinus cavity. It should have been an easy in-and-out surgery. Of course there were complications from all sides. My application for a job as a Language Tutor here was accepted and I had been scheduled to report for duty the day before the surgery. I had to call the right person at work to find out the proper procedure. Thankfully postponing reporting for duty is allowed. The Guarantee Letter (GL) that would allow me to be admitted to the hospital wards under the workplace was rejected by hospital admissions because the printout did not include my pay grade. So we had to pay first for a […]
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Worn Joints Are Worn
It started as a sore right toe, specifically its joints. Right toe in great pain. What do I do about the pain? — Khairul Hisham (@hishgraphics) April 27, 2016 So I went to the doctor. After some questions, the doctor said, “WELCOME TO THE CLUB!” The doctor has the gout. So now I have the gout. Nothing to do but to consume the meds and control my diet to decrease the pain. Which I think might be a whole lot better than watching Showgirls.
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Like Flying Polyps But Not Really
THEN It was back in early October after Raya Haji vacation when I began to fall ill with fever, coughs and sniffles. I blew my nose at work and sprayed the toilet at the office with a bowl full of blood. That never happened before. I thought that such amount of blood should not be outside of any human body. The pain was strong and constant. It speared up into the right eye and down into the right side of the mouth. The smell of blood from my nose and mouth was incessant. (My review of Andy Weir’s novel The Martian might have been written when I was right in the middle of it as evident from the last paragraph.) One quick visit to a clinic near home, and a doctor diagnosed just a nosebleed perhaps because of my vigorous nose blowing over the days. A second visit later in […]
Continue readingYaya’s First Dentist Visit
So, now that Yaya is a big girl, it is time to ensure that she has good dental health! Yaya had her first dental checkup ever on 25 September! Wheeee! [[image:2012-yayadentist-07.jpg:Photo of George Washington’s dentures and a cool tooth-shaped mug:center:0]] According to the dental hygienist, George Washington’s teeth were set in lead (!!!!). Poor man probably died of lead poisoning. And can you imagine how heavy that must be in one’s jaw? Ouch. Yaya was very excited about the visit to the dentist. She had been asking to see the dentist for a while and voila! It was time. Yaya loved that they had a little waiting room (off the main waiting room area) for kids – with kid-sized armchairs and books. She wanted Adik to wait there with her. [[image:2012-yayadentist-01.jpg:At the kids section of the waiting room:center:0]] [[image:2012-yayadentist-02.jpg:Let’s read while we wait!:center:0]] And then Yaya’s name is called and […]
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