Just For Today

The phone man came this morning -- replaced the thingy-me-bob that the phone line and broadband line plug into, the aforesaid thingy-me-bob which then plugs into the wall socket. If you get my drift. Anyway, telecom-wise, everything is now ship-shape and Bristol fashion. I just need to keep paying the bills.
This afternoon, I went to Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulam, for a check up. I go now about once every seven months. Always see the doctor who phoned me up after he saw the result of the scan, Dr K. In fact, it's not just him but also the same nurses, hospital attendants, cleaners, clerical staff, give or take a couple of people. It is re-assuring having that level of continuity. Amazing, a public hospital.
I sit in the waiting area with all the other people. Me wondering what is going through their minds. However many people there are, in this waiting area it is always quiet. This is a place full of people immersed in their own thoughts.
Now here I am at home, remembering what was going through my head the first time I went there: stay calm, listen, write down what he tells you, repeating a mantra that had formed in my mind: all will be well, this too shall pass, how can I best serve Thee.
I am not a Christian, but I realized I needed to try and focus outwards, whatever happened. It's like teeth. Toothache: you are drawn inwards, the outside world collapses. No toothache? You forget you have teeth, the world can be your oyster. I know that with sickness and pain, it is all too easy to get grumpy, irritated, have a short fuse. I have done plenty of that. But that day in the waiting area, I knew I needed to limit that as far as possible. I needed to look out, I needed to try and be helpful to other people. If I was going to have any chance at all.
As it happened, the treatment was very aggressive. Three months of it finally made me very ill -- it took me five months to recover physically. And in recovering, I sank into a suicidal depression. Which was insane after all that I had been through... crazy.
Anyway, that has all passed. The treatment worked. I am very fortunate. And very grateful. I had no way of knowing, but with time has come many gifts. Not material. Other kinds. I discovered that many people are kind and loving. I witnessed heartbreak and grief. I witnessed quiet courage in the face of impending death.
What is it the Jesuits say? Whatever you do, do it seriously; nothing you do is serious in the long term.
Something like that.
Dr K smiles when I walk in his office and I smile back. His hair is greyer. Mine grew back the same colour. I guess I am one of his successes. Not everyone who walks through his door has much longer to live. Dr K asks me how I am and I tell him I am OK. And he says I look really well. And I respond that yes, I am. Then he gives me a physical examination, prodding with his fingers here and there. No more scans, no more urine samples, no more blood samples, no more catheters. Your basic doctoring. With a 'see you in seven months, thank you, thank you, Doctor K', I am out the door. Bus back to the ferry terminal. On board the ferry, I sit on one of those things they wrap the rope around, on the bottom deck, at the stern. Watching the harbour diminish, the wake of the ferry, the massive ocean-going ships stacked to the heavens with containers, the hills and the clouds. And say to the wind: thank you, thank you.