Kima's One week BCT Diary

I miss abah... [Thursday] ________________________________________________________________

Today is Thursday or in other words "malam jumaat". As for muslim, we are persuaded to recite Al-Quran or Yaasin. So, as usual after performing Maghrib prayer, me and my family will gather in my mom's room where we recite Yaasin together. It's like a tradition for us. And as been told by mom this morning, i have to attend my uncle's kenduri tonight. I did attend the kenduri and just came back from his house where suddenly i remembered that Madam Aznur said to start blogging starting from today. Since this is my first entry, so i guess i'm going to do a free writing. While at my uncle's house i read a health magazine and found something quite interesting for me. So, i started to copy it in my phone. The entry is something like this :

To get a quick snapshot of your own risk, based on your family history, ask yourself the four following questions:

1. Do you have at least two blood relatives who were diagnosed with breast cancer before menopause?
2. Do you have a blood relative who was diagnosed with breast cancer before menopause and a blood relative who developed ovarian cancer at any age?
3. If you have a family history of breast cancer, were any of the diagnosed relatives male?
4. Is your family of Ashkenazi Jewish descent?

If you answered yes to 1, 2 or 3, or to 4 along with any other question, your family history of breast cancer implies a genetic predisposition. If you said no to all of the questions listed above, or yes only to number 4, you are likely at average risk, which is probably lower than you think. A woman who has no family history has just a one in 13 chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime.

I'm not sure whether i should breathe the sigh of relief, or still worries over the possibility of being diagnosed with cancer. While at my uncle's house, I bumped into a friend of abah's. I've known him (uncle sayfol) since i was small, n was even friends with his daughter who is around the same age as mine. He couldn't make it, to see arwah for the last time, the day abah passed away. So he was questioning of abah's last moments, how it all happened, how he was so shocked and disturbed after receiving the news, and how are we coping now after all that has happened.

Reliving my last moments with arwah never fails to draw tears in me. As flashbacks of me and abah, reading the newspaper for him while he rests his head on my shoulder, fed him, washed him. All the while he was acting stranger day by day. He was more humble, cuddly, and was no more afraid to show his affection towards us. Inside, i was choking with silent sobs as i see his body, turned skeletal, his thin and sparse hair, his gaunt face...his droopy eyes, the result of endless shots of morphine and cancer drugs. He may be high on drugs then, but his mind was still as sharp as ever.

The last night i spent with him...i was so tired, but still offered to watch for abah so that emak can recover her lack of sleep. He was talking to himself, all...night...long....I kept asking him to lie down, but he refused coz that'll only make his breathing difficult...To make himself comfortable, he was in a sitting position through the night, all the while, his pair of eyes staring up the ceiling..but i wasn't afraid at all, it didn't even occurred to me that he might have seen something that night, something that we will only come to know when the same moment befall upon us. I attended him the first few hours but eventually my exhausted body surrendered to a deep sleep. I was awaken by the shriek of emak, shouting that abah has displaced himself, his waist-down still glued on the bed, but his upper body already hanging down, and the only thing that stopped him from falling off the bed was the oxygen tank which his head was resting on. I jumped from my sleep and held him up. Ya Allah, it was heart wrenching to see him like that. I felt so responsible to have left him on his own, but my body was too tired to stay alert.................sorry abah.......................

That morning, his last hours with us, i tried to feed him bread. He wasn't even chewing the bread, and instead of swallowing it, he kept it mum in his mouth. The elders said that when you are facing death, your body blocks out whatever food or drink from being ingested, to ease the process of performing ablution on the dead. Abah couldn't move himself that morning, so i had to jerk his body to shift him. He felt so heavy then. I think i even dragged him a bit since all of my energy was drenched up. He was so weak, and there was little to none response from him that morning. Sometime around 10am, abah was even weaker, and his breathing got heavy so we utter the kalimah in his ears. When abah was brought to the hospital, i didn't follow. only emak n boy accompanied him, and were by his side within his last moments. If only i had known that that night was the last night of arwah, i would have stayed awake for as long as i can and entertained him of whatever he wished. Everyone assured me that he knew that night was his last night, and he knew that i have done my best in taking care of him, the entire time he was sick. He knew i was tired from nursing him during the time he was hospitalised, so burdening me was the last thing he wanted to do then. Poor abah.....everyone misses you abah....

We may not talk heart-to-heart, see eye-to-eye, but u have always been my mentor, my idol. And i felt a great hole inside of me, emptied by the impossibility of living with you anymore. But it won't be long....it won't be long before we join you abah....Rest in peace our lovable father....al-fatihah.....

http://www.london.edu/assets/documents/PDF/sep_profile_tambi_chik.pdf

Above is the link where my dad is in it.

posted by kima at 1:44 AM >1 comments

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