Lesson for all

Was chatting with 2 friends from China and we were discussing about the difference in medical care between the two countries. One of them had recently undergone a minor surgery. She mentioned that chose the private option in the hospital to avoid the cumbersome processes. In turned she had to pay 5 times more of what the other subsidized options had to pay.

Then friend 2 said that normally, when a person needs to go for surgery, just before he/she was wheeled into the operation theatre, their family would stuff a red packet full of cash to the team of surgeons, nurses etc that would be operating on that patient. This helps to "ensure" quality medical care of that patient. Well, no one knows what are the statistics for those who did not survive the operation because their family did not give the surgical team the red packet. But no one dares to test the integrity of the system either. Most of the families would end up giving some regardless of how tough it'll take them to get hold of the money.

It suddenly dawn upon me that perhaps, that was the reason why my dad did not survive his heart attack. What seems to be a pretty mild case to me lead to his death in a foreign land.

Scenario:
1. discomforts throughout the day, rested in the hotel room
2. further discomforts after dinner, dad was brought to A&E, still pretty much alive
3. nurses and "docs" saw him and started CPR on him
4. heart rate came back on and off, CPR continued throughout the night from 12midnight till 7am
5. around 6am-7am, when it was time to change shift for the hospital staff, my brother-in-law was asked to take over the CPR
6. no defrilberator was used on my dad
7. pronounced dead early in the morning

After analyzing the situation with me, both my friends agreed that there was a possibility that things might be different if there was the red packet to the hospital staff.

a. dad was sent to this hospital under the recommendation of the tour guide
b. shouldn't the tour guide pick a better hospital?
c. shouldn't the tour guide advise them better?

To lose a dad is not easy.

To lose a dad in a foreign land is tougher.

To lose a dad and only to find out years later that perhaps, there was a possibility that he would still be alive today.... is a torture.

Yes, we'll never know the difference today.

But today, we can make the difference by sharing with all our family, friends, loved ones this same information:
Be ultra prepared with loads of emergency cash whenever you travel.
Be in touch with at least a couple of friends wherever you are.

You may never know all the local cultures and practices, some times all it takes is someone who knows to tell you to do the right thing at the right time and that makes all the critical differences.

Here's to all who have lost a parent. My love goes out to you. May the Lord bless their souls and give us peace in our souls!

Metamorphosis

A thought strike me in my wee morning awaken hours. What goes through the mind of the caterpillar as it eats to grow, grow to morph into a butterfly?

How much faith would it have taken that little insect to totally trust the bodily instincts and body clock to act as it goes through its varies parts of its life cycle?

Imagine having to grow out of an egg into a multi-legged caterpillar. Its hairy, segmented, eats all the time. Every now and then, it out grows its exoskeleton and needs to moth into a bigger one. Most would consider a caterpillar an ugly organism. Would it know that from what it seems as the bottom of the charts, it'll one day be right at the top? Would it realize that one day, he would be transformed into a butterfly? From multi-legged to a flying creature leh!

It is not without hard work that the caterpillar goes through its life cycle from an egg, into the larvae stage (caterpillar), into the pupa (chrysalis) stage and finally into the beautiful insect that flies!

What if the caterpillar gave up? it'll be unable to reach its eventual stage, that would be quite sad right?

I'm drawing a parallel to me life to the life cycle of the caterpillar. Every stage of life, there seems to be a egg stage when I have little clue of what's going on. Then comes the caterpillar stage when I have to eat and ingest all the information, happenings that is occurring. Also have to run away from potential danger. Then comes the toughest stage when you have to inactivate all your physical activities, slow down, allow major transformation to take place. The chrysalis stage, when the caterpillar have to re-organize its entire being. No more multi-legged animal. No more chunky hard outer shell. No more hairy back. Even the internal organs needs to be shuffled, needs to undergo metamorphosis.

Its liken to the training of being a student of life, student of some degree, student of Christ. Our internal guts have to undergo re-organization first before we can emerge as beautifully as the butterfly.

Scientific details of the life cycle of the Butterfly here with pictures.

99 Balloons