What A Fry Day

On Friday afternoon I went to Jerantut Hospital to get my hypertension medication. It was about 3pm. As usual I had to go through screening and what do you know, my blood pressure reading was 197/128.

So I was made to take the pill and rest for half an hour before seeing the doctor: a practice at the hospital that I never questioned. After all, doctors would know best.

After half an hour of rest, I went to the screening room again. No one was around. I waited for five minutes then enquired at the registration counter. I was asked to wait. It was past half-past four. Hospital closes at five. I was getting quite agitated. I went looking for the assistant nurse who took my bp reading earlier. She said she was off duty. Somebody else was on duty then. I asked her to help me find the person or find me a doctor coz it was almost five and the doctor’s room I was assigned to was empty. I saw the doctor walking away while I was resting after taking the medicine. He even waved at me [he remembered me from my son’s dengue fever case].

Eventually, somebody came and took my bp reading. It remained the same. I was starting to feel stressed. I asked where I was supposed to go to since there was no doctor in the examination room. An HA [Health Assistant] passed by. He suggested I go to the Emergency Unit. I thought there was no point for that. I could go and see a private doctor. I went to the hospital in the first place because I wanted to get my medication which, since I am a public servant, I thought it is appropriate for me to utilize government facilities such as the hospital. After all, free health care is part of the fringe benefit accorded to public servants [I wonder if other public servants in other countries enjoy this benefit].

Upon hearing that I wanted to leave, five nurses surrounded me. One took the hospital card nobody knew what to do with earlier, the rest hold my arms and coaxed me into staying because it would be dangerous for me to leave in my condition [they knew I drove myself to the hospital]. One even asked if I wanted to be pushed in a wheelchair. Sheeeeeeeezzzzzz!!!

That did me in. I couldn’t hold the tears in the well. I was embarrassed. The whole thing was turning into a melodrama. I asked to sit down. The pain in my knee was so bad [could stress do that?]. The nurses kept asking me why I wanted to leave. I said I just wanted to see a doctor and get my medication and since there was no doctor to attend to me, I needed to make haste and go to a private clinic before it closed for the day.

I got up to go and they tried to stop me. It must have looked really awkward. The nurse who took my hospital card earlier came running with my medication. I have no idea how she got them because I did not get to see any doctor. It was a month supply of nifedipine and metoprolol.

Spondylosis and metoprolol … hmmm … perhaps I had better start shopping for a wheelchair while I can still drag my legs.

Odyssey

It has been sometimes since I watch TV. Last weekend I watched Odyssey and inevitably, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner came to mind brought about by the albatross portrayed in the story. An albatross commands a very powerful image of luck and most significant [until refuted recently] is being regarded as a symbol of lifelong bond between couples.

Seemingly fickle in deciding a mate, but displaying a very elaborate and romantic courtship which might span two years, they meet and work on nest construction for several seasons before breeding and nurturing a bond that can last 20 years or more. Once an albatross chooses its mate, it is known to stay together and should one dies, the other one would die too. Such is the image commanded by this grandest living flying machine on Earth which crosses ocean basins and circumnavigates the globe (NatGeo Dec’07).

Odysseus is the mythological Greek hero renowned for his guile and resourcefulness and is most famous for the eventful ten years it took him to return home from the Trojan War. He enrages Poseidon who then thwarts his journey home. His is the Trojan Horse which helps the Greeks win the ten-year war with the Troys. After winning the war, on his way back he visits the island of the witch-goddess Circe who falls in love with him because he resists her and despite being released, Odysseus spends a year of feasting and drinking until finally, his men convince Odysseus that it is time to leave for Ithaca, where his son Telemachus whom he left when he was born; has grown into a sensible young man and takes it upon himself to defend his mother’s virtue from a host of suitors.

Out of love for the mortal, the witch-goddess Circe actually advises Odysseus on the remaining stages of the journey. Sadly, his crew who has been the ones to convince Odysseus to go home ignore the warnings of Circe and were punished with a shipwreck in which all but Odysseus himself were drowned. He was washed ashore on the island of Calypso, where she compelled him to remain as her lover for seven years.

Gods have other plans for Odysseus and thus he escaped the beautiful nymph Calypso and made it to Ithaca just as his son, Telemachus landed on the shore and Penelope his wife saw an albatross gliding the wind from her window.

At a time where sexual promiscuity is the rule of the land, Penelope is portrayed as a very virtuous lady. Telemachus too, despite a missing father figure and a corrupt society grows up to be a wholesome person.

The story is about a man’s journey. His pride eventually incurs the wraths of god. But other gods who like Odysseus ‘conspires’ and lend him a helping hand here and there. Like all narratives the story has a happy ending. The image of the albatross circling Penelope’s sky accentuates its rhetorical reputation.

However, I watched Animal Planet and discovered that the albatross is no less promiscuous when the partner is not around. What a let down!!!