It has been about 9 years I have not met him. He told me
that he had SLE 2-3 years ago, I thought he was joking but apparently it was
real. I didn’t feel much because I have never seen an SLE patient before. A twinky guy leap into the kopitiam, I thought
he grew a larger head – he had a pony tail now. He said he wanted to try out
the feel of having long hair.
Still retaining his dai-lou gangster behavior since national
service 2006, he speaks pompously. But I never bother anyway, it was pretty
pleasant. I guessed no much people can do it that way, it sounded like boasting
but the content is not. (I sounded fucked up.) We decided to go the ice-blended
pioneer in Sg Petani, RM2.30 a cup of red bean ice-blended with some milo
powder on top.
I looked at him, I felt difficult. I wanted to examine his
condition, but I don’t want to sound pity. I asked anyway. He had two pink lumps
with visible needle marks, the size of your thumb and I wasn’t kidding, on his
right bicep area. He is currently doing 3-4 times of dialysis per week, meaning
in alternate days he will need to visit a dialysis center with 4 hours of
treatment. He travels back and forth to Penang Island all these while. I felt
painful.
He is no longer working. He just plays games at home, and the
latest addiction is one-piece RPG game. His daily routine includes about 1 hr
of cycling 6-7am in the morning, to train leg muscles. Then he would have 2
eggs, only the egg whites to replenish the loosing muscle mass. He told me that
he may die any moment, probably tomorrow, may be next year. Life is ending soon
for him. He understands that he comes from an average income family hence he
didn’t ask money from the family. Travelling would be difficult because he
requires dialysis now and then. Despite all these, he still looks strong, as I
said, pompous and sounded boastful. He taught me some ways to talk to stranger
girls on FB, but he is not sure if that applied to gay men too. We laughed. He
is an very interesting person.
SLE, stands for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, is a FUCKED UP
disease. There is no cure to this disease. Basically it is a situation where
your body immune system have mistaken your own body as enemy, hence continuously
launching attacks to tissue and organs, causing renal failure, heart problem,
liver, brain and you name it. Real cause is majorly unknown.
Life can be fucked up to some people. But for me, I am very
lucky and I need to remind myself that.
Ouch
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