Take Heart

So last December I did a medical screening. In fact it was Christmas Eve morning at the ungodly half past eight in the morning (the only slot available apparently) that I had to trudge myself over to the clinic at Ngee Ann City to take advantage of unspent money before year was up. Yes I was kiasu. It was a good 2-3 since a proper medical so I figured the additional effort wouldn't be wasted.

By the start of February I hadn't yet received word about my report. I sent an email and got word back that they had sent me an SMS about collection and a doctor's appointment sometime in January. Well then. Anyway, I set up another meeting and was back at said clinic the following Tuesday.

The lady doctor who saw me asked if the clinic had asked me to come down urgently. I replied no. She then went to explain what triggered her alarms. Apparently, my running treadmill test showed a funny line and they suspected that I had mychardial ischemia in a part of my heart. It's serious apparently. If you look it up, it means a part of heart isn't getting enough oxygen. She went on to cite my higher than average cholesterol count and my ballooning BMI. All else was fine. Well, a fattier liver. The doctor went to recommend a specialist at Mount Elizabeth hospital for an immediate follow-up.

So this blow was delivered to me three odd weeks ago. It's a lot of information to process. Suddenly from the glimmer of post Mayan. apocalypse invincibility, I was pulled into the shallows of death and despair in the form of a cardiac arrest. I overstate.

I called Mount E and asked about the cost of tests related to my suspected condition. A CT angiogram would cost $1600. I called Raffles Hospital and the same scan was quoted at $900. Hello! Who's trying to con the heart patient? A chichi CT at Orchard Rd is almost double that in bourgeois Bugis? Good lord.

I opted for Raffles and met a doctor who showed me a PowerPoint with Khaw Boon Wan and Donald Rumsfled heart troubles.

I did a 2D Echo at the same appointment - that's an ultrasound to check my valves. They went flip flap flip flap. Quite amazing.

My CT scan appointment was a little trouble. On the Monday of my first appointment I declined having the test done that afternoon in favour of going back to work and announcing my medical dilemma to co-workers to lift the burden. I called the hospital two days later to make an appointment and they could only slot me a week later! I was like what the hell?! I could kaput anytime and they could only check me out a week later?! Heavens to Betsy! Santamaria Lady Gaga Maria And The Diamonds! Hakuna Matata! But what could I do but wait.

I turned rabbit and cut meat out for most of the week. I still drank too much on Fridays. I started thinking about oatmeal.

I think the psychological impact of this news was more devastating than the reality. I woke up in the middle of the night a few times. I would wonder if I was having a heart attack and wait to feel if symptoms got worse. One night my left bicep was twitchy and the arm sort of went numb. Yikes! Left arm, heart is on the left, this must be it. I'm a goner! I survived the night and morning. I hit the A&E around noon time. They ECG-ed me and took some blood. I wasn't exactly nervous though. And the results proved inconclusive. I was fine. I did learn that the heart leaks certain detectable enzymes into the bloodstream that allow doctors to predict the onset of a heart attack.

The CT scan went fine though the I was cold under the robe. And the waiting after popping the beta blocker pill was excruciating. 2 hours of just hanging around with my restless heart. The beta blocker got me chillaxed though, because that's what it does. Heart calm, head going nuts and feet cold. A $1000 and half hour later, it was over.

And so we arrive at today, the doctor's visit to expose the truth. I also ate my first bowl of oatmeal this morning. Uurrggggh. The funny doctor called me by my family name which was weird. Smiling, he asked how I was. I replied ok and asked him how he was doing. He said he was smiling because my results were fine. All this in the reception area. The tests revealed I had zero calcified deposits in my arteries. That meant I would have less than a 5% chance of a heart attack in the next 3 years. Over the moon lah. The doctor went to talk about his cycling father and marathon running patient, both of whom earned his displeasure at their over-exertion. He said 20-30 minutes of walking a day is enough. When you knees go however, the inactivity means you have a 50% higher chance of kicking the bucket. Yikes.

We tried out the Azumio heart rate app I downloaded into my iPhone. The app put my heart rate at 64, the manual wrist feel and clock watch method struck 68. The doc gave his thumbs up.

So I'm fine. The doctor asked me to see him in 2 years, a note in my file that confused the receptionist nurse. I hope to never have the need to see him again.

I guess the worst part of this ordeal of sorts was second guessing that the running, walking and yoga wasn't doing me any good. I felt misled, by myself. It was unnecessary. Not that I should now load up the meat and drown in booze or throw away the Omega pills. Being unsure drove me nuts and I shouldn't have bothered. A little bit of faith in oneself goes a long way.

Announced! The Quick Zip Up North!

The gahmen announced that they've come into an agreement with our northern counterparts to build a high speed railway system between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Finally, the masses breathed. Bus companies probably got very nervous and the airlines knew they'd lose their most profitable route ever. But the masses, well, embraced the thought of blazing past oil palm estates in the blink of an eye, within two hours' grasp of true ampang yong taufu and black Hokkien mee. And relatives, of course, well, why not. But mostly it's stomach before heart. Weekends will never be the same again.

Ok this is where it could get ugly. The gahmen might site the Singapore station in Tuas. I can understand why (available land, an easy out to Malaysia via the 2nd link, a spark for further development etc) but good God Almighty no! At least Jurong East please where MRT lines meet. Or better yet Buona Vista. Even Punggol would be a better option. But Tuas? People would get lost just trying to get there. Taxi drivers could make a killing but will be reluctant to travel to a far flung location.

It would be nice if they transformed the old Malayan Railway building at Tanjong Pagar into the new high speed terminal but keeping all the retro architecture and facade, sort of like the St Pancras London Eurostar terminal. Cool but unlikely.

Well, now we wait. For the elections in Malaysia to be over and for our connected dreams of Malaysian hawker food in quick grasp to come true.

Say No To 6.9 Million People Event, 16 Feb 2013

Given that nearly 4000 people had signed up to attend, I wasn't surprised to see fellow audience members clad in black when I got out of the train at Clarke Quay MRT. The weather hadn't quite let up. I was worried that a persistent downpour would render the event fruitless, but gloomy skies with pockets of intermittent rain didn't quite bother the umbrella-ready crowd. At the station exit, there were many old men chatting under shelter and a sole MRT worker keeping an eye on things. I entered the drizzle and sauntered onto the wet grass, past the table selling the official 'No To 6.9 Million' T-shirt. There were clappers and bottles of water being distributed as well. I ventured further into Hong Lim Park, looking for friends (we would remain lost for a while). A good of young and old persons, mostly locals and some foreigners. Maybe even some tourists. The journalists with their long cameras and longer tripods were weaving their way through the crowd. I plonked myself somewhere in the middle, guided by Watsapp messages of navigation.

Gilbert Goh started talking a little after 4pm, thanking everyone for coming. One by one, the speakers would take the stage over the next 3 hours to make their points on why we should oppose the White Paper on Population Growth.

As I write this 2 days later, I recall Ravi Philemon talking about his kids not having opportunities in their homeland; a Cradius Tan (?) asking the government to place bets in casinos and not with its people; a young lady who we likened to Ris Low who talked working as a toilet cleaner for $10 an hour when she was studying in Australia; a middle aged Chinese man (who did insurance I think) who kept to the theme that our government and people were in denial. He made a lot of sense; a Malay lawyer who has 7 kids and expecting number 8; Tan Kin Lian who talked about welfare for the elderly; the charismatic Vincent Wijeysingha who expressed that this gathering wasn't anti-foreigner but pro-Singaporean, not against people but policy; Tan Jee Say was the last guest speaker and he was vocal. "Your Prime Minister has failed his country". There may have been a few more speakers but they weren't memorable enough to make this post.

I expected a variety of arguments. Some were logical, some fair, some seemingly baseless, some erroneous, some emotional to elicit an intended response. Even contradictory - someone talked about HDB flat prices going up and how that meant a worse future. Another speaker talked about falling HDB prices and that meant the same fate. Some persons talked about welfare systems in Australia and the Nordic states without mentioning the high levels of personal income tax individuals pay to sustain these measures, something I don't think Singaporeans are ready for.

There was multiple mention of xenophobia and that this event was not an anti-foreigner rally. Most knew what this meant but some choose to ignore it. There were frequent shouts of "Kick out the foreigners" or variations of that throughout the rally. These guys are dangerous. They do not see the right problem and likely are victims of policy that saw perhaps their jobs replaced with lower cost foreign workers or have noisy non-local neighbours. They are angry, and when you're angry, you say stupid and do stupid things.

The key takeaway for me was that the gahmen wasn't listening. They rushed through this White Paper without explaining simply what the aims were and it was easy for us to pick on a number to run with, the now infamous 6.9. There are fair points in the release but the one-sided delivery from high and mighty mouths overshadowed the weighty issues.

Personally, I don't want to live in a super-crowded city. At the same time, I wished Singaporeans would grow up and accept certain truths while developing their social graces. We have a long way to go. Speaking up is a good start.

Oh MP Where Are You? My First MPS

I went to my first Meet-The-People session yesterday. First since moving to Sengkang. I wanted to tell my MP how I felt about a few recent events and perhaps an old one.

So I went at about 9pm after I had to do some scouting around. You see, one of things I had to bring up, was the new roofing that was about to come up on my neighbourhood multi-storey carparks. I couldn't understand why good money was being spent on creating roofing to protect cars when we're trying to reduce our vehicle population, and also when the car park space wasn't even maxxed out yet. The latter I had to verify with my own eyes. So I went to 3 carparks, climbed flights of stairs to the penultimate deck, took a picture at each one and climbed down. A convinced man makes a better case. That's one. Two, there was a survey to build a Multi-Purpose Hall near my block. They would tear up grass and pretty trees for this monstrosity that would attract noisy vermin in the middle of the night. No, I wouldn't agree to it. Three, as many of you may know already, there are no coffeeshops in my neck of the woods. Nil, nada, zero, kosong. I was thinking - why build the coffeeshops on the damn car park roofs? These are already built to support the weight of many cars, why not people who are sitting down to eat?

Last but not least, I wanted to tell my MP that I disagree that the PM should have unfettered discretion at deciding when a by-election should be held. At least a timeframe should be stipulated in our constitution. It's a democracy, so there should not be a time when the people, regardless of how many, are unrepresented by government. I figure a maximum of 4 months. That's debatable so there should be a debate. And the decision shouldn't rest with one person. One person government is a monarchy or dictatorship. This we ain't. It's in our pledge, the one I recited since I was 7.

Guess what? My MP was not there.

He was busy handling cases over at Michael Palmer's constituency. The middle-aged persons at the counter looked blankly when I told them my issues and looked more confused when it seemed I couldn't understand why my MP wasn't at my scheduled neighbourhood Meet-The-People Session. I told them that there should have at least be a sign or something indicating the MP's absence. So I was somewhat miffed. Then I had to fill in this form stating my issues. I wrote and wrote. They were a little surprised that I could, it seems. They fluttered around me speaking in Mandarin, saying that this fella wanted to see the MP. I guess the people who came to Meet-The-People Sessions weren't that intelligent and followed all instructions from these MPS volunteers or attendees just weren't that bothered by the misnomer in context. I was the thrithieth person not to see the MP yesterday.

Turns out that these MPS volunteers don't even reside in my neighbourhood. They couldn't relate to my neighbourhood issues.

I left after passing over the form, and I apologised if they felt I came on too strong about the lack of MPness. They assured me Mr Teo Ser Luck would contact me via email.