Day 2

My grandfather’s condition is improving. He even had the energy to regale us grandchildren with his stories and life’s experience. Through his tales, I could tell that my grandfather was a person who took life as an adventure to be enjoyed and not a problem to be solved. Even in times as such, he is optimistic of his recovery. Even if he goes, he claims that he knows he has accomplished enough to say that he has not wasted a lifetime. He also awed us with his memories and accounts of Africa and the Taj Mahal. Before this, I didn’t even know that you could see a visible line separating the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean from the southern tip of Africa. Apparently, different oceans have different properties, that is why one is darker than the other and you can thus see color differences. His journeys made us salivate with the desire to travel and motivated us to work harder in life.

My relatives had a meeting with the doctor today. I decided not to follow and stayed behind with my grandfather together with my cousins and some aunties because I did not want to undermine the credibility of the group since I had zilch to contribute anyway (let the old people handle this one); notwithstanding the fact that I would have very much liked to see what transpires from the meeting.

After the meeting, I could tell that the doctor’s attitude problem noticeably and, not to mention, surprisingly disappeared (I wonder why). A few things happened from the meeting I think we could use to incriminate him if we deem necessary.

1. He showed us a VCD of the operation and believes that it will exonerate him. On the contrary, my relatives disagreed and think it’ll only get him into bigger trouble.

2. He admitted that he had been careless and promises that he will not be so cavalier in future towards other patients. My uncle thought Dr Chua was precociously adorable when he resembled a little boy confessing his mistakes. Evidently, he was beginning to crack.

3. My dad asked him a simple question, “What would you do if an accountant did a statement of account wrongly and asked you to pay for the time he takes to make the corrections? Would you pay for the second time since he needed to make corrections?” He meekly replied, “No.” He then linked that analogy with our situation and indicated politely that we, like any other sensible person, do not wish to pay for the second operation.

We have really got this Dr Chua by the “short and curly” this time (which means by the balls).