I decided to delay returning to Australia for a week, as my grand father has been hospitalized.
I was meant to fly out on Monday afternoon, but on Sunday night just before dinner my Grandfather (A-Gong) developed some pretty severe shakes and had high temperatures. We took him to ER at the local hospital and he was put on drips. He spent the night in ER and was transferred to an ordinary ward the next day. He’d had long term kidney problems and it turns out that he has a bad chest and kidney infection, so he’s here just to get rid of the infection and get some more tests.
So given every one else is at work I am spending time with him in the ward during the day, while my Dad, who's also in Taiwan briefly to sort out IP rights for his invention is doing night shifts. I really like spending time with AG – he has a really odd sense of humour and has so many fascinating stories from a "lost time". At the same time he's hard work in the sense that he's stubborn and won't take other people's advice, and it gets worse as he gets older. He basically won't admit that he's seriously ill and tells everyone he's ready to go home when he's got a 40c temperature and pissing orange urine. I guess I can understand how hard it is having had a long life of achievements, raising a family, holding a career and being a respected member of community, then having to be wheeled around like a child by doctors younger than his grandkids – it is a challenge to one's basic dignity, but its also damn hard even just trying to get him to drink more water!!
Its sad looking at how old he’s become. As a child he always seemed like such a big solid man, and would take me for rides on his bike (he swears against driving). He had so many friends and talked and laughed and drank like a fish (yep he gave me those genes) and seemed to know so much about the world. His father, my Great-grandfather, was alive till I was ten. AG looked so much like my GGF now, all skinny and his silver hair thinned out, sit around reading old books all day peering through a pair of glasses, talking very little except an occasional quip about something quite random and out of the blue. AG looked after GGF till GGF passed away, and looked after my Grandmother till she died too. He was always there being the strong hold and the decision maker. GGF stayed at this very same hospital on and off in his last year of life. There seemed to be a bit of irony about this all. That was 1989 and I remember coming here with AG and navigating through this maze like hospital, buying the newspaper and lunch at the underground mall of the hospital. We all each have our turn at playing the role of the patient and the nurse. It must be hard for him to be the one that’s being carted around now.
Being in the hospital environment seems to be reminding AG a lot about his experience as a medic in the Japanese army during WWII in Taipei. (Taiwan was a Japanese colony between 1895 and 1945). Taiwan wasn’t a war front but a military base, and was bombed by the Allies constantly. Most of the local Taiwanese soldiers did housekeeping stuff like civil evacuations, post-bombing rebuilding, and looking after a few POWs. AG was just out of high school and his job was to tape up injured soldiers that rummage through ruined buildings all day and recover shot down bomber planes. He claims he became an alcoholic by mixing meths from the first aid room with water, and the reason why he doesn’t eat barbequed food is a legacy from his experience. He seems to think the medical staff here has no idea of what they are doing, and would rather "treat his own cold" (by staying up late and reading the paper and playing with his drip needle). When the doctor gets here he first mistook her as the nurse just cos she’s a woman, and then launches into a rant about how he bet he’s amputated more legs than she has. But he’s always so polite to the nurses when they come and get his temperature and tells me that’s a rule of thumb. He complains that the hospital ward Pajamas they give him are Japanese POW uniforms and wants his own PJs brought in.
I was meant to fly out on Monday afternoon, but on Sunday night just before dinner my Grandfather (A-Gong) developed some pretty severe shakes and had high temperatures. We took him to ER at the local hospital and he was put on drips. He spent the night in ER and was transferred to an ordinary ward the next day. He’d had long term kidney problems and it turns out that he has a bad chest and kidney infection, so he’s here just to get rid of the infection and get some more tests.
So given every one else is at work I am spending time with him in the ward during the day, while my Dad, who's also in Taiwan briefly to sort out IP rights for his invention is doing night shifts. I really like spending time with AG – he has a really odd sense of humour and has so many fascinating stories from a "lost time". At the same time he's hard work in the sense that he's stubborn and won't take other people's advice, and it gets worse as he gets older. He basically won't admit that he's seriously ill and tells everyone he's ready to go home when he's got a 40c temperature and pissing orange urine. I guess I can understand how hard it is having had a long life of achievements, raising a family, holding a career and being a respected member of community, then having to be wheeled around like a child by doctors younger than his grandkids – it is a challenge to one's basic dignity, but its also damn hard even just trying to get him to drink more water!!
Its sad looking at how old he’s become. As a child he always seemed like such a big solid man, and would take me for rides on his bike (he swears against driving). He had so many friends and talked and laughed and drank like a fish (yep he gave me those genes) and seemed to know so much about the world. His father, my Great-grandfather, was alive till I was ten. AG looked so much like my GGF now, all skinny and his silver hair thinned out, sit around reading old books all day peering through a pair of glasses, talking very little except an occasional quip about something quite random and out of the blue. AG looked after GGF till GGF passed away, and looked after my Grandmother till she died too. He was always there being the strong hold and the decision maker. GGF stayed at this very same hospital on and off in his last year of life. There seemed to be a bit of irony about this all. That was 1989 and I remember coming here with AG and navigating through this maze like hospital, buying the newspaper and lunch at the underground mall of the hospital. We all each have our turn at playing the role of the patient and the nurse. It must be hard for him to be the one that’s being carted around now.
Being in the hospital environment seems to be reminding AG a lot about his experience as a medic in the Japanese army during WWII in Taipei. (Taiwan was a Japanese colony between 1895 and 1945). Taiwan wasn’t a war front but a military base, and was bombed by the Allies constantly. Most of the local Taiwanese soldiers did housekeeping stuff like civil evacuations, post-bombing rebuilding, and looking after a few POWs. AG was just out of high school and his job was to tape up injured soldiers that rummage through ruined buildings all day and recover shot down bomber planes. He claims he became an alcoholic by mixing meths from the first aid room with water, and the reason why he doesn’t eat barbequed food is a legacy from his experience. He seems to think the medical staff here has no idea of what they are doing, and would rather "treat his own cold" (by staying up late and reading the paper and playing with his drip needle). When the doctor gets here he first mistook her as the nurse just cos she’s a woman, and then launches into a rant about how he bet he’s amputated more legs than she has. But he’s always so polite to the nurses when they come and get his temperature and tells me that’s a rule of thumb. He complains that the hospital ward Pajamas they give him are Japanese POW uniforms and wants his own PJs brought in.
How am I going to make him go to sleep?
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