Sayang

I was on call again last night, so I made a quick stop at the emergency department hoping to have a quick chat with my old buddy whom I haven't seen for a while. We came all the way from med-school days.

Having just returned from a long holiday, you could tell from his skin tone that he'd muck about too long with his scuba stunts.

"Sorry can't talk now bro, I'm busy" Joe looked preoccupied with his patient in the last cubicle. For a man who just came back from holiday he looked like shit.

I shifted my attention to his patient who seemed to be in laboured breathing. The man is in his late 40's. Muscular and tall, rather good looking I suppose. The non-invasive ventilator AKA CPAP covered the centre of his face. The mask snuggled quite nicely to his dark brown beard. The CPAP machine is used to force oxygen pressure into his lungs to help him breath better.

"Hurm asthma, looking pretty bad here, you may need to watch for respiratory fatigue, he may well need to be electively intubated" I told Joe what he already knew.

"Yea yea! We've done all we can for now, but what I really need right now is his family's phone number, coz this guy is too breathless and tired to tell us, and we've been trying to locate his next of kin via his handphone directory" Joe's losing his cool that night.

We looked through the usual method...under each possible alphabet:

W = for wife

I = isteri

A = abang/adik/ayah

etc.. etc .. nothing useful came out.

Moments passed, before it hit me "Joe, try under S"

"Huh for what, superman?"

"Just give it a shot, will ya buddy"

True enough the word SAYANG appeared on the screen. I smiled thinking to myself this patient before us could be the last romantic Malaysian man on earth.

Joe quickly made the call and spoke to a lady who is the wife of this unfortunate chap.

"Ma'am we need to inform you that your husband is ill, his asthma may got worsen and it would be better if you could come to our hospital now"

"Well I really can't come right now, there are lotta things I need to handle at home, with kids and everything, really I can't, doctor just do whatever you can to help him and I'll come by 1st thing tomorrow morning, I promise" she ended the conversation.

Joe looked at me "So much for sayang eh"

"Hurm well maybe she lost a little bit of those sayang through out their years together " I looked at the patient, hoping he didn't hear what his wife said to Joe.

I suppose the last thing the man with 'broken lungs' needed at that time is a broken heart.