Traumas of change

Moving is hard, cancer treatment is harder

A new place to live in Singapore

The view of Outram Road from the National Cancer Centre in Singapore, where my father has his weekly chemotherapy session.

We arrived in Singapore nearly two weeks ago and moved into our new apartment a few days later.

I caught COVID for the third time, probably from our stay in Madrid. It felt like a brief cold, nothing as bad as the bronchitis that I had for the month of May.

Moving was frustrating.

That first night in the new flat, I could not sleep.

The previous tenant left the flat “professionally cleaned” using a 4-hour service that would not remove lizard droppings from walls, dust or grease stains in the kitchen. The cleaner who came to do touch-ups said that they did not clean the walls for fear of damaging the paint job. That they had spent a lot of time cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, which were in a terribly dirty state.

Taps leaked. There were rust stains, mildew, mould and hard water stains in bathroom fittings. Our suitcases were attacked by ants after I left them open on the floor. From there, I followed an ant trail leading to a hinge in a kitchen cabinet; I doused it with household cleaner to drown them out. The ant baits probably worked too.

The second-hand washing machine provided by the landlord had insect casings in the filter catchment. After cleaning the machine with a washing machine liquid cleaner, the insides looked like a Korean seaweed soup. We gave up and told the landlord’s agent that it was unacceptable. He said that he would see to the repairs. However, the landlord refused to change the kitchen tap, which, “by design”, continued to leak for about 20 seconds after it was turned off. Finally he acceded to our request to cover the installation fees while we pay for the tap.

I want to go back to Tegueste.

Bit by bit, we are furnishing the apartment with second-hand or loaned items offered by family and friends. I do not see the point of buying new things all over again, only to have to rid ourselves of them when the lease ends.

My son now sleeps on a floor mattress in a bedroom with a floor lamp and nothing else. I read him a book or two, or three, and hug him while we fall asleep under a sheet with promises that the “bad guys” like the big bad wolf are locked out, and that dinosaurs are friendly. Some days he tells me that he wants to see his friends at school in Tenerife. Some days we struggle with outbursts of not wanting to be in Singapore, or not wanting to get into the stroller, or not wanting…

I want to go back to Tegueste.

He wants his cousin to come visit. To play frontón.

Here he gets to see Grandpa and Grandma, play with his other cousin and ride double decker buses, but it isn’t Tenerife.

Waiting

I am writing from one of the many waiting rooms in the National Cancer Centre, where he is undergoing the last session of his first cycle of chemotherapy. Public hospitals in Singapore are very well furnished and green, a cheery contrast to the bleak and debilitating cancer treatments.

Cancer statistics in Singapore are grim - cancer is the leading cause of death here, with about 250 diagnosed with cancer per 100,000 residents.

This is my second visit with my father. This space is filled with many people- gaunt-looking patients with scarves and hats, in wheelchairs or not. More often old than young. Wigs and bald spots where hair and eyebrows used to grow. Caregivers holding bags, canes, tapping on their phones or working on their laptops while waiting.

With treatment, there is a lot of waiting. Waiting for the blood draw, waiting for the blood test results, waiting for the chemotherapy to start, waiting for the chemotherapy to end.

We saw a friend over the weekend- her father passed away from cancer this year. He did not tell his friends till it was very, very late. He did not want to know about his prognosis, nor did she know till about a year into his two-year timeline given by his oncologist. There was surgery, chemotherapy… and in the end, it was just waiting at home, served by a hospice nurse, as he got weaker and weaker.

Knowing

A colleague told me that I was lucky to be part of my father’s cancer journey. She did not know till it was beyond treating - when her parents had to hire a live-in helper to care for her father.

This generation is “stoic, lah”. They don’t want to acknowledge it. If we don’t talk about it, it does not exist.

My father has broadcasted this to all his family. His siblings phone often to check on him.

“I know I have to eat to get my strength back, but some days it is just hard to eat. But I need to get my strength back to fight this, ” my father told me as we rode the taxi to the hospital.

Some of the side effects kicked in last week, and it is difficult to see.

We just have to hang in there, and wait.