Road to Recovery : The X-Box vs Florence Nightingale

Sigh...

It's day four after the big C for my boys, and they are slowly recovering...


Day One was the worst, they cried right after the procedure once the anesthetics wore off, and I mean they really, really cried! Imagine two little banshees crying on a broad daylight, and you'll get the picture. And because there were two of them crying, there are moments that I feel like suddenly I had gave birth to twins! Two very very big twin baby boys!!!! Sigh...


But I had to be strong for them. I had to reassure them that everything will be allright, and that they would be up, kicking and running again real soon. But the truth is, I was really really scared!


I mean, I have no little brothers, so I have no idea what a circumcision is all about. What I have was some hazy memories of my older brothers' (8 years my senior) experience when they had their own C. But that was a very very long, long time ago, and I was probably 3 or 4 years when my brothers entered the manhood ceremonies.


I remembered my brothers walking nervously, with both of their legs spread wide apart, holding tight to a pelikat sarong pulled AWAY from their little angry, wounded 'birds', and my brothers would shoo me away like I have some evil power whenever I came near them. And then I remembered how my parents hung a long rope from the ceiling, and at the end of the rope, they tied a makeshift little tent made from kain sarong pelikat, so that whenever my brothers lied down on their backs, the little clothes wouldn't come in touch with my brothers' angry birds, so to speak.


And then I remembered the pantang makan, or foods that are totally banned for a few days after the C ritual. Foods like crabs, squids, prawns and all other seafood are a big NO-NO, for fear that those foods would induce great itch and swell to that little birdies. Others on the No lists are eggs, chicken, nuts etc etc...Well, in short, those poor boys can only eat selected fish like tenggiri/mackarel, ikan merah/red snapper and a few other fish that would not induce such a great itch.


And so, armed with that little piece of information and some hazy memories, I tumbled head down into the maze of the big C.


But surprisingly, it was not such a bad experience at all...and all credits should go to the magic of X-Box and the games of Dynasty Warrior, Call of Duty : World at War and good old Spongebob Squarepants games.


And I noticed how the pain magically disappear in the broad daylight, when the games are running in full swing, be it they are playing as Cao Cao battling against Liu Bei or Lu Bu in Dynasty Warrior, or when my boys morphed to be a sniper, hitting at German soldiers in World at War game, or when they are Spongebob Squarepants or Patrick Star hunting for crabby patties or whatever. But the bottom line is, there is no pain in the day.


It's the night that the pain mysteriously come again. Specifically, a few moments at dusk when I ordered them to stop playing X-Box. More specifically, it's the very moment when I sternly turned off the switch on the wall -when my repeated pleas for them to stop playing just went unheard.


And so, the nights pass so slowly. Every few moments they will moan and whimper about the pains. And the moaning and the whimpering will last for the whole night. All night long. And I magically switched into Florence Nightingale. Sigh...


But hey, once the morning comes, the pain would go away, especially when I turn on the X-Box switch. Hurray!!!!!

Happy, bright faces in daytime



The Dynasty Warrior in full swing
Surprisingly,my boys seem knew Cao Cao, Lu Bu, Liu Bei etc etc more than they knew Hang Tuah...sigh...oh my god...that is sooooo unpatriotic, so not 1Malaysia-lah....could someone please invent a game about Hang Tuah brothers ???? Like, seriously ?