COVIDed

After more than 2 years and after 3 jabs, I am finally COVIDed. Perhaps the most upsetting thing is that I definitely got it from someone in Landings, either during the retreat or during the last session on Monday. I woke up with a bit of phlegm on Tuesday morning. By late afternoon, my throat started to get sore from the ehem ehem throughout the day to clear the throat. I did the tele-consult and was given 3 days MC which I thought was an overkill, which turned out not to be an overkill because I had headache and fever on Wednesday. The phlegm and sore throat sort of disappeared and my ART was negative. Thus I thought it was due to me adjusting to my aunt's place: windy and hot 13th floor. In the afternoon, two people sent in the group that they had COVID. I was not that worried since I was negative in the morning.

I started to suspect the worst on Thursday. My headache and fever just disappeared but now the phlegm and sore throat returned. It is not an exaggeration to say it as the worst sore throat I have had in my life. It felt as if my whole throat was drowned in phlegm when I slept. However, the contradiction was that the actual phlegm was not as copious or as thick as the usual flu-kind of phlegm. Thus the widespread and severe throat pain was not correlated to the phlegm. Coughing out the phlegm felt like coughing out a ball of needle for my throat. To make it worst, two more people reported that they were down with COVID. Gg...

Since my symptoms did not improve on Friday, I did ART again and yeah it was positive. Previously I always worry if the result would turn positive after waiting for 15-20 minutes. Next time I don't have to worry anymore because when the result is positive, the line at T will appear very quickly the first time the liquid travels down the test strip. I did the tele-consult again to get new sets of medicines since I already ran out my fluimucil and MAC lozenges. I was given referral for supervised ART if I wanted to have my result recorded officially.

Since there is no nearby clinic which is under my company's insurance coverage, I decided to go to the nearest which is thankfully only one block away. Apparently since I had the referral letter, the test was free. Yay. With that, I will be officially exempted from any vaccination nonsense for the next 6 months. Haha.. Yeah.. even after kena COVID, I am still an anti-vaxxer. In fact, this just shows how useless the vaccination is. I already had my 3 jabs and I still get it.

Now my biggest worry is if I would spread it to my aunt. Haiz.. I don't care if I am suffering or I am dead. But currently I am staying at my aunt's place and if I trouble her more by spreading the virus, I think that is even worst than dead for me. Please, God, don't ever let that happen. I am already currently feel quite angry because I feel that this is the reward I get from serving you. After all, if I never participate in the retreat or the Run, I would definitely not going out and I would not catch the virus. Nevertheless, another part of me feels that since I get this from Church, it definitely is God's plan. It is better to get it that way and at least I can die a martyr instead of let's say just getting it from random person on the bus or MRT on my way to work or something. That would even be more lame.

Tomorrow is past 72 hours since my positive test which means I am suppose to test again. I doubt it would be negative yet. Although the phlegm and sore throat are gone now, the problems are now with runny nose and dry cough. Sigh..

Facilitator

Another Landings Run just concluded and finally I was not able to taichi the facilitator role. With it being a physical run, there is no way to get cover from the other parishes. This is the first time my baby face is actually useful since the people in my group are in late 20s to early 30s. Being the youngest, youngest looking and the laziest person who does not have other responsibilities, I have no other excuse to siam.

As cliche as it sounds: God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called. I am bad with saying prayers and affirmations and I am not even a good Catholic role model. I basically do not have the qualifications for being a facilitator. All I have is only my age being closer to the group. I was worried that I projected my own stress to the group and I am glad that overall, everything went well and everyone had a good Run.

While the first few weeks were surprisingly well for me, the last few weeks were getting tougher and tougher. I was not well during week 8 but another person was already down with COVID. I needed another group photo to be used for the retreat booklet since the previous photo taken at home session was missing one person. I had no choice but to force myself to attend that session just to take a photo. At least having two incomplete photos of the group is better than than a random Google image for the retreat booklet.

The next stress was to find a personalised Bible verse for everyone in my group. For someone who does not read the Bible, it was a search from the scratch. Writing paper affirmations for the group was also not as easy as expected because I was too perfectionist. I was worried about the positioning of the writings, if I made any spelling errors etc.

I was too premature to be thankful that renovation plan was just nice to not interfere with retreat. My original plan was to go home after the retreat, do laundry, do some packing and transfer some stuff to my aunt's place. Only after the last session tonight then I would bring my working laptop and start staying at my aunt's place and the renovation starts tomorrow. Unfortunately on last Tuesday, they said not to use the toilet anymore from today because they are starting to work at the unit upstairs and they worry if it would affect the water in my unit. Bleah... There is no way I do not use the toilet for one day. That totally ruins my original plan. I had to concurrently pack for retreat and for the luggage to bring to my aunt's place. I transferred my luggage and laptops to my aunt's place on Friday and I would just go there after the retreat.

I was annoyed when someone told me he had to work on Saturday of the retreat. The retreat dates were already made known since 2 months ago and he told me about his work few days just before the retreat. Sheesh.. It made me worrying over most of the Saturday if he would turn up or not. I was already stressed over the group prayer session and if he arrived in the middle of it, I would have to leave halfway to explain to him. In the end, he arrived only after the group prayer. Perhaps I was the only one who was overly worried about the group prayer. Everyone else seemed to be okay with saying their prayers and I was the one stuttering.

We did not go to RedDot for drinks last night since it closed rather early. Some people brought drinks and we drank at the canteen instead. I regretted wanting to kaypoh that one can of Asahi beer. Haha.. I know I could not hold my alcohol well and it got me tipsy. Thank goodness that unlike the previous retreat, there were fewer people staying over. This time, we could use the shower room with the heater rather early. Although I did not have any nightmare like previously, I still did not sleep well because a pipe in the toilet was making a constant whistling noise throughout the night.

It was raining so heavily after lunch that I wasted 2 hours just to wait for the rain to stop. I did not want to take risk with Grab because everyone who took Grab on Saturday was dropped off at the wrong place. I just realised that when the default address in Grab when FMM House is selected is 49D Holland Road, instead of 49 Holland Road. I could try inputting 49 Holland Road directly but if the Grab could not find me, I also could not help with the rain. Anyway in the end I waited and went back together with a group mate so consider it as a bonding ba.

Honestly, I was too pre-occupied with my tasks as a facilitator that I did not really enjoy or benefit from the retreat. Well, I suppose that is part of my service and offering for this Ministry. Now that everything is concluded, I am thankful to God for this Run and for this group. The main takeaway for me is the realisation that I start to lose the 'joy' and to grow tired because I start to treat Landings as a ministry. I need to re-orientate myself again to think that this is a community first so that I do not lose my way again. I hope the new people will join the community since having more people around my age and whom I know maybe the fresh breath of air that I need.

Trip down the memory lane

Two weeks ago I attended a training for a new volunteering role that I signed up. Of all possible places for the training, it was at TPY South CC. Yep, just next to my old workplace for me to re-live the journey there on a Saturday morning by taking 238 and all that. Because of the timing of the training, the only Mass I could attend was the evening Sunday Mass at Risen Christ. I felt that Risen Christ is very run down now: the building is, looks and feels old and I thought the audio/acoustic in the church was bad with the echo. The priest's accent also made it difficult to hear. Anyway the church building is already past 50 years old. It is time for a massive renovation or rebuilding since just re-painting is not going to help the age. I was baptised there and I used to consider it as my parish. I thought the trip there after so many years would rekindle some positive feelings. Nope, I am glad that I am currently at the Holy Spirit. Hahaha... The RCIY coordinators during my time are no longer around so really there is nothing for me to have any sense of belonging anymore.

The training is interesting and an eye opener for me. As a healthcare professional, I was taught not to use the word 'suicide', even when discussing or counselling patients on medical conditions or possible side effects from drugs. I was taught to re-phrase it to 'thoughts of self-harm'. In contrast, in the field of suicidology (yes there is such word) or basically among people dealing with people at actual high risk of suicide, we are supposed to be direct to ask if someone has the thoughts of suicide. In this area, suicide carries the meaning of having death as the intention while self-harm may only be intended to cause injury but not death. As an example, self-harm may mean only cutting the skin to leave marks/scars as opposed to suicide may mean cutting vital veins to bleed to death. It is definitely a new knowledge and humbling experience for me.

Interestingly, a few people asked if I was a brother of a priest because they thought I look and speak similarly. Woah.. Since these few people are not related and know the priest not exactly from the same occassion, I got curious. Usually I would brush it off but this time, I honestly can see some resemblance and I am not surprised that they thought I was related. Lucky I know my father never came to Singapore before the 1990s so there is no way I have a brother from another mother hahaha...

I had intermittent fever since Friday. I was negative for COVID so I went to see doctor yesterday to check if it was dengue. My sister had dengue previously and her symptoms were kinda similar to mine. The doctor doubted it was dengue since my intermittent fever was low-grade, but in the end he agreed to do the dengue test. The most surprising part was that he gave me 2 days MC hohoho... I thought I would only get 1 day since he doubted it was anything serious. I suppose the 2 days MC is the cure I need since the dengue is negative and I am okay now. Hehe...

Since I am still on MC today, I could go for 12pm All Saints' Day mass at Novena Church. All Saints' Day always holds a special memory for me since it was the very first mass I practised and played organ for when I was in CJC Hostel ages ago. Ironically, it was kinda meh and did not lift my spirit up like what I expected. Since it was a lunch time mass, there was no music so it felt like a mass during COVID all over again which is not something I would like to remember. After mass, the bookshop was just as crowded as it usually is after Novena sessions on Saturdays. Anyway since I had nothing on to do and I had to get some cards for written affirmations for my Landings group, I decided to wait until the crowd left.

And God really works in miraculous way. Despite it being the middle of the day, the weather was cloudy and comfortable even for me to sit and wait at the non-covered area. I waited for around half an hour and just that waiting recovered my drooping spirit. It also made me reflect that while music really makes a difference during mass, I still have remember that essence of the mass is not only the music. Thus I should appreciate music during mass but at the same time should not be upset with a mass which is at its bare essential. I should remember the feeling during the first few weeks when physical masses were allowed again after relaxation of the COVID rules. Back then, even without the music, just being able to be attend a mass at church and to receive communion were already fulfil my spirit. So yeah perhaps today's All Saints' Day mass is not all that wasted.