Enjoyment, then helplessness

Today, I spent the morning and early afternoon at Sentosa, and the late afternoon at Pasir Ris. Sentosa was enjoyable, as I was in the company of dear running friends. At Pasir Ris, I felt very helpless indeed.

Sentosa

At 7:55 am, Mum roused me from my sleep and said, "Son, isn't your friend supposed to pick you up from the bus-stop at 8 am?" At first, I tried to hide under my blanket to shut out her voice, but a few seconds later, the impact of her words hit me. Run3 had arranged to pick me up and drive us to Sentosa for the NUS Biathlon this morning!

I leapt out of bed and looked at my mobile phone. There was 1 new message. It was from Run3. "Will be slightly late...will arrive at 8:15" Great, I thought to myself, that gives me about 15 mins to wash up, grab a bite, grab my bag and rush off to the bus-stop. At 8:05 am, Run3 rang me up, and said she was already there at the bus-stop. Darn, I was still in the house! But it turned out that she was at the wrong bus-stop, so I asked her to do a U-turn to the correct bus-stop while I ran out of my flat, down to the void deck of my HDB block and right to the correct bus-stop. Phew. I managed to catch Run3's car when it arrived.

The two of us reached Sentosa shortly. We parked at the Tanjong Beach carpark, and met DiverRunner (who was not competing because of an injury), Astrogirl, Sotong, Tiwazz, Gentle, and Sportsventurer (the runner formerly known as Littlefoot). Run3 and I left them to apply sunblock on one another while we went to look for Fd and TheLonelyRunner at one of the benches along the beach where they had "pitched" camp. But we bumped into Fd and TLR as they happened to be on their way out to get breakfast, and the two of them kindly offered to buy us some. :) Thanks Fd and TLR!

At the bench, we found Cheow12, Violet and Mrs Sotong already seated there. They were having fun with Cheow12's and Violet's puppy. :) Soon after, through the day, many other people came along to join us, including Ironmandreamer, Sanji, Hedgehog, Tekko, Flip, Bee, Cosmic_Wind, Kellylim22, Penguin and many others. Some of them were competing; the others were simply there to provide support and take pictures :D Sumiko was also there with her other very athletic-looking friends at the adjacent shelter.

I think our folks did rather well today. Many were doing their biathlon for the first time, and they performed splendidly! But I got a bit sun-burnt being out there in the sun. :P

Later, we proceeded to HarbourFront food court for lunch, where we met sxuanjing and briefly chatted with her. It was a good feeling to meet all the SgRunners again!

I had initially planned to go to Toa Payoh after lunch with some of the SgRunners for a training session in preparation for the NTU Vertical Marathon (I am planning to partner Kellylim22 under the "Lovers Challenge" category). But as the NTU Biathlon had dragged on and we ended our lunch only at around 3 pm, I decided to give the vertical training a miss -- I needed to be at Pasir Ris Park at 3:30 pm for another gathering.

Paris Ris

I took a cab down to Pasir Ris, arriving at the park at around 4 pm. Some of the other Club Rainbow befrienders were already there, booking bicycles for themselves and for the two boys under our care, F1 and F2. The boys' mothers and F1's elder brother were also there.

We had arranged at the last-minute to have a picnic (I received the SMS about today's picnic at 11:30 pm last night). F1's medical condition was not improving, and there was concern that if we didn't meet up today, we might not get another chance in the future. The doctor had told F1's mother that that F1's chances were "slim" and that he should be made "happy" while there was still time. :(

Today, F2 was hyperactive as usual. His eyes were bright, and his cheekiness was all there. ;) He cycled on his own, and he cycled fast and hard. And he frequently flashed us his very charming smile. It was encouraging to see him like that. It meant that his heart wasn't giving him that many problems. Still, he was extremely small-sized for someone his age, and it wrenched my heart to hear that he was not fitting well in school because the other students picked on him because of his size.

As for F1, he hardly spoke a word today, though he smiled weakly at us a few times, especially when we bought him some ice-cream. His thin arms bore the scars of many injections, and his lips were purplish. F1 shared a twin-bike with his brother; his brother did all the pedalling, F1 just held onto the handle bar. Although F1 didn't say it, he obviously enjoyed the ride very much.

The other befrienders and I took turns to cycle with the boys. Later on, we celebrated F1's birthday (a week in advance), presenting him with a small strawberry cake. He ate the strawberry, and gave the rest of the cake to his mother.

We wrapped up our little gathering at about 5:30 pm. But as F1 walked with his family towards their car, barely 50m away, he suddenly complained of weakness. Not enough oxygen in his blood. His fingers rapidly turned blue and cold, and his fingernails became purplish-black. His mum quickly carried him to the pavement beside their car, seated him down, and began to massage his tiny left hand. F2's mum sat down on F1's right, and started to massage his right hand. Although F1 did not cry, there were tears swelling up in his eyes. I felt incredibly helpless, and I didn't know what to do. Does anyone have any medicated oil? I heard someone say. With medicated oil, it's easier to massage his hands, to make the blood flow, to make his hands warm...

I went around the park asking people if they had medicated oil. No one seemed to have a bottle. In the end, a very kind lady (thank you very much!) offered me a jar of some sort of mentholated anti-insect cream, which I brought back to F1's mum. F1's mum and F2's mum rubbed the cream onto F1's hands, and continued to massage them vigorously. And they kept telling him to be a brave boy.

Eventually, the blueness left his hands, and when he had regained some strength, F1 was able to stand up and climb into the car with the help of his brother and mother. F2 and his mum went into the car as well. We, the befrienders, then waved them goodbye as they drove off.

This wasn't the first time that F1 suddenly went breathless, weak, cold and blue. F1's mum has to deal with this frequently, and I can barely begin to imagine the anguish going through her mind when her beloved son goes through such agony, again and again. But without a transplant, there was not much that could be done to help.

It was with a very heavy heart that I went home...