Where have all the flowers gone?

If you are my regular reader, you must have noticed the video called Sarcoma Awareness Day posted on my blog. Kavern organized Sarcoma Awareness Day a week before he went for his forth major surgery but things didn't turn out well this time. The surgeon managed to remove most of the tumour but blood kept oozing out from the tumour bed unstoppable. His heart beat stopped and the surgeons had to perform CPR for 3 minutes. He lost twelve big mineral water bottles of blood. The surgeon called us and asked us to get ready that Kavern wouldn't be able to make it and then he apologized. We were asked to enter the ICU to take a last look at him. The surgeon was there with us, he was sitting at the corner silently.

Kavern's parents and I started praying when we saw him lying there with blood still oozing out from his nose, the stitched up surgical wound on his right orbit and the long stitched up surgical wound which started from above the centre of his forehead that extended til the side of his right ear lobe. The bed was soaked with his blood and then continued flowing to the floor and formed a pool of blood. There was no response from him but blood was still being transfused into him.

I whispered something into his ear and then held on to his left hand tightly and continued praying in tongue and at one point, I felt a very strong presence of the Holy Spirit and my prayer became louder and louder. After a while, I saw his tongue moved slightly inside his half opened mouth. I also felt his fingers moved. The medical team asked us to leave soon after they saw a response from him. That Friday, I prayed in tongue almost non stop for nearly sixteen hours. I had never prayed so long in my life. I told the Lord that Kavern looked like he was being crucified and asked the Lord to release the nine inch nails from him cos the Lord was nailed on the cross on our behalf.

Kavern's father called and sent text messages to his church members and pastors, asking them to pray for Kavern. I text my sister, telling her Kavern's condition and asked her and her kids to pray for Kavern.

After a while, the medical officer and a nurse came over cos they wanted to discuss something important. According to the medical officer, there is one type of very costly medicine called Novo Seven, which can clog the blood but there is no guarantee that Kavern would survive. According to her again, even if Kavern survived, he would probably become retarded or experience lost of memory because his brain was insulted due to lack of oxygen supply for a long period of time. We asked the medical officer to do whatever they could for him. We could not possibly deny him a chance to live and we told ourselves that we would put our trust in the Lord.

What Happened next? To cut the story short, a miracle took place. The bleeding stopped. He didn't lose his memory or become retarded. He was raised from dead to life. The surgeons and nurses also believed that it was a work of God. A doctor even took a photo of him. He was hospitalized for three weeks, I was there with him, so were the parents. He couldn't walk in the beginning but slowly and steadily with the help of the walker, he managed to get on his feet and walk again. Suddenly, I have become the caretaker of a cancer patient. Who could have thought that? God is a joker? No, I love this man and my love for him is divine and it's God related.

After one month, he complaint of indigestion after meal. So, he was sent to have the CT Scan done on him. The result was not we wanted to know. The tumour already spread to the left eye, pressing the optical nerve. As a result, Kavern has gone blind. The tumour also spread from the head to his abdominal area. According to the doctor, it's something very rare but the doctor didn't want to take the risk to perform another surgery after that drama in the operating theater.

Then, I found out about Gene therapy in China and was corresponding with the hospital's representative but I couldn't convince the mother to send him over to China for treatment because there is a massive amount of money involved and needed to get the fund from MCA which were donated by the public. There were tense moments between me and his parents because of conflict of interest. Apart from that, they have been treating me well.

Then, I was away for two weeks in Thailand having my very much needed vacation. I came back only to hear the news that he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance due to unstoppable bleeding from his right orbit while I was away. He was hospitalized for a week and went through Radiotherapy before he was discharged before Christmas. He lost so much weight that he is too weak to walk on his own now.

Oh Lord, take this ruined body, your temple of God, cleanse it, sanctify it and make it whole again. Let me see this miracle and I will be your witness, I will proclaim your glory to all nations.

Few days ago, I found this poem written by Kavern when he was still in high school. I was surprised cos the meaning of the poem turns out to be quite similar to the meaning of the poem I wrote in Mandarin called 梦想 but his is much much darker than mine as if he was predicting his destiny and the fate of this world. So, I asked his permission to post it side by side with my Chinese poem.

Where have all the flowers gone?
There was no sunlight, there was no moon.
Am I here in this world alone,
waiting to leave soon?

The birds don't sing anymore,
The river doesn't flow to the sea
Seashells aren't washed to the shore,
where were things that were meant to be?

God's gift to mankind,
The horses, the fishes and the bees
Why are they now so hard to find,
They used to mean so much to me.

Where are they now? Has the world gone mad?

I feel so naked
here without companions or beauty,
How I long to see how the sun faded,
beyond the mountains away from the city.

Dawn to dusk
Twilight to starlight
Ashes to dust
Redemption Day is such a horrid sight!

Where have all the flowers gone?




梦想
微笑的白云像那无目标的游民般在天空中缓慢的漂流着。
那山岳还是高高的站立着,
等待着那微笑的白云来搂抱着它。
这景色早已被遗忘了，
就像那早已被遗忘了的童年梦想。
梦想早已被社会的期望无情的禁闭着了。
为何蓝天在高楼大厦后面躲藏着？
为何丛林变成了建筑地基？
为何河流被污染了？
为何梦想被资本主义捕获了?
微笑的白云还在微笑着，
仿佛在目睹被禁闭的梦想如何逃脱！