And so the moral of this story is: Driving is an extension of your personality for better or worse. So from this day forward I will try my best not to be 4 to 5 thousand pounds of absent minded, short sighted, multi-tasking potential death at 65mph. From this day I will try to extended the better part of my personality in driving. Cautious, conscientious, aware of others and centered on one thing while driving. Driving.

So bout an hour and a half ago I was heading to work and as I accelerated from the on ramp by my house to the freeway (where they have been doing a lot of work lately) as I got on suddenly I couldn’t figure out what the f*** was going on as there were a bunch of big orange cones and what not. It merged immediately from the ramp into a single lane. As I tried to quickly get over suddenly I see an oncoming car. We damn near hit each other. And it turns out to my lucky day: It’s a highway patrol car.

“Stick both your hands out the window.”

I’ll skip the rest of the story except to say, he let me off way easy with a merge ticket, when he could have taken me to jail and taken away my license. But more importantly this was one of those life changing moments when I decided that I am gonna drive the speed limit (did I mention I was speeding coming on the ramp, can’t see my speedometer: lights out, but that’s no excuse) and when I’m driving focus just on that. Not cell phones, cigarettes, text messages, road raging, changing cds and all that other crap we all do while we drive around on auto pilot half the time.

I could have killed myself, that cop or someone else. Or put them in the hospital like my brother. Since no one got hurt, it was a good lesson for me. So thank you Officer Robertson. He had lost a son on that same highway.

In other news, I guess we are finally gonna try and take a stab at taking Dai home. I think it will be really good for him. The Doctor told me the last time I was there that it would probably be the best thing for him to have family around 24/7. We are just working on getting the round the clock nursing and Mae found an on call Doc. Are all pretty excited (and I’m sure a little scared too). But I have no doubt that this is what’s best for him. We will finally be able to start putting him in the oxygen chamber. We are hoping to land an apartment/home around the corner from Mae. My mom, Mae, Gina and so many of the people that we only met as a result of the accident (mostly via the onelovesite-thank you people so much!!!). DJ Hefe, Matt (a preemptive welcome home homey), the list would go on forever. I can’t lie: There are days when I get so f***ing down, but I know in my heart that everyday is a blessing and just when I think I can’t take anymore, someone (maybe even a stranger) will do something so right, maybe even unconsciously- that it restores my faith that there is harmony in the 10,000 plus things. It gives me hope that we as humans may even be able to undo the coming Eco-disaster we’ve been building. Maybe we won’t fulfill our fate of being the only one of Gods’ Creatures to cause it’s own extinction.

Anyway, belated Happy birthday Dai!!!

The fifteenth he turned 39.

Honestly, I had hoped we would at least be walking by this point, but I won’t go into detail again about how the medical “INDUSTRY”/Insurance f***ing scam can almost kill you in the process of bleeding you to death financially. The space ain’t for me to rant. Too much anyway.

To all the people that I’ve met here.

To all the people that have given what they can.

Although I may never directly be able to pay you back, know that I am doing my part too- To try and make the world a better place. Even if that means not killing everyone on my darker days.

But don’t let the smooth taste in these words fool you.

Personally lately my life has finally been good.

A couple years back after I moved here to Idaho, I was cleaning up (drugs/alcohol) and working hard and I was wondering if it would make any difference if I was stealing, dealing and doing whatever else. If Karma did really exist. I just wasn’t getting any breaks. But I kept trying to walk the straight and narrow for once in my life.

It’s finally paid off.

My Sunshine is straight A kid and love of my life.

I’ve got a good woman I want to grow old with.

I’ve got a family to die for.

And hell, I even landed a descent job after living on credit cards (20k stacks up quick, but let me tell you- We got them by the balls now. I don’t pay late fees, overlimit. Nothing: they’ll take what they can get).

And I’ve got faith.

Maybe thanks to you.

So thank you for those of you that have been instrumental in helping to at least keep my brother alive. I have faith that once we get him out of the institution improvements will come tenfold. I won’t go into details, but there were a couple of times when methinks if it was anyone else but Dai, they’d be gone.

So far as I can tell he wants to be with us. I hear he is frustrated, but can’t really speak perfectly yet. Groaning and a couple words here and there. I’m sorry brother. You’re coming home like I said. One foot in front of the other. You don’t give up on me and I don’t give up on you.

Rest well. It’s 4:21 a.m. somewhere. Gnite for now.

-M.

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz it up
• Share via MySpace
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend

i got to cali to see chi on 7/5/2009 when ming sent this to me to blog for him.. and well.. i didn’t spend hardly any time on the computer once we got there.. sorry brother… here it is.. love, gina

Happy 4^th of July.

Met I guy in the elevator of the hospital last week going up.

“How’s it going,” I asked.

“Okay,” he paused briefly, returning in monotone “All things considered.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“My wife, is from Russia and they have a saying when asked how they are doing they reply, and the translation is loose, but loosely ‘ better today, than I will be doing tomorrow.’”

On that note, he parted on a lower floor and I went up to 5 to visit with Dai a bit before I started my drive back home to Idaho. But that was Tuesday morning. Let me rewind a little bit to the day before.

I hadn’t seen my brother in nearly 3 months since I had got a job. I had been mostly unemployed for the 6months before that and was able to travel a lot more to visit. But these days finding a job of any sort after being unemployed is more or less like getting a car in a world where more and more people are losing their cars day by day. Most being a 2 car family. Some down to being a One Car Family. But I digress. Felt guilty and I will leave it at that.

In the 3months since I had seen him he had been suffering some kind of seizure like episodes, one infection after another, pneumonia, and the list goes on and on. I’m sure some of you follow the site. When I had seen him before he was still technically in a coma/vegetative state, but he was conscious a good deal of the time and I felt we were making progress forward. From what I gathered he had suffered a great deal of setbacks (to say the least). Details aren’t that important, more a headache and burden. But the gist of it goes like this. The insurance companies/medical industries are the biggest scam in the world. Are you in good hands? You won’t know until the shit hits the fan. And if it really hits- You better hope you’re sitting on a pile of money. It’s the only way you can really get yourself the best healthcare. Other than that you will be lucky to have someone in your corner to deal with all the read tape and bullshit (Thank you mom!!!).

It was about 7pm on Monday when I walked in and seen my brother on the bed. As I walked in I yelled in Chinese/Cantonese “Cheng Chi Ling!!! Fi di. Hay sun!!!” My sloppy take on “Hurry up. Wake up.”

I noticed he was sweating profusely and I looked for the box fan Dingo Dave had bought for him a couple months back. Not there. I shut the curtains, grabbed a bandana out of my bag- soaked it with water back at the sink and returned to wipe him down. He was kind of breathing/hyperventilating in short breaths. I wiped him down and try to calm him down. I was finally able to get his attention briefly and talk him into a meditative type breathing pattern as I kind of leaned on him with my forearm across his chest. When he calmed down I went to ask a nurse if this was normal for him. The nurse I found had never worked up there and said to come get her if it happened again. I couldn’t find her when the next one hit, but I found another guy who had been working there and he looked at him and said it wasn’t normal. By the time the nurse got back she told me to turn down the music and keep the lights down low- maybe asserting that maybe this had brought this on somehow. By 7:25 he had about 4 of these little “episodes” before the nurse finally called the doctor. Longstoryshort: He had caught another infection earlier, been taken down for some test in the early afternoon and someone had forgot to give him the medication that had been preventing these “episodes.” The doctor told her to give him the meds/dytranalene? that he had missed that afternoon dosage of. After that he calmed down and I decided to just let him relax. and sleep. I slept there too.

Apparently it had been 3 weeks since he had an episode like that. At that point, they had transferred him out of Cardiac Care and up to the 5^th floor, which apparently was good news. He was pretty well doped up in the morning on the morphine, ativan and other cocktail of daily drugs as I said my goodbye to him, but it was better than seeing him go through the episode type deal. The doctor told me what it was. He said it was common for patients with brain trauma and spinal cord injuries and that basically his body does these little freakouts. I can only describe it as something like seeing a fish out of water. Fucking depressing was what it was.

I’m not blaming anybody. Mistakes happen. Sometimes accidentally killing. As time goes by I think a lot of these people maybe overworked. Hate to say it, but I sometimes see the hospital like a fast food place. But there are a lot of kind souls I’ve met. Point is at this point I feel like Dai is becoming a number and a file. Hindsight is 20/20 and I’m not gonna blame anybody.

On that note I would like to give some gratitude to so many of you for restoring my faith in humanity again. Gina, my family, Jeff and Alice, Fieldy, all of you readers and everyone else that has been so kind. Fender, Renne and Smokey (congrats), the list would go on, and I will forget and so I will stop there. But thank you- You know who you are. And lastly, when you may send your positive vibes and love and prayers to my brother, include his boy. I can’t imagine- but some people are stronger than me. I’ve felt like I have been falling apart here and there. And even maybe getting sentimental.

And back to the part where I part with my brother the next morning. As I drove home that Tuesday(bay area to boise area in about 11hours). I tossed around the “plan” as it were in my mind. We’ve got 5 months to get the right side of his skull back on, or we will miss our window opportunity to get it to take. And sooner than later hopefully take him home where I think, we, the family can best care for him. It’s not that easy at this point and although my mother was granted the right to make medical decisions for him, at this point there are a lot of limitations, to say the least.

Whoops. I day just passed. Allow me to finish. Some times rare days off alone hit you like a wave of depression and all you can do is sleep to just escape. (Oops sorry Gina. This might be a bit much. But I’m kindof laughing inside, so I guess that’s good. Give Dai my love. And thanks always.

July 5, 2009 A.D.

1:57 Idaho time.

Thank you for being a friend.

Our love will forever, travel time.

Peace, love and light,

-M.

p.s. Is Every Edit A Lie?

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz it up
• Share via MySpace
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend