That morning, I sat down in my clinic room and glanced through the little, long slit.
A young Malay boy, slightly pudgy, was sitting in anticipation with his hands cusped. He wore a sprightly shade of red in the form of a chequered shirt. His backpack, as if equally apprehensive, leaned forward from its own weight in the seat next to him. I must say what blew me away were those eyes. Very few Malays – or Asians for that matter – had eyes as captivating as his – as if a trance state could be evoked from gazing into those abysmal windows.
He walked into my clinic that day, a decision made after many years of battling the tightening noose around his neck. Bluntly put, it all started with getting cheap thrills out of cough syrup, but along the way, things got serious, and now he cannot live a day without smoking at least 3 straws of heroin.
He walked into my clinic sheepishly, as if a schoolboy at the disciplinarian’s. When he rapturously spoke about himself, his grey eyes lit up like nebulas. But when he spoke of his shame, the heroin, the foil and the proverbial dragon, he bows in shame, hiding those eyes behind his fringe, as if a psychological barrier to guard himself against the discerning scrutiny from the rest of the world.
“All my brother needed to do was to unravel the aluminium foil… Once I hear it… I go crazy… And it made my craving go out of control…I end up going out to get more junk…”
His brother was a drug addict, perhaps a more hard-core one than he was. Everyday, he watches his brother leave the house, sometimes clad only in a sarong and singlet. He returns home later in the day with a bag, and retires to his room with the door closed. Moments after, he emerges – bloodshot eyes, a little high, sometimes stuporous. Grey-eyed boy simply loathed it. For years, he refused to talk to his brother – by now, deemed a nuisance to the family, the reason for the parents to split, the reason for the loan sharks harassing the home of their 76-year old grandmother. And thus it was cruel irony that he is now in the very footsteps of his brother.
“I was Assistant Manager there for 2 years… I got Best Employee in 2008, then after that I went to study for my diploma…”
Grey-eyed boy weaved a story a little different than the majority of patients in the addictions medicine clinic. Sombre tales of failure, succumbing to one’s fate laid in the clenches of drugs or alcohol, and rejection peppered the life stories of most patients who see us for the first time. Grey-eyed boy was not one to speak in ‘poor me’ tones. He described how well he did in F&B, his promotions and being the blue-eyed boy of his supervisors. Vivid description of his dreams, his aspirations were punctuated by child-like giggles and silly laughter. He was a child. The counter-transference I received? I felt like my own son was sitting in front of me.
When it was time to talk about the real deal, the drug and forensic history, the boy I thought I knew, slowly turned into an angry, sad man. The light in his eyes dimmed. He spoke in deeper tones, almost growling.
“Last week the bosses found out. They told me to quit.”
I maintained eye contact.
”I quit like they wanted me to. It’s not their fault. If I were my boss, I would have done the same.”
He fiddled with the ends of his chequered shirt.
“I am not a good person.”
And I felt it. I felt the hatred he had for himself, the trouble he got himself into and its scathing repercussions. He devalued himself, with much conviction. But I could not bring myself to agree.
I closed the outpatient clinic notes, and placed them aside. I opened the printer tray, and drew out a clean sheet of paper.
“Now look at this.”
I drew a long line, with several intervals in between. The line was blotched, crooked and ugly. I apologised, as I was drawing the line from an awkward angle. He chortled nervously, but remained attentive.
“Here are your short term goals.”
”Complete detox”
”Consider going to a halfway house”
”Find job again”
“And here are your long term goals.” I drew crosses on the second half of that crooked long line.
”What do I want to be in 1 year”
”What do I want to achieve in 5 years”
”10 years”
I put down the pen. He was silent. But I knew things were whirling in his mind.
Briefly thereafter, we got into the routine of physical examinations, arranging for blood tests, and preparation for elective admission into the ward for opioid detoxification. We spent an hour. visibly tired from the long session, he nodded in appreciation, shook my hand, and prepared to leave.
As he opened the door, he suddenly turned around.
”Err, doctor, do you mind if I have that piece of paper?”
He pointed to the paper from the printer, the one with the ugly crooked lines and messy intervals and doctorly scribbles. I laughed. “Sure!”
He carefully folded the paper, neatly, edge-to-edge, and slipped it into his backpack. With a faint smile, he left the consultation room quietly.
I did not manage to use any of the skills, or knowledge that my training as a doctor gave me. Was that failure on my part? All I did was to speak to him like a fellow human being, no more or no less than a stranger on the street giving advice on life and its lemons.
Today, this patient opened up a blind spot to which I did not prepare my soul’s eye to see.
