Update from Justin Ho (sorry JH, I stole your blog entry :P)

greetings ... !

i know i haven't written in a while ... so let me begin by dispelling some rumours because well, rumours suck and could get out of hand.

not sure how much you heard but i heard i was dying, literally.

somewhere around june 1st i was admitted into the hospital for a pretty severe case of asthmatic-pneumonia-double-whamy combo ... at one point during the night i was coughing so much i literally couldn't breathe, thus i decided i needed to be treated immediately. what i thought would be just a late night (3am) visit to the hospital turned into a 11 day quarantine stay in not only one but two hong kong hospitals. the priminary reason why i was contained for so long was because they were scared that my pneumonia would turn into tuberculosis (TB) which would ultimately .... suck since its highly contagious and well, with the avian flu warnings and severe TB cases in hk right now, another TB kid to add to the already thousands of people with TB health problems would just not be needed. you know?

my asthmatic-pneumonia was supressed within a night in the hospital after being administered many antibiotic needles through an IV along with many pills which i'm slowly getting off as i type. the rest of my stay in the hospital consisted of the monitoring of my lungs to make sure i didn't have TB. it was my first time spending 11 straight days seeing no one i knew except the doctors and nurses (who came in every 2-3 hours consistently) since i was quarantined after all. the worst 4 minutes of my 11 day stay in the hospital had to be having a fiber optic camera as thick as a chopstick (called the bronchoscope) inserted through my nose, down my throat into my upper right lung cavity while extracting flem in the process (since x rays can only see so much) - as i was fully awake and seriously, not the most ... comfortable experience ever.

i've been out of the hospital now for 4-5 days now - still recooperating since my immune system is still pretty weak. plus as i'm slowly getting off my meds during the day i'm still drowsy and s p a c e d o u t . but i'm definitely getting less and less so as the day progresses. believe it or not, it was difficult for me to come back out after quarantine. the people out in the streets amused me as well i was seriously isolated. the food tasted better coming out. i was thankful for all the nurses that kept me talking or else, boy, i can't imagine not joking around with the nurses. serious social damage .... yeah.

i just want to THANK YOU all for your love + prayers throughout the last few weeks (and still continual encouragement) and i seriously just ... didn't realised how loved i am. whatever prayers and love you sent my way i definitely felt and somehow knew about it. thank you for all your unexpected gestures of love at just the perfect time which i can't even re-express i'm thankful i was receiving. i guess this time allowed me to reflect on ALOT of things. i mean i seriously had people thought i was dying ... and well, when you're in a hospital halfway around the world its hard not to let rumours get to you first. though this email came later than i wanted it to, i just want to let you know that i'm alright now and i hope things will get back to the way they were before i got sick.

i made a remark to my mom that i think in terms of memoriability, i will NEVER forget turning 24. i went into the hospital 23 and came out, yea, another year older. how special is THAT? (btw, chinese people don't use sarcasim much ... nor do i much anymore ...) i spent the last few hours of my birthday convincing the nurses who toke care of me to have a slice of my birthday cake (since i couldn't finish an entire cake myself). in the end i don't know if they actually had a slice but i can only imagine. my mom didn't find my outlook amusing. haha.

of course i never planned to get sick like this and honestly, i'm still taking in this entire situation, everyday. i'm still trying to back track everything to figure out what actually happened because i just didn't get sick due to a heavy rain storm. everything happened at such an unexpected time and blew into something of such .... vast proportions. of course no one expected any of this. i've been learning so much through this experience about diseases, health, people, emotions, hospitals, what it means to really grow up (of which i'm reminded that i'm so behind) .... i know that there's still so much more i'm supposed to learn and realise through my ... "break" right now but i'm not even there yet. i'm just taking it one day at a time, literally.

i seriously don't know how many people knew about what happened but if you know someone who heard rumours of rumours or rumours, would you mind forwarding this email to them for me? thank you so much ....

that's it from me for now but i'll try to write more as i find out more about whats happening in my life from today till ... tomorrow ....

j.