Of Mortality

Hearing,as you may all the news and statistics on H1N1, have you ever thought how statistics work so effectively at reducing human beings into nothing more than just numbers. We read in newspapers everyday on the latest report about the pandemic, “6 deaths until yesterday morning, confirmed by the Ministry of Health”. I prefer to think very highly of my fellow human beings so I presume that the media never had the intention of committing such disgraceful act as reducing other fellow human beings into numbers but I myself can’t seem to deny that their reporting are becoming less personal and less “human” by the day. And I admit, I fall into the same trap. I never really thought about the value of a human life until it struck me, well at least I thought it did.

I contracted a fever on Saturday. It had all the symptoms of the Influenza A virus. Initially, just the idea of my getting such a dangerous disease was…. well beyond the grasp of my mind. I guess I was in denial. I mean, ANYONE could have contracted this disease. Therefore, the very real possibility that I might have been infected by the virus starts to seep in. I started to see all the different ways that I could have possibly become infected in the first place. I went out a lot. I met many people. Some of whom just recently came back from foreign countries facing H1N1 pandemic. I went to crowded places.

And so the mind started seeing what it wanted to see. I was terrified by the very real possibility that I might have H1N1. Death became imminent. I started seeing death everywhere.

Reading about Yasmin Ahmad’s death tugs my heart terribly. She had a stroke, went into a comatose state and died without gaining consciousness. God bless her soul but all these scenarios about death was all I could think about especially when I was a suspected H1N1 patient.

And so, to set the record straight, my parents sent me to a private hospital in Shah Alam. They took a sample of my blood and saliva for analysis. I had an hour to wait before the result came out.

It’s probably not normal or more precisely, not typical of a perfectly healthy 20-year-olds to be thinking about death but I read in the newspaper that one of those who died of H1N1 is a 20-year-old woman *chills*

It struck me how fragile life is. How death can come at any time, regardless of the place. And how it alters lives and realities.

I received the result and it came out negative for H1N1. It was a typical fever.