Covid-19 Blues

Malaysia introduced movement control on 18 March 2020. We have been holed up in our condominium unit at Serai Saujana since then. I have been marginally diabetic for some 20 years but with my wife’s “disciplining” in terms of diet and morning and evening walks, my doctor is happy that I can go without medications for diabetes. But with the lockdown, we are not even supposed to hang outside our apartment, which means I cannot do my usual morning and evening walks, even around the perimeter of our condominium grounds. I had literally become a couch potato, constantly watching TV channels searching for the latest on the pandemic. Many a time, instead of watching TV, I dozed off, and it was the TV that watched me!

I became pretty lethargic. To pass time, I would always ask my wife how I could help her or see what could be fixed in the house. But there is really there isn’t much for me to do. And my strong tendency to doze off triggered the alarm bell in me. I bought a blood glucose test kit online. I was a little apprehensive when I squeezed my fingertip blood into the first test strip.

7.4!

All hell broke loose! I had never tested this high before!

My wife clamped down on my food immediately – hardly any rice, more vegetables, less sweetie fruits. I saw that the movement control order did allow outdoor therapy for the disabled and since the condition of my left heel medically requires me constantly exercise my leg muscles, I wrote to and obtained the building management’s greenlight to continue with my morning and evening walks around the grounds of the condominium. For safety reasons, my wife has also been permitted to accompany me. But I do not want to ruffle any hornet’s nest and only do the morning one when everybody is still fast asleep.

Every two hours or so, I also treat my living room as my walking rink. This gives me about 500 steps to cover each time.

I am keeping my fingers crossed!

And it is time for me to start blogging again!

I was overwhelmed by an air of resignation after the fall of the Harapan government in Malaysia. Dr Mahathir, the only person whom I thought could bring change to the country, had been showing his true colours since he took power after GE (general elections) 14 in May 2018. I was also disappointed with DAP (Democratic Action Party), particularly Lim Guan Eng. Not only some of the Harapan partners were sabotaging one another, one of them was actually imploding. Anwar Ibrahim was totally unable to rein in Azmin Ali. But one could never imagine that Dr M would shoot Harapan’s own foot and cause the government to fall and allow the power to be handed on a platter to Muhyiddin Yassin. Personally, I don’t harbour any negative views about Muhyiddin. We were from the same school (High School Muar) and graduated from the same university (University of Malaya). I always thought he was the more open-minded than most of the Malay leaders. But as an ethnic Chinese, I just fear his coalition – made up of more race- and religion-centric individuals from the ranks or UMNO and PAS. I believe most of the non-Bumiputras are feeling quite lost. Hence my air of resignation. Covid-19 has hampered the normal operation of the government. We are unable to tell if the new coalition can function at least with a satisfactory degree of fairness in the eyes of non-Bumiputras.

Again, let’s keep our fingers crossed!