After a twenty hours flight, I am practically brain-dead. Nothing gets through that thick head of mine, the only thing I could think about was a bath and a bed. But what was to welcome me home was another bout of bloody shingles... this time it was my mum that contracted the pain-gruelling skin rash and what was worse, it was around her scalp, forehead and eye area. I knew it had to be bad but everyone seems nonchalant about it, as if it was a common flu.
Worried, I went online to research more about the skin rash. To my horror, having shingles around the eye area also known as ophthalmic herpes could cause a loss of vision and moreover, my mum being in her fifties was more prone to contracting PHN, post-herpetic neuralgia which cause long-term pain involving years. Armed with that information, I was determined to drag my mum to see an eye specialist. But to my surprise, she was going to tag along to my brother's newly renovated flat, which has nothing short of bacteria and dust to flare up her infection. Great! She really wants to go blind. When I tried to explain the whole situation to her, she just shrugged. My dad started on his "I am so great and I had it before, it was no big deal" attitude with me , insisted how it would go away, just like the last time he had it on his calf. Hello... calf and eye... different areas and different situations.
With the lack of energy to persuade and argue, I had to let her go. But I could not set myself to rest and kept worrying, the more I found out about implications of ophthalmic herpes, the more uneasy I was. At first, I thought that she was just going to visit and return to rest in a couple of hours but no! Hours passed, morning came, afternoon passed, evening arrived and night fell, finally, they decided to return. I could not help but felt pissed-off with the rest of the family members for allowing her to do as she wants, don't they know the complications if the rash was not well looked after... they carried on with the packings, my mum hovering in the midst of the dust, I couldn't take it anymore.
It seems that the tears that were well-kept for the whole day finally found their way past my eyes, and I broke down in my room. I was tired, angry, and disappointed. And I thought, if she doesn't care, why should I. I changed and walked out of that place, a place that I once called home, a place that I longed to return to after a long trip, a place that I could rest without fear, a place with warmth. I... could not grasp with the disappearance of my home, where do I belong...
