Ignore it, address it now, or address it before it happens

My Secret Notebook
2 min readJul 1, 2024

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My dad is in the ICU, sedated on a ventilator for pneumonia. Day before father’s day, he got sick with cold and flu like symptoms. No appetite. On Monday, he went to work still, and on Thursday, he came back early with confusion. Didn’t much at all still.

Friday urgent care, went home with antibiotics and inhaler. Monday urgent care, sent to ER, and DSU step down. Friday 2 days ago, they put him on ventilator into the ICU.

How did we even get here?

He’s always had the mindset of ignoring a problem until it goes away or until he forgets. He escapes with alcohol and cigarettes. But he’s also focused on his work duties and responsibilities. It’s very tunnel vision on fulfilling this one task of work, and neglecting any other important things.. namely his health now.

It reminds me of when we foreclosed on our home after my mom died. Our house (and this is the doing of my mom and I too) was messy, not updated, and frankly dirty (almost never cleaned). He didn’t sell it, and just ignored the payments once he decided he’d just foreclose on it. It was huge 100K miss on money he could’ve made from selling. But he would rather just not think about it and miss the opportunity.

Same thing has happened here, and there are some thresholds that have been crossed that there will be no going back. His health will probably be either permanently damaged if he makes it, or lost if we doesn’t.

It’s sad, but I think I’m just compartmentalizing at the moment, and the weight of things won’t sink in until later. Either way, I feel mentally prepared in some ways, since I knew he was a smoker before.

But my point here is that I had a reflection that he’s someone who ignores things; and I tend to be someone who tries to address things before they happen. And if they happen unexpectedly or can’t be prepared for, I try to address right away. I like independent thinking, and he does not think independently much at all (relying on his siblings’ opinions, or mine as a secondary).

I don’t mean to criticize the ill, but I just wish he had prioritized his health more and not relied on others to do it for him or ignored it.

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My Secret Notebook
My Secret Notebook

Written by My Secret Notebook

Quirky, curious, and philosophical Asian American gay Ivy League grad living in Southern California.

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