Hogwarts

Few things are more rewarding than preparing and seeing our daughter enter the secondary school.

There was so much excitement when Jasmine received her own student Chromebook laptop. The first time she opened the personal laptop, she was riveted by the idea that it has a touch screen. She is feeling like Harry Potter after receiving his first broomstick.

Oh yes, we’ve been reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. This had to be why, when my wife was tidying up the study for Jasmine, I felt guilty for creating a messy and Dursleyish cupboard corner. Yes, yes, it was all very disorganized, and much worse than a cobwebbed cupboard.

Now that school is held in a virtual platform, many of us would have been as puzzled as Harry Potter to locate the Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. I don't have an easy answer for attending school remotely on video. Whether or not people agree with socially distanced learning - and many do not - we are nonetheless having no choice but to accept the government ban on face-to-face teaching at schools. Luckily, my daughter seems to enjoy every minute (well, almost) of new school year.

Not that we're getting on Hogwarts Express with ease. Of course we aren't. Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds it somewhat challenging. Especially on the days that you find a lower bar in the Wi-Fi signal strength symbol. It has taken me three days - not until I asked for technician service - to figure out the best way to reconfigure and relocate our Google Wifi.

Yes, it does require patience, but what good solution doesn't? Just keep trying.

Gratitude

It is the first day of running after my foot injury.

Stifling as running with mask always is, the joy of being on the track again is hard to beat. I couldn't believe my ears when my Runkeeper app audio chronicled and tracked my pace - almost back to my previous one.

Instead of catching my breath as I sped, I sucked in my mask with each breath, huffing. It wasn't long before I came up with an excuse of not wearing mask: I could run much faster without mask to maintain social distancing than being dragged by a mask that sucks. Runners hate the mask and, I have to admit, I do, too.

I mentally didn't want to wear the mask. Yet something about my recovery helped get me up and running with a smile on my face behind the mask. I had decided to increase my pace and press on. The gift of being able to run again is simply too precious to risk losing. I know I shouldn't whine.

Zoom

Over the last few months, most of us have learned to make Zoom video call.

The old-timers FaceTimed mostly. Now, we're zooming, everywhere, and many times. It's unbelievable how quickly everything has changed.

One unique reason of relying on Zoom during the pandemic is when we go to great lengths to give family members a chance to say goodbyes to their loved ones who are dying from the virus. For obvious reason, visitors are not allowed to go to the bedside of an infected patient. To get around the dilemma, we bring an iPad to the room facing the patient, connecting with family via Zoom.

We knew this isn't the best but at least we don't let the patient die alone.

One of my patients left after listening to the farewell messages from the Zoom meeting this afternoon. He died at the age of eighty-six. I entered his room, gloved and gowned, to certify his death. That means checking his movement and his eyes, feeling his pulses, listening to his chest and heart. After going through the steps, one by one, I was to check the time but realized that I didn't have wristwatch. As I looked around and found the iPad on the table, little did I know that the Zoom meeting wasn't discontinued, yet.

Okay, this means a live broadcast of my certifying an old man's death in front of his granddaughter and sons. I froze, and wasn't at all sure how the family feel. I turned and said goodbye to my patient, and was glad that I had followed the steps of checking him with due respect. I should not worry as I had also buttoned up his shirt after putting back the stethoscope.

A dignified death at eighty-six, I certified.

Sky

Right now, the coronavirus has reached the planet's most far-flung corners. It's everywhere.

The stars at the night sky, luckily, remain out of reach. "Why don't we have a night walk to sky gaze?" my wife suggested, and how could I resist?

I always marvel at my wife's creative ideas. And within minutes we packed our bags before twilight and headed to the highest peak in Hong Kong. Offering sweeping cityscape views at an elevation of 957 metres, Tai Mo Shan is one of those special local places where my daughter feels like she has stepped onto a foreign place ... or in this case, Laputa.

Though it's not easy to travel during the pandemic, a celestial journey skywards on such a clear day is the best trip we can reinvent.

"I am grateful, mum and dad, for bringing me to such a special place," Jasmine smiled.

Touch

I had learned many lessons these past six months; some of them are so dense that could have hidden from our narrowed eyes, so deep that I didn't realize until I sat down and looked back.

For many of us, the novel coronavirus outbreak is the first time to experience the specter of a highly infectious virus jumping continents, across the community, and changing life for everyone around the globe.

Back in early months of this outbreak, the rituals of "seeing" patients are by and large through the CCTV cameras and their chest x-ray films. During that period, it was as if the virus will get starved and die on its own after being isolated. The patients were young students from overseas, healthy pilots, businessmen coming back to town; they simply got better with time and gave us chance to get a grip on the dynamics of the disease. Most of our morning rounds were carried out though telephone conversation. Even if we're meticulous in infection control measures, we can't prevent the little tug in our gut that gives us jitters about entering patient's room.

And so it went, one after another, for several months. After taking care of so many suspected and confirmed cases, I had gone through the umpteenth times of donning and doffing personal protective equipment, visors, masks. I had seen so many patients. I had learned so much about the virus. The set of unknowns was shrinking, and the fact that we could step out of the comfort zone actually energized me. Going to greet patients face to face no longer generated armpit-drenching anxiety. And I discovered to my surprise that I am now getting used to take history from my patients during the blood taking - and not on the phone.

And then we are now seeing older and older patients from the local outbreak. Most things we don't get from history taking alone; much of our knowledge on the patients is incomplete without putting our hands or stethoscope on them. I was caring for a veteran in his eighties - let's call him James - who came to my hospital last night with cough and lethargy; James turned out to have been infected by coronavirus. Although the answer of his diagnosis came before I met him, I believed that I should not just make a phone call to "see" him. A thorough examination and inescapably human touch are necessary, I figured. "A bit of being drained out from not eating well this week," James told me. "And a bit of allergy or eczema after taking herbal medicine."

"Okay," I said, nonchalant but still cautious. I pressed on to find out what James meant by eczema, and discovered that he had shingles at his groin - only after taking off his pants.

For a moment I felt content with the choice I had made.