Eulogy for my father, Dr. Phirtu Singh

On October 28, 2009 my father passed away. On November 10, we had the final Puja for my father. Here are the notes I used for the eulogy I gave/read.

Most of you are here because you knew and loved my father as a friend.

My relationship with him as a child is obviously different, and as with most children my relationship with my father changed much as I grew older.

As a child, we always loved our Daddy, but it was unfathomable that he would insist that we do all of our homework, or that we follow rules all of the time even when it was terribly inconvenient, or that we couldn’t watch the special TV show we wanted to watch.

Of course as I grew older, I grew to understand, and eventually even grew to appreciate that these were signs of a good father. And that's how I remember him now, especially when I make similar decisions now that I am a father myself and experience many of the same things from his perspective.

And over the years I picked up pieces of information about him that implied he actually had a life before I was around.

He had many friends in grad school. He was actually a child at one point, who enjoyed sports and was a very good field hockey player, and loved to sing and was very good at that as well. And of course he was a very good student, which is what led him to this country. These little glimpses of the man have become a significant part of how I remember him.

And he had some struggles while raising a family.

As a young man he had to deal with the death of his first child as a young boy, which is a pain almost unimaginable to bear.

Writing a PhD dissertation is a struggle on its own, but doing that with young children is hard to imagine. Especially one who thought a hand typed draft of the dissertation would make a fun toy to spread around the living room.

And when we were in elementary school and he needed to find a new job, he limited his job search to this local area so the kids wouldn't have to change schools.

But mostly I remember the man who raised us.

We were never wealthy, but we always had whatever we needed.

When I came home on weekends during college, he was happy to come out and get me.

Some of my fondest memories are trivial things that we did together.

Driving up to the UNC campus and playing tennis, neither of us were any good, but it was playing tennis with my dad. Or tagging along to the computer lab and typing randomly on the punchcards and drawing on printouts.

We had many friends, and many adopted families.

When we moved here, the town was much smaller and the Indian community was much much smaller. So they were friends with probably most of the Indian community back then.

My mom and dad also made friends quickly, and many became part of our extended family. I remember meeting Cumali at the local Roses while shopping with my mom, and she and her family became close friends of our family.

And people from out of town, anyone who had any way to know them, always had a place to go for a little piece of home.

Thanksgiving always had somebody new joining us.

And my mom babysat for many kids who became like family, and still keep in touch after many years.

My mom and dad were auntie and uncle to many.

It’s been almost 8 years since his stroke

It’s been a difficult life for him, limiting his mobility and his speech. But fortunately he still had his mind.

Shingles was in some ways worse than the stroke, taking away much of the improvement he had made in his mobility and speech.

It was in many ways a miserable life to lead. And yet it wasn't. Largely because my mom did an unimaginably huge amount of work to care for him, he was still able to have a good life. Certainly not the quality of life we wish he could have had, but still a very good life with many joys. He still enjoyed the company of a loving wife; he still enjoyed visits from friends, he still enjoyed watching his favorite TV shows and sports events. And more than anything he enjoyed having grandchildren around, even if he couldn’t interact with them the way he would have liked, he loved having them around. It is unfortunate that his stroke occurred less than two months after the birth of his first grandchild, but we were blessed to have him live long enough to see and enjoy the company of four more beautiful grandchildren. And he stayed in good spirits; I remember the day he made his last trip to the hospital he was smiling in the hospital room and that made us smile too.

Now he’s off in a new life without many of the pains, and we’re happy that we had as much time with him as we did, but we're very sad that he’s not with us any more. And we'll always remember our beloved Daddy.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

This week has been a wild ride for us in the HinJew household. Aside from the bottom dropping out of the economy and the gobs of "ripples" felt from that, aside from the fear of "what in the world is going to happen next", we're "enjoying" our own spinning teacups and bottomless free-fall that comes with Asher's disease.

On Monday, Asher's kindergarten class drew letters using corn grits. About two hours after the fact, Asher's teacher thought, hmmnnn...perhaps that's not such a good thing for Asher to be doing and called me. I wished she had called earlier.

Corn is like touching Drano for Asher. It really is like a chemical burn on his skin and it makes him horrifically sick. In the past, touching corn has caused Asher about two solid weeks of sickness and vomiting and a loss of several pounds of body weight. So I'm thrilled to report that he suffered no/little ill effects from the corn. This is HUGE! It's really amazing and is proof that we're on the right track. I really and truly can't believe that he didn't get sick, particularly after taking that huge allergen hit by rolling down the hill at the company picnic. Amazing.

That was Monday.

Tuesday was gymnastics. The kid was a disaster. They worked on the balance beam, which is Asher's worst area. He was particularly congested on Tuesday. He couldn't do a doggone thing on the balance beam. He even struggled with things that he's been able to do in the past. I am beginning to see a correlation between Asher's congestion and his balance/coordination.

Asher's gymnastics teacher got really frustrated with Asher. She's clearly never had a student like Asher before. She let her frustration get the best of her and, well, almost crossed the line of being hurtful to Asher. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, I've been in that state before and I can understand being that frustrated. But then again, I'm not a teacher.

On Tuesday, Asher brought home his progress report. In short, he's failing kindergarten. He got nearly all check minuses. We've said that we wanted him to repeat kindergarten but we didn't want him to FLUNK OUT of kindergarten! That's a different story.

Back to gymnastics: After his class, Asher came upstairs to where I was sitting and saw the jigsaw puzzle left behind by Simi (who just started his class) and excitedly started to do the puzzle. This particular puzzle is for age 2 - it's very simple. Asher quickly put three pieces together and excitedly looked to me for praise and I just died inside. None of the pieces even remotely matched and he really had to force the pieces together to "fit". They were a VERY obvious mismatch. After seeing his horrendous report card, watching this particularly atrocious gym class and now seeing this pathetic puzzle effort - I had to really struggle to keep my composure. It took everything I had not to bawl my eyes out in front of him.

Tuesday was not a good day for Asher.

So now he does jigsaw puzzles every day after school. I quiz him on simple math in the car on the way to school. And I'm feeling a small bit more optimistic about his intellectual capability.

We've been working incredibly hard to clear his congestion. Clearing his congestions helps him - a lot - or so it seems.

On Wednesday, I had a talk with the exception children's coordinator at Asher's school. I've been bugging him since this summer about Asher. Hopefully he'll start giving us some help. Asher needs it.

Now, toward the end of the week, Asher's energy level is rising to amazingly high levels. Raj even used the word "hyper-active" to describe Asher today. It's hard to believe, but Raj is right. I never thought we'd ever use that word to describe Asher. It truly was just a few months ago when I, literally, had to drag Asher out of bed in the morning. And now here he is unable to sit still for a minute. Unbelievable.

As you can see, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is taking us for quite the spin.

Asher Update

Asher has been taking oregano oil for nearly a month now and the results have been astounding. It's absolutely amazing. The most obvious ways: he seems so much healthier now. The puffiness and allergic shiners are gone (with the exception of today - more details to follow) and his sinus congestion is almost gone - still a bit of trace of that. The congestion really wants to hang on. The patch of eczema is gone from under his eye. We've been able to stop giving him two of his medicines - Prevacid and Ketotifen - which is a REALLY big deal. He has more energy - but that's probably from the B12 spray we're also giving him.

So here are the real interesting ways he's improved: he has more balance and coordination. I don't understand the connection between gastro-intestinal distress and balance and coordination, but there certainly seems to be in Asher's case. In Saturday's soccer game, a boy on the other team pushed Asher and he didn't fall down! He kept his balance. He kept his balance and I cried.

You should see him in gymnastics. He can follow directions, he can stay on task, and he can do what all the other children do in the class. He's been taking gymnastics for a year now. Every week, I watch him in the class and silently beg for him to pay attention, go through each of the stations, and do as well as the other children. I've tried bribing him. I tell him I'm watching - and I do. And no matter how hard he worked, nothing changed until we killed the MRSA. Now, I watch Asher and tears of extreme happiness run down my face. He looks just like all the other children. OK, so he's probably the worst in the class, but at least he doesn't look out of place now. Now when I watch him, tears of joy stream down my face and I say silent thank you's. It's amazing.

His running seems better too, although there's still a lot of room for progress. But, heck, I'll take what I can get.

His brain seems to have unfogged a bit, too, although, again, there's still room for improvement.

Just yesterday we went to a company picnic. The grass on campus is absolutely gorgeous. It's thick and lush and there are lots of fun places to roll down the hills. The grass is also full of chemicals and the blades of grass are so thick and sharp that it cuts you. Rolling on that grass is like giving yourself a bazillion paper cuts and getting tons of chemicals in your skin in the process. I've rolled down the hill on that grass and suffered skin rashes and itchiness so severe it lasted for weeks. When Lula, one of our dogs, was a puppy, I'd take her for walks on campus and she'd get red, patchy, itchy welts from the chemicals on the grass. So, when I saw Asher and Simi and a good friend of theirs rolling down the hill, I cringed. I wondered just how long he'd suffer a reaction. I wondered if we'd have to hospitalize him. And I wondered how long it would take until we'd see the inevitable reaction.

I'm thrilled to report that, so far, aside from a bad case of hay fever, he seems to be OK. The dark circles returned under his eyes and he's sneezing and has a runny nose. But that's it! No hospitalization. No skin problems. I consider that an amazing improvement in his health. And yes, I was dancing the jig that my son has "merely" a case of environmental allergies.

My goal is to take the oregano oil for six weeks total, then after a month being off the oregano oil we'll test to see if the MRSA is gone. But it's really hard to take the oregano oil. I take it with him because it's really nasty stuff. And it makes my stomach hurt. I can only imagine how it makes his stomach feel. So, I'll be happy if we get to five weeks. Heck, we may have to stop at four weeks- it's that bad. I'd really like Leila to take it too. Her congestion returned after she stopped taking it. Truthfully, it's really hard to get a 2 year-old to take this incredibly nasty stuff. They just don't understand. So, we may be battling MRSA for awhile.

Well, there's a lot more, but I'm really tired. Julie, my apologies for the delayed update.

Until soon..

Day Six - Oregano Oil

We are one day past the "Dreaded Day Five" of Oregano Oil and all's well. Asher's dragon breath is gone, is congestion is improved (but not completely gone), and the allergic shiners under his eyes are gone. The kid has so much energy he doesn't know what to do with himself. He's getting into all sorts of trouble.

Asher had a soccer game on Saturday and did his best ever. And at today's soccer practise, he broke a sweat. He NEVER runs hard enough to break a sweat - so it's a VERY big deal!

Another milestone: On Saturday, Asher was able to sit down and put together a Lego Knight by himself (with a little guidance from me, but mainly by himself). He's never been able to focus that much before. I'm certain it's because his body feels SOOO much better.

It obviously seems like we're going down the right path. Even if this doesn't improve his EE, it certainly is helping his overall health. Raj made a comment yesterday that when we do the follow-up lab tests, he suspects we'll find a/some parasites (there seems to be some sort of relationship between parasites and bad bacteria). When the body has parasites, the eosinophils attack them, which causes eosinophilic esophagitis. Interestingly, even though parasites are one of the known causes of EE, Asher has never been tested for parasites before.

If the follow-up lab results show parasites, removing them will DEFINITELY help cure Asher's EE.

Oil of Oregano

Now that Asher has recovered from his allergic reaction to the Bactrim, it's time to stir things up again. His dragon breath and constant congestion returned once he stopped taking the Bactrim, which indicates that the MRSA has returned. Good golly, it feels sooo good to know what's been causing these two things!

So here's the deal: we have a pretty good clue that the MRSA has returned. We also know that Asher cannot tolerate Bactrim. Our only other antibiotic option is Vancomycin, which can cause permanent kidney damage and/or permanent deafness. Hmmmnnn...

When the lab identified the MRSA, they also did sensitivity tests. That's when they found it sensitive to Bactrim and Vancomycin. They also found it sensitive to some herbal options - about ten of them. I googled each option, read about it, and chose Oregano Oil. I read about some startling antibacterial qualities of oregano oil and decided it to be worth a try. And yes, it's true, I have officially crossed the line to "crazy mum". But perhaps we can find a safe way to get rid of the MRSA.

We're all taking it. And interestingly, after a mere day - one teeny tiny drop of oil - and our congestion is nearly gone. All three of the children were rather congested. Their congestion has diminished considerably. Go figure.

This stuff is tough to take. I'm glad I'm taking it along with the children, because it's incredibly mean to impose on someone. I think the children get a kick out of seeing me hate it just as much as they do. Heck, if it helps Asher, I'd do a whole lot worse than take some icky burning nasty oil.

Information on oregano oil can be found here and here. You can find a million more sites by simply typing in those two words into Google.

So, stay tuned to find out if Oregano Oil helps cure Asher of his MRSA....

Asher Update

It's time for a quite unusual Asher update:

I think someone flipped a switch on Asher or gave us a different kid who looks like Asher. This kid has more energy then he - and we - know what to do with. Physically, he's doing things with ease that he found impossible to do - ever. For example, Asher has physical therapy homework. Among the routine of things he is supposed to do, he is supposed to do ten sit-ups with knees bent and hands behind the head. We've been helping Asher do these sit-ups for nearly a year now. He needs a pillow for support and we have to use our hands to help him do the sit-up. Yet today he did those ten sit-ups by himself - no help at all - with ease. Huh???

The kid has SO MUCH energy - he's literally jumping all over the place. Poor kid is getting into quite a bit of trouble. I know what's going on, but it's still not OK to punch your brother in the stomach.

It's so nice to have this kind of problem.

Leila and the Leapster

Several years ago, Aunt Karen and Uncle Peter gave Simi a Leapster as a present. Simi loves his Leapster. Over the years, we have added game cartridges and the Leapster is still one of Simi's favorite things to play. Which is why Leila had to pick it up and give it a try.

Admittedly, I found it amusing watching Leila attempt the Leapster. It's for ages four to eight and she's two. She's a little young to master the Leapster. But it kept her amused even if she couldn't get the thing to work.

To my surprise, as I was listening to her playing the Leapster yesterday, she was answering all the questions correctly. She got her colors, shapes, and letters correct. She even logged on under her name and managed to collect 343 seeds - which means she's been doing some serious winning on the thing. She's two!

That'll teach me to under-estimate my girl...