renewal run - the conclusion

 

Another three months had passed after 3/4 of us gotten our passport. Yun’s passport was sent back again and pending correction.

It was a long wait but no rush as we are not going anywhere and no pressure for alien resident certificate renewal.

At the beginning of fourth month, I had called up the representative office and asked around the passport matter. I got an negative feedback and retreated to the waiting posture.

However 2 weeks later, I got a call from the office and adviced me about the collection procedure again. The SOP applied; IC, receipt and collection need to be done personally.

I made a short discussion with Yun and planned the collection trip.

Yun would come back for a short break for a few days and both Ving and me would accompanied her for the collection.

The plan was disrupted as dragon cat got ill again and Yun had to take her for consultation and only Yun and I proceeded with the trip.

The journey on the HSR was uneventful and we reached the office by 10:30am. Out of my surprise, Yun got a brand new passport instead of old one with a correction of data on the catatan page.

We headed to NTU and had a great lunch at the Mr Chee Kopitiam which sold genuine Malaysian food.

Chee was one of my high school junior who had opened up a Malaysian restaurant near NTU. It tasted just like what we had in Malaysia with 3 times the price tag….Well, cheaper than buying a flight ticket of course.

The return trip was uneventful and Yun had gotten off the train halfway returning to her hostel. I reached home in one piece and life goes on….

I am real happy everything went out smoothly minus dragoncat who got admitted and stayed in the vet hospital for 5 days.

The renewal was costly as the to and fro HSR ticket cost NT3000+, the renewal fee NT2000 (1500 if you do it in Malaysia)….but the experience and lesson for Yun and Xian was priceless…..

Home going...the beginning....

The recovery was eventful as I had noted with cough and shortness of breath affecting my daily life. However, I had to coup with the roster and life goes on.

Many of my colleagues had later joined the three months no test lineage since my recovery. We were short in man power and work load had increased markedly. The only thing that could let me raise my mouth angle was the figure in the bank account. Not only the extra shifts that increase the load but also incentive distributed by the ministry for Covid.

Lots of countries hit badly by Covid had loosened their grip; even the homeland had leavened the quarantine requirement. It was almost time to go back as many of the fellow Malaysian had started their journey home but yet, I need to wait until the 0 quarantine rules applied before I can make any move.

Our shifts had markedly increased since my recovery. We were doing 15+4 as we were one man short. I had another 2 ward duty and 1-2 government clinic sessions. My monthly off was shortened to 7-8 per month. I had planned for a trip back home in November as I speculated the loosened of restriction in early November or late October would be materialized based on the news release by the command center.

My speculation was correct and in late September, the 0+7 rules was implemented; and the painful trip planning had started…..

nightmere come true...

 

It was the first day of my straight night shift. I had an afternoon nap and felt a little warm on my waking up. The condition had worsen through my shift and I had a feeling that I had caught it. It sucks as I had a streak of shifts pending to be done. I did not take any medication and waited until the passover. I told my colleague that I needed a PCR as I am not feeling well. The next 40 mins of waiting was a pain in the axx. I called up Ving that I might be positive and might need to go to the shelter to protect them. She was worried but nothing much could be done.

The result came out as expected and I had called up our infectious controller; she told me that I could only be placed in a shelter when the authority started to process my data; it could take 1 day or more. So I given up the idea and told Ving that I would be quarantine in Xian’s room on the 3^rd floor for the rest of the period.

I had started myself on Paxlovid and taken the medicaiton before I driven home.

When I finally hit the house, I had sprayed a load of alcohol on my body before I headed to the bathroom for shower.

After sanitizing the bathroom, I retreated to Xian’s room. My whole body sore despite of taking paracetamol. I dipped into dreamland after taking some NSAID. The sleep was poor and I had awaken from time to time.

I was not febrile however the body ache and headache was irritating. I did not get better despite of taking the antiviral regimen; instead the mouth bitterness was very disturbing.

I spent most of the time helplessly on the bed, unable to do anything during the first 2 days. I sealed my balcony by using plastic trash bag; I transformed it into a temporary toilet/bathing place. As Xian’s room did not have a bathroom attached to it, I had intended to leave the room as least as possible. The urinal, bucket, water dipper , balcony had become part of my bathroom the next few days.

I had suffered from most of the symptom described and the medication had only partially work.

Soreness was the most annoying symptom that affected me. I was disturbed by nasal congestion, bloating leading to poor sleep in the night. Sorethroat was noted but tolerable. However the mouth bitterness from Paxlovid was like thorn in the back.

My symptom had markedly improved on D3 though and I had referred to my infectious controller about early return to job. I followed the protocol and two antigen rapid test swab was done on D4 and D5. The back to back negative test had allowed me to return to work on D6. I was 5 shifts short due to the quarantine order.

Catching up the shortage was problem but yet the sequelae from covid19 was the most horrifying part.

I had problem climbing to 3rd floor; persistent bloating was noted from time to time. Insomnia was noted and I constantly waking up at 3am in the middle of the night.

Long way to recovery….

But I still praise the great one, Ving and Xian were not infected. I had a high CT value when I was tested; I was not infectious when I left for my night shift. I had refrained from using the bathroom and only countable time that I left the room. All those factors are vitals leading to a successful isolation.

renewl run 4....

 

4 months had passed since the renewal run. An agony though, but I would not want to share the fear with any of the family members. The call from the visa division came in April informing the arrival of our new passport.

As XX and Yun had their college project to run, I could only squeezed a window around early June.

It was a similar routine as the previous run. Early stopped at HSR station and hit the visa office by 11 and head back to HSR station by noon for lunch; catch the express ride by 12:30 and reach K city by 3 something.

Everything was smooth until the passports were handed to us for final checking and acceptance. While Yun was glancing through her detail, she discovered that her height was not properly stated on the passport.

The staff had retrieved our application forms and found that they had mistaken the 5 as 3 on the form; Yun was 20cm shorter than her actual height.

The staff had tried to persuade us to accept the passport and signed a papers claiming that we acknowledge the mistake and agree to accept it…. three letter words ending with F almost burst through my mouth. But, at that point, I knew that no one should be offended to facilitate the process. They told me that we could go to the IMI office for correction when travel back to the homeland.

I politely tell them that I cannot accept it and requested for a correction by IMI office back in Malaysia. I kept the “our old passport photocopy clearly stated Yun’s height and how could an adolescent loss 20cm in 5 years! you all should have double check it !” in my throat.

I told the staff that I had my passport lost and encountered an unpleasant experience dealing with the IMI staff in the past; once I signed the acceptance paper, we would be on our own and may be very helpless during the process back in homeland.

The counter staff had then called up their in charge and told us that they would returned the passport and told us that no new passport would be issued mostly and correction would be done on the pemerhatian page. I told them that I am not particular of getting a new one but at least every detail should be correct or appropriately cited. They tried to talk me off by telling me that it might take six months to get it back and I told them that we would not be travelling in the near future and as PR holder we are not worried about our resident certificate renewal.

The counter staffs had finally accepted my decision and agreed to return the passport for correction. As MAS was flying inconsistently since the beginning of the year. The mailing process would be markedly delayed due lack of flight.

We left the office with only three passports at the end; however it was an great experience to share with Yun and XX. I told them about the right attitude when dealing with such situation.

We had a great lunch at one of the classic Japanese Italino restaurant at the T city station. The curry rice was superb as we had previously tasted in Kansai. The return trip was uneventful…..

It would be another run in the future and the only thing I could do is pray to the great one.

renewal run part -3

The office was filled with people as expected. It was just like old days when we presented to da imigresen; someone will checked you papers before a number is handed out to make sure no time is wasted when you hit the counter.

I stroke the first coral during the document checking session. I did not remove the cover of yun passport when I photocopied in the house. There was this small edge printing of the cover at the edge; what the four letter word with F; I grumbled. There were total 4 documents in that condition and Yun had to do the run at the convenient store round the corner.

Form downloaded from the net was not appropriate and cannot be used !!!!!!!!!!! A chop to write the address need to be chopped at the end of the form…

So double jeopardizes; refilling the form and photocopied some of the document.

After 40min of struggle, we were finally called and luckily our photo will the mild grin were accepted….I opted for the express with a charge of NT250 each. The staff was nice enough to combine the mailing parcel and lifted the fee by half.

We walked out from the office by 11:00am and rushed back to the station to catch the 11:46am train. Xian had to rush for the class at 3pm.

We bought bento from the outlet and enjoyed a good meal. The sushi bento from the sushi shop is great and the fried pork chop bento from the railway bento shop was a must try.

I had fallen asleep soon after I finished my meal. It was truly a relief for me after worrying for the past 2 weeks. Anything could go wrong and wasted all the effort and money. It remind me 5 years ago when I presented to UTC Kuching where we just hand on our document and got the passport in 2 hours. Nothing to worry about.

Yun had gotten off at T city and we arrived at K city station on time. Xian had made it to the class and I headed home for another good nap.

It was just a temporary relief for me as I had to worry about the trip up to pick up the passport. It would be another challenge to coordinate such travel.

worst fear ever....

 

March and April were the changing point, government had started to lose grip of the Covid19 control. Quarantine period was shortened and finally the sharp curve arrived. Case broke the 1k mark and later 10k marks. Daily mortality had increase to over 100. The control center had finally announced that we should co-exist with the Covid19. People raced to buy rapid test kit as if the kit could save them from the disease. It was chaotic as load of patient had rushed into ED showing their positive rtk and queuing for PCR test. The heat was rising in our department as our designated zone was a mix of clean and dirty area. We had to don PPE to see patient in the open and later removed it to the clean zone for charting. The putting on and taking off process was the most dangerous part where you would accidentally contact with the virus during the removal process.

The fear of contracting disease had haunted most of us. There were some staffs who are very keen of being infected as they claimed that getting infected will means immunity. But most of us didn’t think so as re-infection was possible according to report. I had to sprayed and rubbed my exposure surface with alcohol before I left ED.

We had colleagues infected since the start of the biggest wave ever; one after another, our staff being isolated and it had become worst as time passed. Rosters were being revised and revised.

We believed that most of us will be infected sooner or later as the vaccine apparently is not working for the O variant. However we strived to become the last batch to be infected as no one could predict if we would be asymptomatic or not...

At the end of May, I was hit by what I fear most….

Renewal run - part 2

 

My anxiety increased over days; anything could go wrong and I just couldn’t imagine about squeezing through the agony again….

At D-1 days, I had gone through everything again after I woke up from my sleep. Everything was in order; red book, birth cert, myKAD, copies…We headed to the HSR station and have our late dinner at a Japanese food joint. To be honest, I did not enjoy the meal; my brain was all over the renewal event.

The journey to TC city was uneventful and we had checked into Kloud hotel as planned. I met Yun and help her to photocopy the final piece of document at the convenient store nearby; final stone dropped and I was able to have a nap after all those stresses. It seems that everything should be fine but yet I had started to worry about the return trip. Xian got a class to catch and we would need to get on the HSR by noon to make it happen.

I sunk in the bed and woke up after 5 hrs of blackout. I prepared myself and woke up Ving and Xian one by one. By 7am, we had gathered in front of Yun hostel and waiting for the Uber chartered car to arrive. I had been using Uber for the past few months while travelling up north. Simple interface and good service it was. I chartered a RAV4 hybrid as I was sourcing for my next car. It had been ten years since we had Fefe and it is almost time to move on. The ride was average and RAV4 would be at the bottom of the list at the moment.

We had successfully caught up the train and arrived at TP city on time.

I opted for taxi as I did not want to squeeze with other in the LRT at this Covid period.

The ride seems forever from my point of view; moment of truth and the worst is to do it again next month….

On arrival we found that the visa division had shifted to another location 700m from the mission. My fault as I did not read the instruction properly and just took for granted that the visa division is located at the same building.

It was another fast walk for us and we were almost stressed out when we arrived at the building.

The visa division was located at 12F and as expected, the office was packed with people who wished to renew their passport….