The Passing Of Bulldog Drummond.......

Last night I was at a  wedding reception and my handphone was on a  ' meeting ' mode.
I did not notice the sms from my dear wife that..... " Pak Mae from Setia Kasih 9, just passed away in IJN ", until this morning. He died around 6 hours after an emergency admission to IJN  [ National Heart Institute ] of a massive myocardial infacrtion [ ' heart attack ].  A known diabetic for over 30 years, 5 years now on  subcutaneous  insulin injection, twice a day. 14 years post bypass surgery.


Abdul Rahman  bin Yaacub, from Chetok, Pasir Mas, Kelantan, 68, the local kampong boy, made good via education. A government retiree, His last post was deputy KSU in the Ministry of Home Affairs, having served under luminaries such as King Ghaz and Hussien Onn during their heydays of catching big time opposition politicians and writing and sprucing  up 'research paper' on them prior to his political bosses consideration,  for ISA consideration ...tough job for the senior 'neutral' civil servants at that level.

We, the Wan Abdullah clans, from the Rao family, remember Abdul Rahman  Yaacub differently. He is my third cousin. In the 60's , he and his two other elder brothers[ and their wives ]grew up in our meagre household at Jalan Teliput, Kota Bharu, the ' Damansara Height ' of KB in the 60's.
[ Two of the only three  general practitioners in Kelantan in  the late 50's, Dr Ezanee Merican and Dr Aziz, build their houses along  the prestigious Jalan Teliput. The Old British Advisor's residence'is'  a few houses away from our wooden pondok, now refurbished as an official residence for the present sultan. Dr Aru stayed in ? Jalan Kebun Sultan. Dr Aziz, to recall correctly had two houses in Jalan Teliput, a bigger one for his 1st wife an 'orang luar' , meaning non-Kelantanese , and  down the road, near ours for his 2nd, a local lady.  All the three of them, Dr Aru, Dr Aziz and Dr Ezaneee are 'orang luar'  and wealthy plus plus plus.  Just three Gp's for the whole of Kelantan! ]. 

My late father was just a chief clerk but the 60's in Kelantan at that time was a great time of sharing. We relatives ,all share in poverty and in 'relative' wealth . My late father [ who died at  the ripe old age of 41 ! ] drove a Ford Prefect in the late 50's.  By the early 60's he graduated to an Opel with a special number, T7000. No mean feat. That made him an elite!

Abdul Rahman's  school friends called him by the Kelantanese eponym,' Budok Derg'omae ', .but my elder brother, who is the same age as him and went to Sultan Ismail College with him, was more imaginative and diplomatic. He fondly called him 'Bulldog Drummond' after a fictional British pilot/hero/spy in the 1st World War. And that  endearing 'private' name stick amongst us, the senior Wan Abdullah brothers. Mr Bond, James Bond double '0' seven was not yet created, otherwise we would have named him as such. Such was our fondness.

'Bulldog Drummond' must have lead a very clean and pious life throughout, in my estimation, for Allah was with him at the time of his demise. I gather that he must have been in severe pulmonary oedema [' wet lung' ], for otherwise in a facilityb such as IJN, the obvious choice would have been to proceed to primary infarct angioplast there and then but  I gather from his son's description of  the terminal events, he was in bad heart failure which negate the 1st approach  in some instances.  

He was intubated and given artificial ventilation  shortly after to help in his breathing. He was still conscious and able to say .." Allah, Allah, Allah...". In his dying throes he asked his sons for a piece of paper. On it he  weakly scribbled,
"..read Yasin for me please.."

I told his sons at their home in Setia Kasih just now,
" Your dad died in good circumstances. Don't be sad.  I want to teach you one ilm which I              got direct from one of the Imam in Masjidil Haram some 30 years ago. Read this very short doa,..'  Rabbir Firli Waliwa Lidayya wal Mukmini wal Mukminat '..In your sujud, in your rukuk and in your remembrance of him. Insyaallah, he will be in good Hand "                      

Innalillah hiwainna ilai hiro jiun [ from Him we come, to Him we return ]
Bismillah Himajreha Wamursaha Inna Rabbi laGhaffur rurRahim
[ In the name of Allah, He is our anchor and journeying. He is al Ghaffur and al Rahim ]


nik howk

Post Script :
Just now at 230 am, I was wokened up to see a 42 year old young Malay gentleman at our ER who came with central chest discomfort and feeling short of breath. He has been having the sypmtom since after his dinner at 8 pm, but waited and his sypmtom was getting worse.

ECG and troponin T [ blood test ] were both normal, but our casualty MO was not happy by the way he look, thus he called me. I have nothing substantive to go by either but my gut feeling was that he look like an ' acute coronary event'. he was beginning to cough and the chest Xray was showing a 'wee bit ' of congestion in the upper region. In my mind if we were to wait another hour or so for the ECG or the blood test to be 'more positive', we may lose the window of oppoertunity to save a lot of 'cardiac muscle' from cardiac muscle death and with 'wet lung that usually follows in a massive heart attack,, I will have a 'wayang kulit' in no time. The window period for muscle salvage is critical, and it is short.

He was wheeled to the theartre and lo and behold, the coronary angiogram showed total occlusion in the left anterior descending artery, just 0.5 centimetre away from the Left Main  [ the 'widow-maker's junction ]. The occlusion was duly crossed with a guide wire and ballooned and stented.
Insyaallah he will be out of the hospital by Monday or Tuesday.

Oftentimes, when the presenting ECG and the initial blood test are  normal, we 'plumbers' have to rely on our gut feeling and clinical acumen. Time is of the essence.
We 'plumbers' often live dangerously. 
[  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2DaU0GBAE&feature=related ]









Other articles on ' Death & Dying '  in the blog :

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/05/not-so-pearls-gem-nik-isahak.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/11/death-eternal-life-after-death.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/02/unto-him-is-journeying.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2009/01/pearls-gem-redza.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/07/case-history-young-deaths.html