Doctor - a zigzag journey

Part 16 - "To whom I dedicate my heart?"

Background: 1988 - 1992 (Age 21 - 25 years)

Settled in a "new" hostel in the university campus at where I would complete my engineering degree, I heaved a sigh of relief for getting through the first year of study in which a few friends had dropped out. I was determined to complete and do well in my engineering degree.

Here, I had my own room in the hostel. It was quite an old residence hall offering accommodation at an affordable rent. The beige-coloured wall in my room was crying out for a new coat of paint. The "delaminated paint" on the wall was a result of pasting and removing lecture notes and study-prompts by the previous tenants. The hint was "study hard".

I enjoyed having a single room to myself and I could enjoy listening to music in my room. In the 1990s, Sky Wu's sentimental songs were popular. Frequently, I could listen to his songs when I turned on my radio. One of my favourite songs was "To whom I dedicate my heart". The song reflected one's hesitation in loving someone. You can listen to the song by clicking on the above photo, and access to the song via Youtube.

"Knock, knock". Someone knocked on my door. When the door was opened, I found my hall-mate, Aiden, with a big grin on his face, inviting me to a birthday party, meals, study-group etc. I felt the inclusiveness. The time that I wouldn't join Aiden was when he and his girlfriend had a date. Of course, no.

From the second year of engineering course onwards, I opted Mechanical and Production Engineering (MPE). There were a few girls in the course. The notable and pretty ones were Lola and Esther. Lola had long hair, fair skin, a soft voice, and a kind heart. Esther had short hair, mildly tanned skin, and an outgoing personality, and she loved to play netball. Both Lola and Esther were helpful and they always ready to render their helping hands. Together, we studied and helped each other in many new subjects such as robotic technology, microprocessors, computer programming, heat transfer, engineering mathematics, engineering mechanics, and engineering materials. We were in our twenties. We were energetic, passionate to study, and had ambitions to find good jobs upon graduation. Our study-life and a bit of social life mainly revolved around these technical subjects. Lola and Esther were local Singaporeans and they spent their weekends mostly at home with their families, while I spent my weekends teaching tuition to students (Seline, Bernard, Qing Hui, Su Lian, Rosie, and Albert) at their homes.

"What would you do for your industrial placement?" Lola asked me while we were waiting for a tutorial class.

"Hey Lola, I have found an interesting placement in a company that makes artificial heart valves!" I replied with a hint of excitement in my voice which might have been too loud and disturbed others who diligently revised their lecture notes in the class.

Lola's smile and nod reaffirmed my choice of industrial placement.

"Yeah, I look forward to learning how an artificial heart valve works," I whispered sheepishly as the lecturer, Professor Buoy, was already in the classroom and his eyes were scanning the room looking for those who didn't do the tutorial questions, I guessed.

Professor Buoy took out a small motor-pump and placed it on a front desk.

"Today we are to analyse how a pump works, the inputs and outputs energy and their underlying engineering principles..." Professor Buoy explained enthusiastically after plugging the pump to a power-supply on the wall. His enthusiasm definitely had aroused interests in the students.

The evening after attending Professor Buoy's lecture and tutorial sessions, I was exhausted with engineering applications and theories running wild in my head. I was wondering that the human heart is equivalent to a pump that continually pumps blood around our body. In high school, I learned the anatomy and physiology of the heart. I tried to relate the mechanical and electrical functionality of the heart. The four chambers of the heart and the blood vessels that connect the heart with the lungs and the whole body is the best mechanical engineering design on earth! Nonetheless, without electricity, the heart will never work. Thankfully, we don't have to plug our heart into a power supply in order to live. Thank God. The heart has its own "electricity" circuit. Amazing! It starts pumping while we were a foetus in the womb. On average, an adult heart pumps 60 beats per minute, 86 400 beats in a day, and 31.536 million beats in a year. When my heart stops, I will die. At this moment, I had a flashback from witnessing the death of my father (whom I called Ah Ba). His death was a painful process to witness (Part 7 & 8 in this memoir). Ah Ba lived 59 years and his heart had beaten at least 1.86 billion times in his lifetime. Then, everything came to a standstill including the air in the room in which he died.

The heart valves in the chambers of the heart are like doors in our rooms. They open and shut every time when the heart pumps to make sure the blood flows in the right direction from one chamber to another. If the heart valve is not properly shut or if it is worn out, back-flow of blood (which is called regurgitation) would occur. In an average human lifespan of 77 years, the heart valves would have opened and closed for about 2.42 billion times! Wear and tear of the heart valves may occur in some people. An artificial heart valve is a "spare part" to replace the worn out valve for those who can afford it and have accessibility to it. I really look forward to the technology of making artificial heart valve in my industrial placement soon.

The heart is such a wonderful organ. Lola has a kind heart and gentle personality. Naturally, as a young adult, I could have dedicated my heart to her. Nonetheless, I had not taken an initiative to express my feeling to her. Why? Was I worried about rejection as reflected in Sky Wu's song titled "To whom I dedicate my heart"? Also, I was too engrossed in my study and part-time work. I couldn't afford to fail my study and disappoint my family. I might have dedicated my heart to my study and then my career.