I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, looking at a strange place.

First thing that came into existence in my mind is… “Why am I here in this shit hole again.” As though I was back from… somewhere.

Back then, somewhere in 2016, maybe August or September, I was dragging my heavily swollen legs everywhere I walked.

My shoes went up by 2 European sizes, from 40 to 42. I weighed 85kg, I was suppose to weigh 75kg. I had 10l of water in me.

A simple walk at an underpass, from the Northeast Line at Outram Park transiting to East West line, I had to stop in the middle to catch my breath. I was drowning in my own fluid.

That night when I slept, I heard 2 breaths with every breath I took. Looking at hindsight now, it must have been the water that flooded my lungs. I had difficulty sleeping as I went out of breath. I had to prop my head up using 4 pillows to ensure that I could sleep.

Maybe unconsciously, I know my time is going to be up. I had this unexplained fear in me during that period. I did not dare to sleep alone, as though I am afraid to die alone.

1 night, I suddenly awoke, with no memories at all.

I looked around my room asking myself, “why am I here in this shit hole again?”

I looked at the window, “I know its “night” out there, but is there a “day”?” “How do I know what is “day” ?”

Suddenly this panicky woman asked me, “Do you know who am I?”

I looked at her and asked… “Who are you?” “Oh yes, you are my mother.”

“What year is it?” she asked. “Is it 1986?”

This world I am in is so familiar but it made no sense to me. I stared at the door to my room and thought “ah… there’s a living room out there… wait, what is a “living room” ?”

I went outside my room and went to sit down in my sister’s room. My sister had a bunk bed with a staircase, so I just sat at the staircase. I was looking at a scene, my sister walks into the room, asked me a question then she came back in again, and asked the same question. Exact same scene, exactly the same sequence, exactly the same question. And my reply was always the same, word for word, action for action, exactly the same. I tried to consciously alter the answer I gave, I was helpless. I will always end up saying the exact same thing over and over again.

Until today, I still wonder what it looked like to be on the outside looking at me. I was trapped in my own twisted looping reality with no concept of time. In that reality I was in, time was looping, not linear.

It stopped looping when I finally stood up and walked out the door. My mum wanted to call the ambulance but I insisted on going through with supplements and a treatment plan offered by a wellness company which promised to reverse kidney failure.

Irrational.

My mum and sister finally managed to trick me into a taxi that took me to the hospital. In my mind, the only thing that kept on repeating were thick needles poking into my arms. Dialysis.

When I reached the hospital, I was immediately put on the bed and pushed into observation room. I insisted I can walk but no, the nurses put me onto a bed anyway. Guess I must have looked like I was a walking dead to be accorded such treatment.

I was having hiccups all the way. I thought nothing of it until a doctor came in and said that it is typical for kidney failure patients to have hiccups non stop.

I was put on emergency dialysis that night, a catheter right in my thigh into my femoral artery and vein. I still remembered clearly how it happened.

I asked the doctor if it was painful, he said there’s anesthesia and took the 1st incision. then I saw blood oozing out and i shouted “blood blood!”

He told me, “You have 5 litres of blood in you, you won’t die with a few drops!”

Then I laughed and he laughed too. I guess I was having a toxins high back then… Blood test results returned 1200 mmol/L of creatinine that night. Normal range is between 60-100 mmol/L.

The doctor came in the next day and told me that I had to spend the next 7 days in bed because of the catheter, no getting out of bed.

Sure, all the meals are served to be, breakfast in bed always sounds nice. But what does in must come out… right?

He also told me that I would have only survived another 2 weeks if I have not come in the night before. 2 weeks? I already felt that I came back from the dead.