ABSTRACT

Looking back, the author wonders if he should have dressed up for his birthday. For him, birthdays are not events that he celebrates with pomp and circumstance, as he usually do not particularly note or await them with uncontainable anticipation. His birthday in the year of his incident was to be a particularly memorable departure from the norm. He went to sleep in his hospital bed the night before his birthday, fervently wishing that this was all a bad dream. Once the hospital did not magically disappear, he began to harbour hidden hopes that he would get to do something special as a consolation prize for coming to terms with the harsh, unwelcome truth. Once he got off the bus and returned to hospital, he was deposited back in his room. After a short amount of time, his family arrived to attempt to cheer him up with a birthday cake which had been waiting in the hospital patiently.