a friend in need, is a friend indeed

If there's ever one thing that I missed most after leaving KL (besides my family and those delicious food of course!) and move DownUnder, is the fact that I'm leaving behind all my friends too.

They're NOT just your average people whom you just greet your hi's and bye's to whenever you feel like doing so; these so-called friends are definitely more than that. Being brought up in a boarding school for most of my life teenage life, friends are like my extended family to me, my confidante, even my lifeline.

I could never imagine my how I could ever last this long in my life, if it wasn't for the constant sincere support of these beautiful people called friends, on top of the undying love I got from my family.

So when I finally moved here in Perth, one of the hardest fact I had to deal is not knowing anyone at all whom I could call friend. Of course, there were those kids in college whom I met nearly everyday, but I still find it a bit hard to get along closer to them, partially due to our slight age difference (most of them are fresh high school graduates anyway, thus we obviously have a totally different wavelengths in our thinking).

But then again, thanks to my dearest childhood friend, Faris, I do get my regular dose of close friendship connection whenever he flew into Perth in his flight duty. At least, knowing he'd be there for me no matter how hard my life could be here in such foreign place at times, gave me the strength to keep moving on.

So the past few years, other than the occasional visits from Faris, I had to merely content myself with these mere acquaintence from college, until early this year when I finally met D through one of those internet websites.

Right from the first time we met, we just clicked right away. I guess knowing that we shared so much similarities on the story of how we ended up in this country just gave us more reasons to get to know each other more. His sense of down-to-earthness also helps, especially considering how nasty fellow Asians (yup, he's Malaysian too, also with an Aussie partner) could be, whenever they encounter anybody with similar skin complexion as theirs.

I'm not sure why with such hostility from these people. They must be dealing some issues with their low self-esteem, or maybe they were just being territorial? Kosser betul ngan hadek2 nih. I totally don't have time for such games. But D was never like any of them.

The friendship between us just grows naturally, and what even better, we both LOVE Ning Baizura's earlier and recent albums to death. (Haha.. *blushes*)

Since he was always busy with work, and me with my studies, we could only meet once in a while. And everytime when we do meet, we always had such a great time catching up.

And then the hard bit came.

D has been dealing with some back pain recently, and even the trip to the doctor or physiotherapist couldn't make much difference. The pain finally gone after a while, only to come back, but this time even much more aggressive.

I only found out yesterday (since I've been a bit busy myself) that D had been taking off days from work, for the past 2 weeks, and had also been to the hospital to get some biopsy done on him. Apparently, the pain (in his lower back of his spine) that he had been experiencing all this while has started to show in the form of some swelling in one of his lymph nodes.

The result for his biopsy wouldn't be known until later next week, but the doctor only offered 2 possibilities:

• He could have been having some serious viral infection in his lymph nodes, OR
• There's a possibility that it could also be some cancerous problem (and THAT could be one big nasty news)

At this stage, there's nothing much that we, or rather he could do but to wait. It's really strange and totally emotionally hurtful when somebody you get along very well and closed to (despite only knew him/her for a such short period) had to deal with such traumatic experience.

At least, until the result comes out and all this sorted out, all that we could do is pray.

It's going to be a VERY long hard week for D, his partner T, and his family. And it'd be just as hard for us too.

I wish D great strength in dealing with this difficult time in his life. Just hang on strong there, mate.. We are all behind you for all the support that you need.

*HUGS*

Take care.