Such a Heroine.........She can hold her head up

Corina Zheng has lost five siblings to the same disease that has nowParalysed her, but that is no reason for her to wallow in self-pity HE WAS in the intensive care unit of Eastshore Hospital when I called his home last year.Mr Cheng Chit Lam was an ice-cream seller. He was a familiar face inNewton and Bukit Timah where he plied his trade for nearly 45 years. Several generations of Singaporeans - past and present residents ofThese areas - have bought Cornettos, Eskimo Pies and popsicles from the friendly old man with the very kind face.I heard he had a disabled daughter and wanted to meet him to see if he would make an interesting story. We never met. Mr Cheng died after an 86-day stay in the hospital, from complications stemming from excessive fluids in his brain. I found out later that he and his wife Madam Sze Hiang Kim, 71, hadEight children but lost five of them. Of the surviving three, one - 50-year-old Teow Hoon - is adopted and a deaf mute. She is a cleaner at a health food company.Poh Huat is 45 and works as a driver.And then there is Corina, 42, who suffers from Werdnig Hoffman, a Disease where the spinal nerve cells and brain nerve cells degenerate, leading to atrophy of skeletal muscles and flaccid paralysis. Corina's five other siblings succumbed to the disease. Three of them -including her twin brother - died when they were just two years old. One died at six. Corina's eldest sister Poh Ngoh lived the longest; she died in 1980 when she was 22. 'When my father was in hospital, he gave instructions not to drag or delay his death with prolonged medical treatment. He was worried about me and my mother, he didn't want us to waste money,' Corina says. She describes the late ice-cream seller as someone who always put his family first.'Someone once told him that mutton was good for the muscles. So when I was about seven or eight, he'd spend a lot of hard earned money going to Tekka market, buying mutton and special herbs. 'My mother would boil them and I'd drink them. Well, it helped. I could walk by using the wall as support for about a year. Then, I fell very ill with a lung infection at eight. They thought I'd die,' she says. Today, Corina has lost all use of her limbs. She can't even turn her head. Her hands and legs are deformed and lifeless but her voice has a Vivacious quality - it is loud and chirpy. She spends her days and nights lying on a thin piece of bedding in the middle of her humble but spotlessly clean three-room HDB flat in Geylang Bahru. She only leaves her home when she has to go to the hospital, in an ambulance. Her mother patiently and selflessly tends to her every need – feeding her, bathing her, propping her up when her daughter wants to read her Bible or the newspapers. Madam Wee has been doing this for nearly three decades ever since her daughter left the Singapore Red Cross Home at 13 after living there for three years. Although Corina never had any formal education, she speaks English, Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew. 'My sister taught me how to read and write when she was alive. I also upgraded myself by reading the newspapers and the Bible. 'She said literacy can help a handicapped person get knowledge, widen the mind, make you think better and communicate with people who can't speak our language. She said education is the only thing we can take to our grave.'INDEED, despite her condition, she is the wise counsel of the house. She translates all letters for the family and takes care of all official correspondence. When her father was alive, she handled his accounts. She even taught her illiterate mother how to type 10 years ago. 'I told her to look at each key on the keyboard and tell me what it reminds her of. She said the letter S' reminded her of a snake, C' a half moon and ?' an inverted fish hook,' she recalls. Very painstakingly, they established a system. Today, Madam Wee - anextremely quiet and dignified woman - types all her daughter's cards and letters. The 71-year-old smiles a sad, weary smile and says in Cantonese: 'I have to look after her. If I didn't look after her, who would? 'We can't blame others for the way things have turned out. We can only blame ourselves. Maybe our lives are not good.' There is a lot of sorrow behind her stoicism. 'My well has dried up, I have no more tears to shed,' she says even as a watery film clouds her eyes.'I didn't want to have any more children after the first few but the doctor kept telling us to try. Maybe the next one would be normal', he said. 'They were all born healthy and bouncy but after eight or nine months, their spine would go soft,' she says. She looks away when Corina relates a story.'Once my mother bought a roast duck from the market and gave a small piece to our neighbour's son who was hungry. When the neighbour saw this, she grabbed the piece of meat and threw it away.'She told her son not to eat it. She said that if he did, he would end up like us. Some neighbours also said our parents did bad things in their previous lives,' she recalls without any bitterness. Corina herself is a lot more philosophical.'It's God's will. People with this condition don't live long. But I'm still here,' she says with an ironic laugh. She's no alarmist either. Her father's life savings were wiped out by his huge hospital bill. Corina herself has no assistance from the authorities. 'All my father's children died in a government hospital so he was very adamant that I be treated in a private hospital when I got ill. Because of that, I don't qualify for any official subsidies or schemes.' They get by with a small payout from an Eldershield insurance policy and her father's savings. Her married brother - who has decided not to have children for fear they would have Werdnig Hoffman - and her deaf mute sister help out when they can.'My deaf sister doesn't earn much and she also has her own medical bills to take care of.' Corina will 'cross that bridge' when the savings run out. 'Who knows if I will live that long? If I have to go to a home, I will.' Right now, she leads a peaceful existence with her mother and deaf-mute sister. She wakes up every morning at the crack of dawn and goes to bed at 11.30pm. In the day, 'I read, do some financial planning, figure out how much we need for the next month's expenses and ways to scrimp and save'. 'Or I get my mother to type letters to my friends.' At night, she watches the news and crime dramas. 'I like CSI and Law And Order. I don't like Chinese TV serials. They are all the same, they offer nothing new.' She has a hobby: collecting wedding photos.She has enough pictures - from friends and relatives - to fill 1 ½ albums. 'Wedding pictures are beautiful. Everyone looks beautiful.' Blessed with a sly wit and a wicked sense of humour, Corina has nohang-ups about death and mortality. 'My mother and I have talked about it. Death is like paying a very long bill. It's not easy to pay but once it's cleared, all your debts are gone,' she quips. Letting out a loud cackle, she adds: 'You know, since I do everything around here, I probably have to arrange my own funeral as well.' Here are the details if you or your friends would like to help corinaand her mom. please make a crossed cheque out to Cheng Poh Eng (Corina's Chinese name)and send it to: Ms Iris KohHead, AdminStraits Times News DeskSingapore Press Holdings1000 Toa Payoh NorthNews CentreSingapore 318994
Article written by Wong Kim Hoh