Update on my brother and family:

I managed to talk with him for a few minutes. It was rather disturbing.

He rarely showed any strong emotions, rarely changes voice intonation for that matter, but it was like talking to a Vulcan. No reactions, no wit, no humour. Just this unnerving intellect that tries as it can to not be confused and fails. While understandable in his condition, I can't keep myself from thinking that I'm talking to a completely different person. Practically no eyeball movement as if he was blind. He isn't, but in his own words "it takes too much effort to recognise what I'm seeing". I don't know what happened. I know that due to brain damage people can stop recognising shapes, faces, writing or stereoscopic vision. I had no idea that mind can make you effectively blind by losing this innate ability to quickly analyse what you see, that thing that still puts us above supercomputers. I hope that's not permanent, but with my mother being evasive to my questions I have that much more doubts and concerns.

Truth be told, state of my mother is just as concerning. She looks like she lost ten kilograms and hadn't got a good night sleep in weeks. I can't even being to imagine how it must feel to be a doctor with that level of attachment. Knowing her, she probably can already recite from memory every single textbook on oncology that keep on being added to the bookshelf that I can see in the background during our Skype talks. According to my father it's even worse than when my brother and I caught rubella over a decade ago. All of that amazing experience as a doctor disappeared. I don't remember the event in detail, but I recall her perceiving everything as another problem or symptom. I would not be surprised if she could convince herself that we somehow caught Dengue Fever. It's silly and I know that it comes from her caring for us, but I can't help myself from smirking when I recall her commendations for help with prevention and management during actual pandemics. Anyway, I ramble but I hope you guys/gals get what I try to say.

Returning to my brother, I know that his chemotherapy started, although I don't know anything specific.

Update on me:

I got some nasty flu, made me barely lucid for last few days. It's the second time I got sick this year, before that the last time I got ill was nearly a decade ago. I guess that's normal as before I wasn't surrounded by hundreds of people in the dorm, but it sucks regardless. I'm mainly reading my research assignment material and try to keep up with my homework.

But on top of that, I'm tired.