Caring for my fiercely strong-willed father
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Kim Hun is an academic and a broadcaster with ABC Canberra. The city he grew up in. Kim is so Canberra, he has his postcode tattooed on his arm. That's that's how Canberra this guy is. Like so many migrant kids, Kim is a pretty driven guy who's taken on a lot of responsibilities in life. But during the covert lockdowns, James, ID you're all dead, teeth. whom he was living with. Had a serious stroke. Like every carer. Kim had to find a way to help look after his dad. continue working and bringing in an income. And help raise his son. He found he was giving over his whole self for people he loves. while feeling like he wasn't doing enough for anyone. He also had to come to terms with his dad's increasingly frail body.
And his still fierce will power. His dad kept saying to him I have to live. So Kim thought He had to help. Kim's wonderful book, which is endorsed by Careers Australia is called My old man and me. Hello, Kim. Hello, Richard. There were three generations under one roof in your house in Canberra when your dad got ill. Who was there in the house at the time?
Uh it's the Confucian dream, isn't it? It
was Confucius' dream, but uh how about yours?
Well it it worked it worked. So we lived together for seven or eight years. I was forty seven at the time. I did the maths recently. I lived with my parents for forty years. Forty out of forty seven years in Canberra. In the most concrete corner of Canberra.
Forty years. That's all? That's all.
So yeah, after my my marriage broke down or we went our separate ways, my son and I went and moved in with my mum and dad. No questions asked. That's where I was always gonna head up. And we lived together for seven years or so.
So at age eighty Your dad was starting to accumulate the kind of health issues you do when you hit your ADs, and then he had a stroke. How serious was the stroke?
Yeah, it was a big one. He'd actually had a little one before and this one hit him one spring day after we'd gone for a walk to see the cherry blossoms. And because COVID was going on, he didn't stay in hospital as long as he would have otherwise. He was in intensive care and then he was out after six days. And we were waiting at the hardware store to collect some stuff to do some gardening for mum. And he described his stroke. And his voice is incredible. I'll never forget it. He was so fearful, he was so frail, and he said it was like being in a car and then hitting a wall at a hundred and thirty kilometers. So that's what it was like for him. to have that stroke.
What was the first major health crisis Kim faced with his father?
We didn't really know what the effect of the stroke would be on him, but he couldn't walk. He had a lot of what we call a lag or a deficit on the left side of his body, which is not uncommon. He was left with double vision. So he covers up one side of his eye now to address the double vision. But that causes depth perception issues. So that means he has he struggles to make a cup of tea or sometimes to watch television. And much of his rehab was about not only walking again, but finding a way to manage his vision. He's already had hearing issues and it affected his hearing issues. Two. So the other question is to ask what he had left, but he had a whole lot of spirit left, didn't he? So that's what's carried us through.
You mentioned a short hospital stay. Was that because of him? What was he like d when he was in hospital?
Well, we couldn't go and see him. I tried to get an exception, but rightfully we couldn't go and see him. Oh,
this is COVID, of course. It
was COVID, so he was manic. He was manic. He hadn't really been away from my mum. in the last forty years or from his family for more than a few days.
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