Con­stant­ly gasp­ing for air, every breath has be­come a tor­tur­ous and la­bo­ri­ous ne­ces­si­ty for 69-year-old Ken­neth Wal­lace.

Sit­ting near­by, his son Sha­ka can on­ly watch help­less­ly as his fa­ther with­ers away in front of him.

“My fa­ther is pos­si­bly the bravest per­son I’ve ever known. He’s one of the most hard­work­ing peo­ple I ever knew. He’s al­ways try­ing to do some­thing up­lift­ing. So, to see the bravest per­son you ever knew, and they are now scared, it res­onates with you in an eerie way,” Sha­ka lament­ed.

With his fa­ther lay­ing fee­bly on a couch at their Trou Macaque, Laven­tille home, with a black Lasko fan aimed at him for some sem­blance of com­fort, Sha­ka ex­plained his fa­ther’s con­di­tion.

“He has been di­ag­nosed with a com­plete heart block­age; he is in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion, and he is in ur­gent need of a pace­mak­er. The med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers said there is none read­i­ly avail­able and it must be tai­lored ac­cord­ing to the per­son. So, we had to ap­ply to some or­gan­i­sa­tion, be­cause ap­par­ent­ly, we don’t have pace­mak­ers avail­able in the pub­lic health sys­tem. So, we did all the doc­u­men­ta­tion and sent it off to the Unit­ed King­dom via the Mt Hope Hos­pi­tal and we are just wait­ing,” Sha­ka ex­plained.

A deeply stressed Sha­ka who said he has not slept in days said each day is a macabre se­ries of emo­tions.

“It’s in­ter­est­ing wak­ing up each morn­ing be­cause you just have this feel­ing of, will my fa­ther die to­day? Will he be here to­day? So, it feels like we are on the clock,” Sha­ka said.

With a re­as­sur­ing look to this fa­ther as if stung by his own ad­mit­tance of his fa­ther’s mor­tal­i­ty, Sha­ka said the mere fact his fa­ther is alive is as­tound­ing his doc­tors.

“His pulse rate was 30 per cent at Christ­mas and now it’s gone down to 28 per cent and ac­cord­ing to the doc­tors ap­par­ent­ly, it’s a dead man’s pulse, they find it some­what mirac­u­lous that he is still func­tion­ing,” Sha­ka said.

Sha­ka said he has been en­cour­aged to seek treat­ment pri­vate­ly but as he looked around their Laven­tille home, Sha­ka said the cost is not some­thing they could af­ford.

“I was giv­en a quote by one doc­tor in the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, who said the pace­mak­ers could be over $100,000 but the en­tire pro­ce­dure could be $200,000 to $300,000 max. I am say­ing that if I could have sold my house or my car in­stant­ly for that val­ue, I would have done that for my fa­ther, no ques­tion,” he ex­plained.

Their home is adorned with para­pher­na­lia which re­flects the ethos and life of Ken­neth. On the wall is a pic­ture of for­mer Em­per­or of Ethiopia Haile Se­lassie, a tes­ta­ment to Ken­neth’s in­volve­ment in the Black Pow­er Move­ment. His hand­i­work is al­so ev­i­dent with hand-craft­ed aquar­i­ums in the gallery. Sha­ka said his dad was em­ployed with the Min­istry of Works for 40 years. And hard work is his lega­cy.

While grate­ful for the treat­ment his fa­ther re­ceived at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Sha­ka won­ders if their hands were tied.

“I think he would have been bet­ter off stay­ing in the hos­pi­tal be­cause there is no med­ical prac­ti­tion­er here. We can’t deal with a 28 per cent pulse rate,” he said.

Adding to their woes, Sha­ka said his fa­ther’s old age pen­sion cheque has gone miss­ing.

“While he was ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal, ap­par­ent­ly his pen­sion cheque went miss­ing, and we ex­plored all av­enues, and it hasn’t been found yet but hope­ful­ly at the end of the month that changes. We went to the post of­fices, the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry in Port-of-Spain and every­one is point­ing in a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion,” Sha­ka lament­ed.

“I im­plore any­one who can help to ex­tend a hand be­cause that is hu­man­i­ty’s great­est bless­ing that you can ask for,” Sha­ka plead­ed.

As Guardian Me­dia left their home, his fa­ther, Ken­neth, found his voice. Raspy, slow and painstak­ing.

“Thank you for com­ing to see me,” he al­most whis­pered.

Any­one wish­ing to help the 69-year-old get a new lease on life can con­tact Sha­ka at 770-0229.