He was lying in a hospital bed recuperating from a heart bypass operation when more bad news hit.
Mr Mohamed Jusmi Abdul Hamid was told that given his heart condition, he was no longer in line for a replacement kidney.
By that time, in August 2004, the 52-year old had chalked up a 15-year wait for a kidney transplant, much longer than the average nine-year wait for other kidney patients,
Dispirited and tired, he snapped at the transplant coordinator. 'I told him 'So what? Even when I could have a transplant, I never got it. So there's not much difference now, right?'
'I stopped hoping a long time ago so the news wasn't disappointing,' he recalled bitterly.
He was just 34 years old when his blood pressure shot up and could not be brought down for days. That was when doctors told him his kidneys were failing.
Because of his thrice-weekly dialysis, he had to quit his job as a clerk in a brokerage firm to drive a cab. 'During the first 10 years, I visited the transplant unit at Singapore General Hospital almost every day to ask if there was a kidney for me. But each time, the answer was 'No'.'
In 2004, 77 people in the kidney transplant queue were taken off, another 76 in 2005, and 120 last year.
As of last year, the kidney queue stands at 555 people, including 118 Muslims.
There was a complication for Muslims who are not covered by the Human Organ Transplant Act.
Rather than opt out, they had to opt in to be donors, and not many did so. So when a transplant was needed, they were placed at the back of the queue as priority went to donors.
Mr Jusmi, his wife and two of his children pledged themselves as donors once his kidneys started failing. But it still meant a two-year wait before he was even put in the line. 'I wished I had pledged my organs earlier but it was 1989 and I didn't know a thing about organ donation.'
In the beginning, he had high hopes of getting a transplant and freeing himself from dialysis.
'One by one, I saw my friends at the dialysis centre disappear because they managed to get a transplant. So I was hopeful my turn would come.'
He didn't know then that patients could also be dropped from the queue or their positions changed.
Kidney transplant surgeon Dr James Tan said that a cadaveric kidney will be given to the patient who has the best match. 'It is not on first-come-first-served basis. Every kidney is so precious that we have to minimise any risk of rejection by the recipient.'
Kidney specialist Dr Akira Wu said that most times, patients are taken off the waiting list for their own good. 'Patients who have developed health complications, such as diabetes, may suffer a stroke and not even survive a transplant.'
Mr Jusmi's wife, customer service officer Hamidah Kassim, 45, was willing to give her kidney to her husband but Mr Jusmi refused as he was afraid the operation would harm his wife and leave their three children as orphans.
He had one false start. In 2000, after waiting 11 years, he received a call from the SGH transplant unit telling him to get ready for an operation. But just hours later, he got another call: the kidney had been given to someone else.
'To have my hopes raised and dashed just like that was terrible. From then on, I told myself to stop hoping for a transplant because it was never going to happen,' he said.
The effect of Mr Jusmi's failing kidneys started to show as the years dragged on.
In 1999, 10 years after he fell ill, Mr Jusmi stopped urinating altogether, becoming totally dependent on dialysis to rid his body of toxins.
In 2004, he had his heart bypass surgery when three arteries were found to be choked. His heart surgeon told him it could be due to the calcium supplements prescribed for him.
Last year, he had another operation. The parathyroid glands in his neck, which help regulate calcium in the body, were going into overdrive. Doctors had to remove three of the four glands there and embed the remaining one into his right hand.
Twice this year, he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance when he became breathless.
Medical bills started taking a toll on the family's finances. The $10,000 or so in his Medisave account was wiped out within two years of falling ill. He relies on his wife's Medisave to pay all hospitalisation fees.
Each month, he spends $180 for his dialysis at the National Kidney Foundation, $120 for blood tests, and $500 for medications.
He is hospitalised at least once a month, each time incurring about $1,000 in bills.
Last year, the family sold their four-room Jurong flat and downgraded to a three-roomer. The family also started relying on Madam Hamidah's $1,600 a month salary as he had become too weak to drive his taxi.
Their youngest child, nine-year-old Dinie Asyraf, has learnt to use the blood pressure machine. Oldest daughter, Nur Syirah, 18, stressed out by her father's health problems, has frequent fainting spells.
Madam Hamidah said: 'This illness does not affect my husband alone but the entire family as well. We take each day as it comes and tackle one problem at a time.'
