Shocking Saturday

This is a typical 8 bedded ward

The next day was a Saturday, there were no doctors except one or two medical consultants over the weekend.

At six am, the nurses woke me up loudly, “Wake up, brush your teeth, wash your face, eat breakfast.“

When I couldn’t move because I felt like wanting to fall asleep, she pulled the blanket out, “Wake up! I’ve many patients to do.” She pulled the blanket out and started folding them. A gust of cold air from the air conditioner swept over me. I shivered.

My belly still feel like a big hill

So I hauled myself up from the bed, my belly still heavy and big, and waited by the toilet door. When it was my turn, I had to go back to my bed to get my face towel and tooth brush. A patient’s relative rushed into the toilet so I had to wait again.

At 7 pm, breakfast in the form of scrambled eggs and five pieces of toasts came in. And a cup of water. A piece of orange.  I ate, famished.

Then I lay back on the bed, feeling very tired. The tapping tube for ascites wasn’t working because of the sarong I was wearing. I asked one of the nurses for help. She came reluctantly, “I don’t know, you wait till Monday when the doctor comes.”

“But I can’t wait, look at my belly, it is full of water and it is beginning to be difficult to breathe.”

“I don’t know. So you wait.”

I heard one of the nurses said to another one, “She came from rich Damansara Specialist, asks her to do it herself. If she doesn’t like it, go back to Damansara.”

Numbed. I didn’t know what was going on.

A sarong, easy to take off and 
easy to put on

Finally an Indian nurse came passed, I explained to her my condition. “Please help me.”

Looking at my sarong, she shook her head, “You are going to fall if you keep wearing it so low.“  So she pulled the tube up to the waist and tied it to the sarong top.

Throughout the whole weekend, I felt stuffed and bloated, no water was being drained into the bag I was carrying and no one wanted to look at the ‘tapping’ to see if the tube was blocked.

I learnt a big lesson: Never admit yourself into the emergency room on a Friday late afternoon if you can help it because no one will do anything over the weekend.

That Saturday was also the beginning of my witnessing 1Malaysia at the hospital.

Little did I know that more nightmares would be coming. 

By Ching Ching