The Nightmare

At 9pm, I was wheeled to the GI ward. I thanked the nurses in the gynea ward. But secretly I wished that I wouldn’t be coming back to this ward again.

A room with two beds. My ward mate, May, is from Kuching.

I choked and felt like vomiting.

 Her husband was snacking on shrimp keropok. The smell of keropok was too strong for me.

Sorry, I will eat outside,” the husband hurried outside.

She lives in KL alone with her three year old son and another premature baby. Her husband works in China. The only support she receives is from her mother-in- law. She has liver problem so serious that her eyeballs are yellow from jaundice.

I was transferred to this ward with a doctor’s order of giving me saline solution. It contained sodium and it was giving me stomach pains. I asked the nurse to stop the draining of the solution, she wouldn’t. “We followed the doctor’s order.”

“May I have a blanket? I am very cold,” I pleaded.

The rude nurse threw a blanket onto my toe where the IV needle was. The veins on my arms collapsed so the nurse had to find a functional vein for the drip, and it is on my left toe.

“Ouch!”I yelled. That was her welcoming me into the ward. Oh no, this ward is going to be worse than the last one? If so, it is like going from a tiger’s den into a lion’s cave.

I asked for some warm water to drink, she said curtly “We are very buzy.”

I heard her washing urinary pot in the utility room next door. She said to another nurse, ”She came from Damansara Specialist Hospital, we don’t have time to serve rich people like these.”

Oh no, someone must have texted the nurses in this ward and I am going to suffer continuously! It is as if I had committed a crime to seek medical attention here instead of staying in the private hospital.

I moaned, indeed very painful.  A male patient was screaming at the other end of the corridor. Another male patient was moaning in the room next to ours. Moans from pains. “Tolong, tolong, sakit sakit ( help, painful).” All night long.

May’s husband left at midnight, she came over to my bed to give me some warm water to drink and told me her story to keep me from thinking about my pains.

The IV drip was giving me
tremendous pains in my stomach

“When I first came here, I was also not treated well. I was very sick so I needed help in toilet and eating. The nurses scolded me. If you don’t ask them to help you, then you don’t get scolded.  One time, I was in so much pain that I pounded my head against the wall, wishing that I could just die right there. I pressed the red button for nurses to help but no one came. That night was very very long for me. I lived because I remembered my son. If I died, who is going to take care of him?

“I gritted my teeth to try to do things on my own because there is no dignity to be scolded.  Chinese call situations like these “jhiat ( a bad hurdle in life)”. In our live, each one of us will have several ‘jhiat” that we have to go through. I have been going through mine in this ward. So tonight you shall go through this ‘jhiat’, one step at a time. Just close your eyes, breathe deeply and imagine good things. Time will pass, tomorrow morning will come and the doctor can give you pain killer or take away that drip.”

She then took me to the toilet, “Try sitting down and do something, even a small fart, a little thing that comes out can ease your pains,” She waited for me till 3 am and led me back to the bed.

“Thank you, if you are not here, I will be in even worse shape,” I tried to smile.

“Only patients understand other patients’ sufferings. To these nurses, it is just a job. They don’t feel our pains. If you don’t get the warm water to drink for hours, they don’t feel your sufferings, they don’t know how uncomfortable and irritable you are without water in your mouth for hours.”

Then we got to talk about her recovery from liver disease and the loneliness she felt. “Are you worried that your husband will have another woman in China? It is a common problem, you know.” I popped the critical women’s question.

“What can I do? Look at me, yellow face, yellow eyes, shrinking breasts, no vitality in me! I am sure there are times he looks at me and think to himself, ‘Who is this woman?’ I  have to carry on because of my babies. If he has another woman, I hope he will keep her from me and still pretend to be a good husband when he is back here.” She concluded.

And so the long night went away.

By Ching Ching