Pain Management

One of the key things that a patient must learn to cope with is pain management. Some pains that you have to bear with, almost daily -- the needle when they take lots of blood from your arms, the anesthetic needles before a surgery. 

I squirmed every time I see a needle－that was before I got sick. Then with this peritoneal fluid retention, more jabs come.  In March, my arms were so bruised that there was no way to find a functioning vein but to poke my toes or thighs. My veins collapsed from inexperienced nurses in Damansara Specialist Hospital jabbing me to draw blood.

Then in the emergency room in University Hospital, five doctors tried to take blood from me the first time I was admitted. ‘What happened to your veins?” they asked. After one hour, one of them managed to insert the triangular thing onto my right thumb. I was exhausted and spent by then.

God where are you? So much pains in life? Give me a break, please?

Eventually, I figured out that being humorous take my mind off the pains. So during surgeries, I cracked jokes with the nurses and the surgeons. I felt good to hear laughter in the operating theatre.And when I go back to my ward, I try to look at the surgery wounds as ‘windows to a better future’, and I assured myself that these wounds are temporary.

Chinese characters: Pains

“The pains are only today, and it will go away tomorrow!” I told myself repeatedly.

And I learn to take deep breaths and make myself calm. Enduring pains is stressful. But if I change my attitude and look at the needle pains at the moment of pain as ‘This is good for me’, “Just a prick and it will go away”, “Good medication to get you well, just breathe deeply and you will be alright, ” then the pains are more bearable.

With real pains and feared pains, my appetite has gone down. Since the tapping take away my blood protein, the doctor’s team has prescribed protein powder in the form of ‘Ensure’ so that I don’t lose more weight. I could get the powder in can form, in the form of a drink or in powder form. I chose the can form.

Attitude makes all the difference. 

All that can protect me

 The book “Living in the Now’, a Christmas present from my best friend five years ago has been in my current reading list. So for three days at the hospital, I slowly digested part of the content and learn to live in the NOW.

Just like Pong. The Pong who didn’t want morphine even when in deep pains because she wanted to talk to me.

Breathe deeply, think of all the good things around me. And be calm.

Think of my dreams, and the good feelings that come with achieving my dreams. Visualize success to get rid of the feeling of pains in the body.

 And also prayer for divine intervention.

And when I need human encouragement, I look for Lucy. She has been a lupus patient for almost three decades.  Ten years ago, she recovered from a one year Lupus flare-up and she almost died. When she got over it, she swore to God that she would devote her life to help Lupus patients. So since she has been with Salaam Wanita project for so long, she has become a trusted friend, and the only one I would listen to when I feel like giving up.

Her counseling consisted of advice to accept the illness and then move on with gusto. Some of the patients she counseled refuse to accept Lupus as the illness that had come onto them, therefore they refused to take steroid and the proper care needed. They choose to neglect. “You must forget the old you, and become a new person!”

I thank God that Lucy is the Angel Gabriel in human form.

By Ching Ching