Things You Take for Granted

One Friday 9 pm, I was discharged from the ward for home healing. Elated, I changed into my clothes.

" Oh oh, I don’t have any underwear!” My home carers had forgotten to give me a new change of clothes, all I had were dirty clothes. I wore the blouse and the pants but the underwear!!!

“You don’t have enough stretched underwears! Only a few old ones are suitable for you, the rest are too tight on your belly! ” My daughter lamented when I chided her for forgetting to bring me clothes for the discharge. “And it has been raining, the clothes are not drying fast enough!”

“We don’t have time, we will have to go to get you L size underwear.” My sister suggested.

“After I get well, what do I do with the L size?”

“Donate to Ah Poh (my mother)!”

“Why not borrow from Ah Poh? Now that you have to stick menstrual pad and towels inside the underwear to soak the liquid, Ah Poh’s are perfect, even the L size of modern underwear is too tight for you! ”My daughter suggested.

All of a sudden, we burst out laughing except Ah Poh.

“What is so funny?” Ah Poh cocked her eyebrows. “My underwear is comfortable and useful. And low cost. ”

MY daughter snickered, “Ah Poh, your underwear design is number 1.”  Ah Poh still wears underwears she made from old cloth.

LASTING TRADITIONAL DESIGN

This underwear design makes it airy 
and with lots of space to wrap thing on the top.

How an ascites patient can make full use of such functional and low cost wear? See the diagram below for instructions on how to roll a small towel onto the top of the underwear, and how to tape menstrual pads around the top of the underwear. This way, you have a low cost wear to stop the peritonel fluid from wetting your blouses and your pants or skirts. If you use medical gauze that the hospital use, not only that it is difficult to find, it is also more costly.

Do remember to bring several small towels if you are out for at least eight hours. Chuck the towel away when it is wet and smelly and put it into a plastic bag. Change into a new one. You have to wash the towels daily for they can smell badly after a few hours. Remember, they come from your body and the water is pressed through the internal organs!

Use menstrual pads that are meant for night time. Those which are highly absorbent are the best for you don’t have to change the pad at night and you can sleep through!

Then the most touching thing that happened: my sister handed me a bunch of M size ( she is two sizes bigger than me) underwear with ‘stretched’ tops,  “I lend you my underwear, already washed with Dettol, so no germs from me. You don’t have to buy so many underwears now cause your sizes keep changing. ”

Underwear is a very private thing, for someone to lend you theirs means they really want to help.

Wow!! 

By Ching Ching