All That Hurts

The ward is especially noisy in the day time. Much of the noises are contributed by family members of patients.

A Chinese woman was standing by a wall, yelling onto her handphone, “So you blame me for mother’s cancer? Of course it is not your fault so you won’t pay!”  She banged her phone onto the wall, and at one point, almost screamed profanities into it. Her mother who just had a cancerous tumor removed,  laid on the bed, shutting her eyes throughout the ordeal. She didn’t eat her dinner that night.

The heated argument, temper tantrums from carers stress patients out. Fighting and screaming in front of a patient is very traumatic for anyone who is already in fear of the disease and wanting comfort from family.

There are other family members who argue in front of the patients. It makes the rest of us uncomfortable having to listen to people fighting each other in the ward. It makes us feel that the society is cruel and cold and hopeless.

I sighed when I heard the woman continued her angry lashings even when the doctor’s team was by her mother’s bed side. How sad!  She was so absorbed that she didn’t even ask the doctors about her mother’s progress.

She continued. It was all about money and who has the time to come to the hospital. It seemed that she was the only one while the rest of the siblings abdicated their responsibilities with various excuse.

So when the doctor’s team came to mine, I asked if they would discharge me and let me go to vote on Sunday and to celebrate mother’s day with my daughter. I wanted to go home, away from such negative atmosphere. The doctor told me they had to observe me till the afternoon before they made a decision.

At 4 pm, an older doctor, a senior doctor came to check on me. He was satisfied, “We need you to vote to make changes, so we will discharge you for home leave today. You can come back on Monday!” Another reason was my father’s first death anniversary on Wesak Day.

I was so happy with my first discharge to home.  I packed within minutes but it took me more than four hours before the paper work and payment were completed. The nurse took the ascites tapping tube off, so I went home with water flowing from the hole!

“What is the best I can do at home?” I asked cautiously.

“Make sure that everything in your house is clean so you don’t get infected!” Her only advice.

It was raining when my sister came. It took us more than an hour to get home. We tried to find the gauze and dressing plaster needed for my tapping but the pharmacy did not sell them. So we rushed into a small clinic and got what the clinic offered us.

That night, my daughter changed my dressing on my bed. The little new nurse is now learning to be gentle and how to do things in a more septic condition.

It felt so good to finally lay on my own bed after all these months of absence.

By Ching Ching