Life @ Private

Finally, no more blood-taking in the wee hours of the morning! It was 7am and the nurse was going around taking parameters, blood pressure and of course, pricking fingers. Rinsed my mouth with mouthwash. How I wished my toothbrush were here. The nurse asked if I would like to brush my teeth with the free toothbrush. Ah, might as well.

Dear phone was still by my side.

Still felt like I didn't have enough sleep. The time I sleep doesn't matter; what matters is that I get up after 11am.

After brushing my teeth, it was stoning time. Wake me up so early for what?

Breakfast was served at about 8am. Porridge again zzz. Other people got bread ley. And the old lady diagonally opposite me was complaining that she didn't like bread, her son ordered for her only. She really wanted porridge. My eyes lit up.

EXCHANGE!

That's what I wanted to say, but if you know me, that's just a silent scream. We have already touched our food anyway.

Checked out morning tv. I was once again reminded of why I no longer watch tv.

I'm disturbed at the sight of lactulose among my medication. I'm not constipated what, give me for what? Should I just drink it anyway since it doesn't taste bad? Eh... later LS how? So I asked the nurse if I could refuse. I could. Ooo so can refuse medication one...

The old lady diagonally opposite me (shall be known as Talkative Granny hereafter) started chatting with the old lady next to me (shall be known as Granny hereafter, since she's really quite normal) in strangely-accented Mandarin. She wasn't good at it, but still understandable. Talkative Granny is from Indonesia. Her son lives in Singapore and brought her here for her knee replacement operation. Granny's was a total knee replacement.

Granny expressed surprise that Talkative Granny actually knew Mandarin. True, the Chinese language was banned, but people learned in secret. At that time, people wanted to learn their culture no matter what. Alas, her son didn't share her passion. Same as us. Sigh at the younger generation.

Bathing time. The other 2 patients took turns to be taken to the bathroom for a shower. They resisted initially, but were later convinced by the nurses that they were able to get out of bed and enter that dangerous place.

For me, it's sponging as usual. The nurses probably hadn't seen such a long wound and some facial injuries in a while. I asked them to wipe harder to get those stubborn ECG lead adhesive off me. Those pads peeled off cleanly all of the other times I had an ECG, but 1 week was long enough for them to start melting into me. Super itchy!

Horrors, no amount of wiping worked!

I requested the nurses to apply the calamine lotion and asiatic centella cream for me. They opened a bag of cotton balls, poured the calamine lotion in and used the soaked cotton balls on me. Wow that an erm, overkill? I thought they would just pour on their hand and slap it on me. So that's how people finish a bottle of calamine lotion,

I took the opportunity to ask if they could shampoo me. It's a yes! Ok tomorrow!

Just when I had resigned myself to rolling and peeling the adhesive off, the same way you remove the rectangle perimeter of a plaster's remnants, a nurse came to me with a bottle of plaster remover. Frankly, I never knew such a product exists. Soak a cotton ball with the plaster and rub gently on the affected area. The goo came off effortlessly! Amazing! Where can I buy this?

Noisy dementia patient got transferred out. Good riddance!

A young doctor came to check on Talkative Granny, while the surgeon himself came to check on Granny, who still had a drain and just did the merlion yesterday. After the doctors ley, Talkative Granny chatted with Granny about how dedicated Granny's Indian surgeon was to come personally everyday, while she had to make do with his students.

Me worse right? No doctor. Yet.

The physiotherapist came to see me. With a nurse's help, she put me into my TLSO. I forgot what she did with me, but it was only for a short while. She ended the session by making me sit out on the armchair next to my bed. Goal: to wait for lunch, which was coming soon and then have my lunch in the chair.

Bad idea!
1) Sure, lunch was about to be served soon, but my lunch was NOT coming soon.
2) She's asking me to sit and stone. That's my nightmare come true. I CAN'T sit and stone.

But of course I understand that's all part of the rehab. Let's make it more bearable. Give me life lines - my phone, tv remote control and put on the headphones for me. The physiotherapist threw in the call bell.

Ok what's on the tv? Channel 5, boring, 8, sian. Settled on Discovery, which was screening a show about a guy who could read your thoughts by looking at your body language. It was all good until my neighbor's family started channel-surfing and my tv kena as well. Didn't feel like calling out to them when I'm feeling so uncomfortable.

The nurses brought a continuous passive motion machine to Granny's bed.

That will be her physiotherapy. Uh oh it's her nightmare! It bends the new knee to increase its range. Apparently, it's very painful.

Western soft diet was here! I asked the guy to just leave it on the table as I would eat it later.

Jaws hurting. No mood for tv anymore. Parents come quick please...

My phlegm has cleared without me realizing it.

I think Mother brought me kuay teow soup or something like that. A lot of trees were sacrificed lining the TLSO with serviettes. So, the Western soft diet was mashed potatoes. Quite yummy actually. I love mashed potatoes. Why didn't they give me this earlier? So sian of the porridge already!

Back to bed after lunch. What a relief!

Nice afternoon spent with Brother and tablet. He wanted to take me around, but the prospects of having to get 2 people to help me with my TLSO and being unable to sit properly in the wheelchair perished the thought.

View from my bed. Picturesque, compared to Ward 51.

O don't worry, the nurses draw the curtains everytime I was about to do something private. Amazing that they would bother all the time, I would say.

The hospital had sent me a Deposit Request because I have ready blown my initial deposit, and also the interim bill for reference. By now, I have already run up a bill of $43,159.79.

Estimated deductible from Medisave -$12,050
Estimated deductible from Medishield -$8,900
Deposit -$6,000
Outstanding to-date $16,209.79

Please Top-up Deposit of $16,710

OUCH!! Conveniently round up the figure somemore!

They have really billed me as class C for the extra days in HD whee!
There's an eye-popping $36,154.50 for implants. If $30k went to the screws, the BMP was $6k? Less than the $8k per pop I thought I heard. When the doubt is in your favor, don't ask.

Brother decided to apply for his own Citibank card to take advantage of the 0% interest installment payment facility. Too bad mine was already maxed out paying for Sister's stuff.

Dr L came with the rehab doctors. I had to ask about the solid diet. As expected, I was sane and the guys got it wrong. Hmpf!

With a waiting list of 3 weeks at The Hope Killer Hospital, there was no way I could wait that long. So it would be Ward 1 for 2 weeks, then outpatient there.

After the doctors left, the nurse changed the doctor-in-charge on my wall from Dr L to the rehab doctor, Dr C. I have officially been dumped, boohoo.

Meal-order time. The guy handed me The Menu!!! No more confidence in the Chinese menu. Malay may be worth a try, but Mother couldn't possibly let me eat that. Western was chicken wor, couldn't eat also. Don't know order for what, waste food only. Aiyah just Western all the way lah.

Sister finally came to visit. She has never seen my cool HD room before lor!

Getting worried about having no reason to reject the lactulose tomorrow morning, until I got my break. When dinner was served though >_< Sorry folks!

My siblings stayed till evening. Then parents came and the usual routine.

Sleep time... for the others. Let's watch some tv. Salt was on HBO, but I watched before liao. It's a time that I wished there were some trashy variety show :(

Salt lor.

Forgot when, but a new dementia patient got transferred over. Noise-maker again. There's really a lot of confused elderly people around, wasn't it?? And why so suay, come HERE??? Or really purposely post them into private ward so as to disturb less patients? I will be damn sad if I were paying the actual rate!

11pm. If I wanted 8hrs of sleep, it's got to be now. To keep the noisy neighbor out of my ears, time for radio. But I was quickly reminded that the nice clip-on earphones that Brother brought me wouldn't do. The uncomfortable in-box earphones doubled as the radio antenna. WTH. Use the tv again lor.

Sleep sleep sleep.