Encounters

Part 1
My goodness, it was so stuffy in the wards, which also happens to spot a slightly gloomy appearance. My 2nd ward round in 3 weeks, and 2nd time witnessing an emergency. An old man who presented with generalised swelling (his whole body was bloated due to chronic renal failure). My group just interviewed him last week for our bedside teaching, and yesterday morning his blood pressure (BP) crashed, and the MOs and nurses had to perform basic life support (ambu-bag), intubate and provide oxygen for him to breathe. He had to be transferred to the High Dependency Unit (HDU). Don't know whether it was the stuffy ward environment, lack of sleep the previous night, or it's just me having had too many people dying around me, coz I think I'm starting to become numb to such situations. I'll either just zone out or spot an expressionless look, despite having intentions to at least somehow show empathy / sympathy to the family members.

Part 2
At another different bed, there was this young Indian patient in his late 20's / early 30's, who got admitted with a stroke - as a result he is now a hemiplegic. His right leg had to be amputated from the hip down because it was already gangrenous. Initially, nobody wanted to talk to him because he looked scary. Even the nurses scolded him for apparently being irritating and complaining too much.

When he saw me from far away, he gestured for me to go closer. I was like thinking, "What? Should I? What if he turns out to be a psycho / gangster / drug addict who may end up beating me up / jabbing me with a needle?" Man, I think I'm becoming paranoid about the crime situation in JB lar. Stigmas.. He asked for our names.
"Gary."
"David?"
"No lar, Gary.."
"You ni orang Melayu ke Jepun?" (Are you Malay or Japanese?)
*swt* as colleagues laughed at me. He does speak some English and Tamil though.

He was a lorry driver. Apparently it was a stressful job. "You merokok ar?" I shook my head as a no. "Don't smoke. Not good for your body." I guess that was a painful lesson to him.. As I proceeded to do physical examination on him, one thing we realised upon auscultation was that he had a very audible gallop on the aortic and mitral valves sites (actually it can be heard all over, but was the loudest at those 2 sites). Patient chart has 'mitral stenosis' written on it.

"Itu kaki bila mau potong?"
"Err.. tak tau lar.. sorry ya, itu awak kena tanya doktor.."

"You Christian ar?" he asked me, making the sign of the cross with his hands. I wasn't expecting that. "Yes." "So you go church lar.." I nodded. "When my heart not feeling well, I go church lar.. I also got pray.."

It was abit unfortunate lar that we did not trust him enough to allow him to use our handphones to call and check his sister's visiting time. Another ethical scare almost arose when he took out his bank account particulars for his insurance claim apparently, I was afraid that he wanted us to do something or what.. but then I managed to just direct him to ask his sister to bring it up with the doctor / nurses in charge. Pity also lar, imagine being labelled as having no relatives when his sister is still alive. When we finished, we thanked him, shook his hand and apologised if we had caused him any discomfort. He stared at us and said, "Don't say sorry. It's your duty. I am just a patient. I have done my duty. Whatever happens from now on, it is up to you."

I don't know why God didn't heal him at that time, or not yet maybe.. but with what he has gone through, I'm just amazed that he can still cling on until now and is trying to accept things as they are. Not sure how I would have reacted in a similar situation. Well, I wish him well. (he still waves upon seeing me in the wards) Just another one of those little things that pass you by.

Part 3
There was a light moment when a Punjabi asthma patient told us when we were taking his history, "When you become a doctor, don't go for the money - go for the name. If you serve poor people, God will bless you with the money."

On the other hand, we asked a middle-aged patient whether he experienced itches, coz there appeared to be scratch marks and scars on his hands. He said, "No, I try not to scratch. I use the hair dryer. You know? I set it to maximum and blasted hot air over the area which felt itchy. When the slight burning feeling has masked the itch, then I applied some traditional medicative cream I bought from the sundry shop." *tries hard not to laugh; over the hair dryer - coz it's my first time hearing such things*

Part 4
A middle-aged patient from a particular group was trying to recommend me a book on self-healing. Then, I noticed a book on the table, which I picked up, and the title sounded weird. 'Letter to a Christian Nation'. Well, apparently it's a book on aetheism, and he proclaimed himself to be agnostic, having left his old faith long time ago. This guy seems to have problem with religion, believing in doing good and questioning, "How can some groups of religion (I won't mention lar which he pointed out) claim that they go to heaven while others go to hell? Not fair lar like that.. That is very selfish." Then he started making correlations to terrorists and stuff.. "What religion are you? You must read this book. It will really change your perspective on viewing things." Lazy lar I wanna argue with him. He is entitled to his own opinion. But interesting to see that so many different viewpoints exist today.