"Hi I'm home and my pancreas is laughing."

This is gonna be one hell of a messy entry.
I'm too tired to think properly anyway.
So I shall just type whatever flows into my mind.

Don't you think that it might be a very long one,
To make up for all the time when I wasn't around?
It'll take you quite a while to read everything, seriously.

For those who didn't know or don't care,
I was admitted into the hospital on the 3rd,
And I just got discharged this afternoon.

That makes it 15 days in da hospital my friends.

I wished that I had a laptop with me,
So I could write down all the funny and not so funny stuff,
That happened in SGH.
Some of the memories are already blurry,
So I guess it's a pity then.
Anyway,
There's just too much to blog.

Thanks to all those who visited or called.
Those who said they would,
But didn't?
No comments.

To be honest,
I feel really strange now.
I've been there for so long,
It feels more like home than home itself.

If I could,
I want to stay there forever.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I'm not joking.
I felt rather sad about leaving just now.

I am still feeling sad now,
Even though I lost a whole lot of weight.
I was 48 kg before this whole shit happened,
And then I weighed myself yesterday.
Now I tip the scales at 40 kg.

Forty?
Hahahahahahhaha.
I wear my hospital pjs at my ass,
And it's not by choice.

Oh well.

I may have lost 8 kg,
But I also got 2 new phone numbers.
I'll explain later.

The socie department just called,
To kaopeh about me being absent from class.
Yah.
Things like appeals take forever,
While they're so efficient about such stuff.
Please don't ask me what is gonna happen to my semester.
I don't know either.

By the way,
My mum just came home yesterday.
And now we have a maid in the house,
Mainly for the purpose of taking care of her.
Fine by me actually.
I'm feeling too weak to do any cleaning up,
But I definitely wouldn't go home to a dirty room.

Part I

Let's start at the very beginning.

I was still having the flu,
Days after the last entry.
On the 1st of October,
I woke up and vomited.
The puke was dark green.
How nice,
Or maybe I should skip the details.

Then came the non-stop diarrhea.
So whatever I ate or drank,
Either flies out of my mouth like a projectile,
Or it stays in for a few minutes,
Only to go out the other end.

And the fever wouldn't go away,
Even though I almost finished the whole box of Panadols.

By evening,
I was feeling so weak after going in and out of the toilet,
And also from failing to eat anything.
So I went to see my doctor again.

"Normal gastric flu," he said.
Gave me a jab and some medicine,
And sent me on my way.

By Saturday night,
I had still not managed to eat a single thing,
As the diarrhea and vomiting continued

In the end,
My dad had no choice,
But to drive me to SGH at dawn.

Thank God,
There's not much of a crowd in the A&E department,
At 6am in the morning.
Anyway if you want their attention fast,
All you gotta do is to tell them you have a fever.

Got attended to rather promptly.
The doctor said I was severely dehydrated,
And said I would've to be warded.
Fine,
I expected that anyway.
Then they put me on the drip.
Oh my god,
I really hate the drip.
The blue needle is alright,
But the green one?
The mega ultra uber long green one?
Hurts like shit.
Anyway they ran the drip at such an alarming rate,
I could practically feel the cool liquid gushing through my veins.

And then they wheeled me to my ward.
Ward forty-six.
I love that place.

Anyway my dad decided to save money,
And chuck me in a B2-class ward.
Gee.
No air-con.
By a strange stroke of luck,
I managed to land myself the B2 isolation ward.
Which meant that I was effectively staying in a solo room,
With my own private toilet.
A-class, but with no air-con.

But you don't get to have your cake and eat it too.
The blinds couldn't be drawn.
With the sun shining in with all its might,
I couldn't get no rest at all.

Plus, I wasn't allowed to eat.
So it was basically hell the first day.
Staying in a hospital is just blardy scary,
If you have no prior experience.

I decided to put on the ugly hospital pjs.
I was too tired to notice that they were blue,
Until someone came in later and gave me the right set.

The pink pjs are just so ugly.
I wore my own t-shirts and wore only the pants.
Usual stuff happened.
Blood and urine tests,
Fever and diarrhea continue to plague me,
Ice packs were dumped on my head,
Horrible stomach pains at night,
Blah blah blah.

I was told I had a viral infection,
And will take a few days to recover.
Fine by me again.

The docs decided to let me start eating,
Cos I was complaining of hunger.
But after every meal,
I would have at least 5 or 6 rounds of diarrhea.

Second day in the B2 ward was hell again.
I just couldn't sleep coz it was so warm.
I would sit in the chair and stare at the clock.

By the way,
I went in with no history of drug allergy,
But somehow I developed a rash on the 2nd day,
And they quickly pasted the Drug Allergy sign next to my bed.
Nice.

Part II

Got an upgrade to a B1 ward,
After some relentless complaining.
Okay I am a spoilt brat,
But what a world of difference it makes.

With the air-con and soft pillows,
I finally managed to catch up on sleep lost,
Although I didn't manage to do so the first night,
Cos I ended up sleepwalking.

I didn't even believe in sleepwalking until now.

I was just lying in my bed.
The next thing I know,
I woke up in the bathroom sitting on the toilet bowl,
Door locked and my pants down.

Fantastic.
I told one of the nurses and she put me back into bed,
And put up the barriers.
I didn't like the idea of having the barriers up,
So I put them down.

And then I woke up in the toilet again.

Then I started losing count of the days.

The food was definitely better,
Because I got to choose my meals,
And I ordered everything from the Western menu.
The diarrhea stopped all of a sudden,
And my fever didn't return as well.
I got to watch lots of movies on HBO,
and because I wasn't on the drip anymore,
It was like a hotel stay.

Except that the pain wouldn't go away.

The next few days flew by without much recollection.
X-rays and ultrasound scans didn't manage to pick up anything,
And I thought I was just recovering from a severe viral infection.

Made friends with the others in my room.
Mainly old folks.
The favourite topic is always "What are you here for?"

Started to talk to the nurses too.
I used to think that nurses were all old, grouchy aunties,
But the ones at SGH are really sweet, nice and caring!

Hahahahahah.
You know what's up next.

Will says that I'm just deprived of care and concern,
So when someone showers me with a little TLC,
I go all gaga,
Even though they are just doing their job.

There's this one.
Let's call her Nurse P.
Nurse P isn't in charge of my room,
But she goes around drawing blood for tests.
There's a name for that job.
It's called "blood nurse".

Because they wanted my blood everyday,
I started to see Nurse P a lot more frequently.
To be brutally honest,
Nurse P is a fresh nursing grad,
And isn't the most skillful.
But then she would hold my hand,
As she presses down on it to stop the bleeding,
And I swear she could jab me a million times then,
And it wouldn't matter.

Did I forget to mention that Nurse P is extremely gentle?

And then there's Nurse L.
I didn't know how old Nurse L is,
But she has this older-sister appeal to her.
I didn't even know she was from China,
Until one of the other patients told me.
Afterall she has been here for 3 years,
And added a lot of Singlish attributes to her speech.

Plus I like the fact that I have to look up to her,
When I speak to her.

Part III

I was starting to wonder when I'll get discharged.

I was buttering my bread in the morning,
When the team of doctors treating me arrived.

"The level of enzymes in your blood,
Has been going up ever since your admission.
We suspect that your pancreas may be inflamed.
Pancreatitis."

What the hell.
Pancreatitis?

"By the way, stop eating.
We're gonna put you on 'nil by mouth',
And send you for a CT scan."

Nil by mouth.
The scariest 3 words in the world to me now.
Then I looked at the mushroom omelette,
And decided that it was a pity to throw it away.

So I stuffed it in my mouth,
And finished it in 5 seconds when the doctors weren't looking.

Nurse P came by later to draw my blood again,
And I told her that I'll be put on the drip,
So maybe she can do both at the same time.

Somehow Nurse P wasn't that confident,
And asked if I wanted the doctor to do it.
Of course not.
So we both watched the needle go in,
And 3 seconds later she said,
"Ermm, it's not successful."

Ha ha ha.

"It's okay, even the doctors don't succeed everytime.
You can try again."

There's only a thin line between being nice and being dumb.

During the 2nd attempt,
She accidentally hit my injured vein,
So I went "Oww" and we both decided I'll rest for a while,
And she'll come back later.

Yeah, at that point, I still wanted her to do it.

Too bad the doctor came when I was napping later,
And shoved the GREEN needle into my vein.
Man, maybe I'm just a mega wuss.
I was just lying there looking at the TV,
When he said,
"Sorry about the mess."

Then I turned over and saw that there was a pool of blood,
On my bedsheet.
Eck.
I wanted the bedsheet changed immediately,
Because people will think that it was something else.

So anyway,
I watched everyone else have their food,
While I sat on my bed and swallowed my saliva.
Kept telling myself that I'll be able to eat after the scan at 4pm.

I asked around if the scan would hurt,
And everyone said no.
Nobody told me why,
The CT scan required the green drip needle though.

4pm came after a long wait.
The room was like a freezer,
And I was hoping it wouldn't take too long.

Then the computer crashed.

Things like that only happen to me.

"Sorry, we gotta reboot the computer,
Please wait for a while."

It only took 3 minutes,
So it wasn't that bad.

"I'm gonna inject something through your drip tubing,
And it might hurt a little."

Alright.

Damn that liar.

It was so fucking painful,
I screamed.
Hahaha.
On hindsight, it was pretty funny that I screamed.
But that vein still hurts now so what do you think.

Anyway she apologized,
For injecting whatever she injected too fast,
And that was why my vein couldn't take it.

They sent me back after the scan,
And I refused to let anyone touch me after that.
Once your threshold of pain has been breached,
You become very paranoid.

The results were immediate,
And so they told me the good news,
That I do indeed have pancreatitis,
And I will continue to have the "nil by mouth" sign,
Hanging behind my bed.

I fasted for 34 hours.

The first 12 hours were pure agony,
But after a while,
You become numb and stop craving for food.

Nurse P took my blood again.
And whether or not the fasting continues depended on the results.

Well,
The enzyme levels didn't go down,
But they didn't go up either.

So I could eat again.

No fat, no oil diet.

Part IV

I was really depressed after hearing that I got pancreatitis.

80% of all cases is caused by alcoholism,
And I don't even drink.

So that was what causes the pain.
But after I stopped eating, the pain went away.

I asked one of the trainee doctors,
About the worst-case scenario of pancreatitis.

And he replied, "Diabetes."

Needless to say,
I didn't manage to sleep that night.
A little note:
After some research,
I discovered that although pancreatitis can be very serious,
But it doesn't affect the secretion of insulin,
So diabetes wasn't supposed to be in the picture at all.
Tamade.

All I could hope for,
Is that I'm young and my body will heal itself.

Goodbye to all that McDonald's.

Part V

I realized that getting upset over my dumb pancreas,
Wouldn't help me get better,
And I decided to use the power of positive thinking,
To heal myself.

By this time,
I began to take walks around my ward,
A lot more frequently,
Sometimes even with the drip stand in tow.

So that I can bump into Nurse P.

Met her by chance at 7-11,
When she had knocked off for the day.

"Ermmmmmmmm.
Do you have a handphone number?
I'll look for you when I'm discharged."

Imagine all that in stuttering chinese.

By the way,
I had NEVER asked a girl for her number until now.
I guess I was just worried that I'll never see her again.

I passed her my phone and she gamely keyed in her number.

I'm thinking she's either too blur or too nice to reject me.
Or both.

I was feeling great the whole day,
Until I realized that I probably won't have the guts to ever call.
Gee.

Things became better after that.
No more fasting,
Although the no-fat-no-oil restriction remained.
No more drip,
So it was easier for me to wander around.
My pancreas didn't get better,
But it didn't get worse,
So I can't ask for more.
I see Nurse L almost everyday,
And she is whole lot of fun to be around.

Part VI

It's almost ending,
If you're still here with me.

My pancreas no longer hurts,
And I knew I was gonna be discharged soon.
Starting to feel a little sad.

What if I never see the nurses again?

Okay it's not that I'm sick or anything alright.
But these girls are so "wei da",
For taking on such a thankless job.
Do you know that they work 6-day weeks,
And they've a ton of paperwork to do,
In between caring for their patients?

And there's always so much blood,
Faeces and urine to clear up.

Some just do their job well,
But some go beyond their call of duty,
And go the extra mile to show their patients concern.

I didn't know any nurses before this hospital stay,
And now I'm absolutely impressed by all of them.
There's something very sexy about the uniform,
And the way they bun their hair.

Okay maybe I'm just sick in the head.

The shoes are damn ugly though.

Yesterday night I couldn't sleep,
And ended up chatting for a few hours with the nurses again.
I think I won't remember the physical trauma,
But think of it as a fun stay at a chalet.

This morning the Prof said I could go home,
I was mad pleased coz I was dying of boredom,
But damn it's so hard to say goodbye.

Nurse L gave me her number later,
But it was rather bittersweet,
Cos she said she's married with kids and is already 30.

Seriously, she looks 25.

Kids?
I'm still in shock.

Okay I'm too tired to blog anymore,
And I'm feeling damn hungry.
Too bad there are lots of things that I can't eat.

It's nice to be back guys.
But damn,
I wouldn't mind staying there really (-: