a cute appendics II

Where were we... yup, got the referral to the A&E in my choice of hospital. But where? This is my first time getting admitted to hospital, you know... no prior experience! So I called my brother but no answer (think he was in a meeting). I also couldn't get my aunt. So what to do, in times of emergency, I called Flo (she's a teacher and by 3pm, she's already off work so there's no reason for not answering the phone!) True enough, Flo took the call and next thing I knew, she came with a taxi to fetch me to the hospital.

By then, I managed to get my aunt and she said can go NUH or Gleneagles. So I've got no preference, so off to NUH I went. Flo is also more familiar with NUH. The cab ride was slightly bumpy and that aggravated a little the pain I already had.

From taxi, hopped onto the wheelchair and I was on my way to getting admitted. I was lucky I didn't have to wait long for the A&E nurse to attend to. Within 20 minutes, I had registered, given my urine sample, temperature taken and talked to the nurse. The nurse ask me what pain level I was at. I was blur, how to compare... against what? No benchmark leh. So I anyhow said 7. After that I was asked to put on a mask and was whisked off to the isolation area(they called it fever facility) to wait for a doctor to come and see me. So I bid Flo byebye and off to the lonely area. I sat at the fever facility for 1 hour or so and I was damn cold... shivering. After what seems like an eternity, the handsome doctor came. Didn't catch his name though. He asked me to lie on the bed and to pull down my pants. Pressed on the abdomen area and of course pain la. Then came the part where Flo had warned me about... the anal probe. After that somemore waiting... until finally, he came back and started me on the drip. Couldn't find a vein on the back of my hand, so he decided not to try there but instead poked onto the big vein (the same one for blood donation) of my left hand. Think the standard procedure is not to poke the dominant hand. It went quite okay as I've donated blood before, so I know what to expect. That done, more waiting for the nurse to come and settle which ward I want to go. I was very thirsty.

I dozed off every now and then and finally, the nurse came and asked me which ward type I want. 8 bed? 6 bed? 4 bed with TV and aircond? I was in a daze, no one to ask for help. So I asked how much the 4 bedded ward gonna cost? The final deciding factor, was the aircond. I thought to myself that if with aircond it's gonna be this cold, then I'd rather take the non-aircond ones. So I chose 6 bedded ward. So the nurse happily went to book the ward while I waited somemore. Fever raging, body shivering.... wait and wait.

Finally, someone came and onto the wheelchair again. To the ward! To the ward!

--------------------------- to be continued -------------------------------