Didn't Go On Course Afterall

I was scheduled to go on a Knowledge Management Workshop on Thursday. Unlike previous courses, this had been a very 'precious' time-slot because everyone in the office was very edgy about being selected for interview with some SQA Assessors who were on a site visit from Wednesday to Friday last week.

Most people tried to find some excuse to take leave one way or another, or somehow be away from the office during Thursday and Friday, where general staff would be called upon to meet with the Assessors. Hence, I also was very thankful that by a stroke of luck, the Workshop had been scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

So I escaped the SQA interviews completely, lor!

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On Thursday morning, my alarm clock went off and I got up. That was 5:30am. As usual, I went to the toilet (without spectacles, but can still see although 'blurly').

Then, I was about to proceed with my weekday kitchen routine of boiling water, cleaning the table, etc when suddenly M called out to me, “LP 啊！倒一杯烧水给我，帮我拿药。”

“啊？你怎么啦？！我没看到你还在床上。我还以为你出去运动了！”

“我头晕，不敢起来。你帮我那一片头晕的药，在红色的皮包里。还有一片黑炭，在绿色的袋子里。”

After fumbling a while, I located the medicines and gave them to M with the warm water.

Seonds later, she let out a loud burp. I asked, “你要吐吗？” With much difficulty, she got up. With her right hand on the wardrobe, she sat up. Then she said, “让开！”

I dashed out of her room, clearing the chairs in the living room doorway and the floor mat just outside the kitchen. I hurriedly switched on the toilet light, and M had barely reached the toilet bowl when she turned Merlion.

It was quite bad and I had to let her sit on a stool by the toilet bowl where her head remained over. I lightly patted on her back and asked, “你好一点吗？肚子不舒服吗？是不是像上一次一样，吃错了东西，不消化？”

“没有啦。只是突然间头晕，吐了一次了。现在是吞了药，才再吐。”

I helped her to the sofa after she was done with the vomitting. “是不是感冒了？有发烧吗？” I asked. She said, no. No fever, no blocked nose whatever.

So I let her rest sitting up a while. I went to get R up (ok lah, it was just 20 minutes earlier than usual for him).

Later, M took some sips of the hot water, then went back to the bed to lie down.

I proceeded to prepare breakfast for R and WY and also the water bottles etc. When I was done and R and WY were taking their showers, I checked on M. Yes, true, no fever. But she explained, “我睡到半夜，大概两、三点钟的时候，转身一下，突然间颈项感觉痛一下。我听到‘叭’的一声，头就开始晕了。起来吐了一次，很辛苦。”

“为什么不叫我？” I asked.

She said, “哪里有用？我知道你睡得像死猪一样，哪里叫得醒的？” Sigh. It's true it is not easy to wake me up by shouting across the rooms.

Then, as I told M to sleep a while more first, she told me, “我看你今天不可以去做工了。要不然，如果我一个人在家里晕倒，就糟了。”

My first instinct then was, ok lor, it is ok to skip work, no problem. Then I remembered about the KM Workshop. Oops! How?! It's generally a very troublesome process in the office to write to HR to 'justify' absence in a course.....

Get R to stay at home instead? (He offered to take morning leave.) But then, what about F who would be expecting to meet up with R at the Urology Centre that morning?! Or, maybe I could skip the morning session of the course and go only in the afternoon? But then, someone still should remain with M at home even in the afternoon, not safe to leave her alone, right?? But R needed to be in his office for an important meeting at about noon.

So, after some quick but hard thinking, I called YP to see if she could be the one to meet up with F for his appointment with the urologist instead. But alas, she said she also had an important meeting with her director which she could not miss. Sigh.

Eventually, I decided that R would proceed to meet up with F as planned. I would just give the course a miss anyway. What the heck about 'justifying' to HR my absence!

After WY went to school, R returned to get WF ready for CH school. I took a shower before they went off (just in case M, who was sleeping, needed something).

At about 9am, M awoke and said she felt better already. But I suggested that she consulted a doctor anyway, just to make sure things were ok. Naturally, I suggested the GP whom I usually visit and whom I had also convinced F to consult now (instead of the B51 Quack). M was very hesitant and said that she didn't quite trust that GP. See her experience with the splinter.

But in the end, I managed to convince her. I gave the GP a call to see if the clinic was crowded. It wasn't at all. In about 20 minutes, M and I were on our way.

M declined to take a taxi. So we both walked there. As the morning sun had begun to feel quite hot, we shaded ourselves with our respective umbrellas and made some detours here and there, just so as to avoid the sun.

When we arrived at the clinic, the GP's ever-talkative assistant was so shocked to see me and said in a stuttering voice, "Erm, erm.... Dr O has just gone off just moments before you appeared."

"Where did she go? I just called her," I said. "Somewhere near, just opposite only," the assistant tried to be helpful, "Maybe you could get your M to sit down a while to wait for Dr O?"

"Can you give her a call on her hp?" I asked. "I will if she carries one, but she doesn't," the assistant replied.

By now, M was already fuming mad (about the GP not being around, despite my call earlier). M barked rudely at the assistant, “她去哪里？对面的巴刹买菜啊？” The assistant nodded hesitantly. “她当什么医生？我们打了电话来了，她还出去买菜？！让病人在这里等？她算什么医生？”

After lashing out at the helpless assistant, M marched off furiously, 'scolding' me for getting her to go see the GP. Sigh.

On our way back, we dropped by at B51. M declared that she still preferred to see this Quack. So, we went in to the empty clinic, only to hear the Quack chatting on the phone. After a few minutes, the Quack still didn't call for M. So the impatient M knocked on the door of the consultation room and gestured to the Quack. The Quack then finished off his chat and then started the consultation.

He took M's blood pressure (a little on the high side). Then he asked again and again what happened etc. During all this time, I noticed that to save costs, the Quack had now done away with the medical record cards that we typically see doctors use. In its place, he now clips lose pieces of A4 blank paper together, folding them into quarters and use them for scribbling! What a cheapo, this man is!

Anyway, his advice (given only when I insisted, because he didn't say much to M) was, in summary, that there may be some transient blockage in some blood vessels in the neck. And when the blockage cleared/moved, it probably affected some part of the head/face (where M complained of a little mild numbness in the morning). Hence the giddy-ness and vomit.

I am not totally convinced, lah, so I quizzed him about the medicines that he would be prescribing to M. In gist, he said he would give her a mild 100mg Aspirin (for 'normal people', it is usually 300mg), which is good for the heart and blood circulation, like something to 'unblock' the blood vessels. He would also give her some anti-giddy pills and something for relieving vomitting.

Then I told the Quack, "Dr Y, I am now very concerned with the medicines that you prescribe to my parents. Do you know that the antibiotics that you had given to my F previously for his lung infection gave him such a bad reaction that he had to get a biopsy done at the NSC?" At his request, I gave him F's name so that he could 'put it in F's records' the allergy.

The Quack tried to defend his prescription and asked 'innocently' in his HK-English slang, "Did your F came back to tell me that he was allergic to the antibiotics? I didn't know about it."

I promptly reminded him, "Oh yes, he came back to tell you and to show you the massive rashes that broke out. But you told him that the rashes would be gone and all he needed to do was to complete the course. Then at the same time, you gave him another 2 boxes because you were going on your vacation. You told him to finish those 2 boxes, too. This was just before you went on your vacation."

He pretended to ponder to try to recall.

Anyway, then he saw M's records and asked her about the anti-fungal drops that he had given her. I hadn't the faintest idea about this, but apparently, M had gone to see him about her toes, which probably had some fungal infection. And for that (fungal infection), he had also given her antibiotics (?!) - but M later showed me the antibiotics which she hadn't dared to take in case she also develops some allergic reaction to it.

Later I told M not to take the antibiotics because if it were fungal infection, antibiotics won't help and are absolutely unnecessary and not suitable.

M and I spent the rest of the morning at home resting - she, on the bed and I, on the sofa. Yah, somehow, both of us were so tired out. I was awoken later by the GP's call - the extremely embarrassed doctor apologised profusely about the incident and specifically asked to say sorry to M. I told her that M was resting.

Then at about 1:30pm, I had to go get WY from school because WY's supplementary lesson that day had been shortened due to some P1 registration work which his teacher was to be involved in. As the dismissal time was an odd 2:15pm, WY was not able to take the school bus. The plan was that M was to have gone to fetch him from school. Now I had to be the one getting him home. M said that she was alright to be at home all by herself for the time I would be out.

And so I brought WY home quickly soon after a brief and simple lunch at the GE coffeeshop.

By the afternoon, M was feeling ok. She said she was well enough to cook the sliced fish porridge which she had planned for dinner that day. So I let her do the cooking.

In the meantime, WY completed his school work and then we went through some revision on the CL textbook. Soon afterwards, WY had his dinner and had to get ready for his piano lesson (which had to be rescheduled because he would be involved in his school concert the following evening).

By the time WF returned home from CH School, M was as ok as on any other day. And she told me that I could go to work the next day and she would be alright. But then, with only one-third of the Workshop left, it was really pointless attending the course the following morning. With my colleague's help, I later learnt that HR had agreed to arrange for another course date for me instead.