Recognized by Hospital Nurses

This afternoon, I was surprised to hear my doorbell ring. It was really a sigh of relief to see my brother come home from his 2-day stay at Singapore Changi General Hospital!

When he came home from Pulau Tekong last Saturday, he was coughing just as badly as every other weekend when he returned home from his army camp. He told my Mum that he felt weak on Sunday & my parents sent him for a check-up at Singapore Changi General Hospital after attending my grandmother’s birthday lunch.

Just recovered from dengue fever about a month or so ago, he was enlisted in BMT. Apparently, his lower body resistance may be attributed to this frequent cough & weakness in his body. After putting him on a drip (Again! Oh boy, I hate needles!), the nurses took a blood test & found that (unlike the time when his blood platelets drop drastically due to dengue fever) this time his white blood count was very high! After taking an X-ray, the doctor diagnosed him as having slight pneumonia due to lung infection.

My parents & I were worried for him, as he has been hospitalized again, just after he was discharged some time ago. The episode of his dengue fever experience still lingers in my mind, whenever I think about it & now he’s hospitalized again for lung infection & fluctuating fever. Sigh! And to think that a few hospital nurses saw him & said, “Haven’t I seen you here before? You used to stay in the ward one level up, right?” And such incidents make me wonder if that remark is supposed to be a good or bad thing…

Thankfully, his body responded to the antibiotics & he was allowed to be discharged after a 2-day stay. When I visited him yesterday afternoon, he was so bored stiff! He didn’t have anything to do there! Even with a book & Stacy & I there with him, he didn’t have much mood to talk, eat or do anything else. I mean, this isn’t about finding ways to stay entertained. He’s uncomfortable from the lost of appetite & body weakness. He said that perhaps the water at Pulau Tekong may be not as clean as in Singapore; coz 300 over soldiers fell sick this week, according to that same doctor that treated him at the hospital.

The doctor discharged him with a long period of MC which would last till the end of his BMT passing out parade. I feel sad that his BMT experience was so short because his PES C9L2 status due to heart structural abnormality & now his pneumonia. In any case, his BMT was already reduced to 7 weeks (mine though still a bit modified was 100 days) & with this illness, his BMT was further reduced. I can’t imagine BMT that lasts only one month! Hmm… but not his choice either.

We are all just glad that he’s home…