Even though I went to bed early that night, I kept waking up like every 2 hours or so, due to the resistance to sleeping on an unfamiliar bed, the anxiety of being 'intruded' anytime by some unknown visitors as the door was opened all the time, and also because nurses came in to get my body temperature & blood pressure every now and then in the middle of the night.
Anyway, after the long night, I just couldn't wait to wake up before 9am the next morning, hoping to get whatever necessary to be done so that I could leave as soon as possible.
This time I was taken to see Dr. J, a gynaecologist, to do the final abdominal ultrasound which confirmed Dr. X's diagnosis - there's a functional cyst of unusual size in my right ovary, which was however subsiding compared to the day before.
To my surprise, I got a prescription of some oral contraceptive pills. According to Dr. J, apparently those pills could prevent the cysts from forming again by stopping my ovulation upon next menstrual cycle (which also achieves birth control purposes).
Anyway, I was still grateful for the fact that no operation was required and happily waiting to be discharged since 1pm, but what I didn't know was that it was actually just the beginning of another unpleasant event...
Think I'd gone to the discharge department for at least 4 or 5 times to check the status of it, as nobody ever came to my room to update me anything about the discharge.
Can you believe that I was still in the hospital after SEVEN hours? Just because they still couldn't get the letter of guarantee from my insurance company for my hospitalization bill by then.
I finally stopped bugging the officer in discharge department, Mr. Whatever (besides forgetting his name, also because I really don't care!), at 6pm when he told me that the initial guarantee letter was approved by the insurance company, and I could go home in one hour once they received the final approval letter later.
So I went back to my room and patiently waited for another hour, before I realized it was actually a TRICK to stop me from bugging him anymore - the discharge department closed at exactly 7pm!
I couldn't believe the employee of such a reputable hospital would be so irresponsible to this extent, and yet, there was still nobody who came and informed me when exactly I could leave. (Or did anybody even care?)
With serious annoyance, I went down to the reception at the main entrance of the hospital and asked for my discharge status. Only then I found out I had to pay the bill myself because the insurance company had somehow rejected to pay for the bill due to the conflict between initial and final diagnoses of my condition.
I went totally SPEECHLESS when I learned the bill was almost RM1700. Just couldn't understand why did I have to stay for so long while in the end I still had to pay for myself?
Can you believe that I left the hospital around 8pm? Something was SERIOUSLY wrong with the discharge procedure in that hospital.
Think about it, througout the 7 hours waiting period, it wasn't just my time that was wasted, but also hospital resources like the ward I occupied, the nurses who came to provide meals and etc, all of these were unnecessarily abused merely due to the inefficiency of the discharge procedure.
Anyway, this was my first, and hopefully last, hospitalization experience.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
First hospitalization experience - Day 1
Was very grateful for being 'quite' healthy and never been admitted to hospital before for any reasons, until 24 June 2010.
It began with an unusual abdominal pain on the right side which never went off for more than 2 weeks since it started. I could even feel the pain while driving through some road bumps especially when I wasn't driving 'gently', or when I was walking fast with high heels, or even when I was jumping while practising some Yoga poses.
Even though I experienced similar pain before, but the pain would normally disappear after a maximum of 3 or 4 days. I got worried as the pain lasted for too long this time and still showed no sign of going away, so I decided to consult a doctor.
Dr. A examined my stomach by pressing a few places on it, and concluded that it wasn't acute appendicitis (usual cause of pain on right abdomen), but could have something to do with my ovary, however.
He then referred me to a specialist (I'm still unsure of what field he is specialized in until now), Dr. M, whom I went to see a week later.
Dr. M went through the same examination like Dr. A but derived a conflicting diagnosis - it was most likely acute appendicitis, even though it is also possible to be an ovarian problem - so he proposed an immediate admission to further examining my condition, and also instructed me to fast in case there was a need of surgery.
So there I was, admitted to one of the most expensive and reputable hospitals in KL, on the 24th of June, after being reassured by the hospital staffs that it would be totally covered by my insurance company prior to the admission.
Before I could enter my ward (somehow they needed 3 hours to clean it up), I went through some blood test, urine test, and finally an ultrasound on my stomach. Funny part was I had to drink like 8 cups of water before the ultrasound, as it had to be done while I was 'passing urine' somehow.
Dr. X (Sorry, but I just don't remember her initial :P) identified that there's a cyst in my right ovary, which in medical term is being referred to as 'functional cyst'. According to her, basically its something that wraps over my ovum before it gets burst upon ovulation each month (to release the ovum).
My problem was, for some reasons, that functionl cyst didn't get burst but stayed in my ovary even after ovulation period. So she suspected that was the cause of my abdominal pain.
I finally got my room 3 hours later, all on my own, of which they called it 'executive room'. It was bigger than I thought. Comes with attached bathroom, telivision, a couch that is big enough for 2 persons lying on it the same time, an air-conditioner which is cold enough for me to decide to shut it down 20 minutes later, and 3 meals a day were provided (had to skip a dinner & breakfast however as a preparation for the possible operation the next day).
Trust me, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the excitement when I first entered the room, as I never expected before that my first hospilization would happen in such a spacious and cosy room.
For one second I even forgot that I was actually in a hospital :)
However, the excitement was soon replaced by some loneliness and unbearableness of being ignored for the rest of the evening.
I had no visitors because I didn't tell any of my friends or family that I was admitted as I thought it was not something serious that others should be bothered.
It began with an unusual abdominal pain on the right side which never went off for more than 2 weeks since it started. I could even feel the pain while driving through some road bumps especially when I wasn't driving 'gently', or when I was walking fast with high heels, or even when I was jumping while practising some Yoga poses.
Even though I experienced similar pain before, but the pain would normally disappear after a maximum of 3 or 4 days. I got worried as the pain lasted for too long this time and still showed no sign of going away, so I decided to consult a doctor.
Dr. A examined my stomach by pressing a few places on it, and concluded that it wasn't acute appendicitis (usual cause of pain on right abdomen), but could have something to do with my ovary, however.
He then referred me to a specialist (I'm still unsure of what field he is specialized in until now), Dr. M, whom I went to see a week later.
Dr. M went through the same examination like Dr. A but derived a conflicting diagnosis - it was most likely acute appendicitis, even though it is also possible to be an ovarian problem - so he proposed an immediate admission to further examining my condition, and also instructed me to fast in case there was a need of surgery.
So there I was, admitted to one of the most expensive and reputable hospitals in KL, on the 24th of June, after being reassured by the hospital staffs that it would be totally covered by my insurance company prior to the admission.
Before I could enter my ward (somehow they needed 3 hours to clean it up), I went through some blood test, urine test, and finally an ultrasound on my stomach. Funny part was I had to drink like 8 cups of water before the ultrasound, as it had to be done while I was 'passing urine' somehow.
Dr. X (Sorry, but I just don't remember her initial :P) identified that there's a cyst in my right ovary, which in medical term is being referred to as 'functional cyst'. According to her, basically its something that wraps over my ovum before it gets burst upon ovulation each month (to release the ovum).
My problem was, for some reasons, that functionl cyst didn't get burst but stayed in my ovary even after ovulation period. So she suspected that was the cause of my abdominal pain.
I finally got my room 3 hours later, all on my own, of which they called it 'executive room'. It was bigger than I thought. Comes with attached bathroom, telivision, a couch that is big enough for 2 persons lying on it the same time, an air-conditioner which is cold enough for me to decide to shut it down 20 minutes later, and 3 meals a day were provided (had to skip a dinner & breakfast however as a preparation for the possible operation the next day).
Trust me, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the excitement when I first entered the room, as I never expected before that my first hospilization would happen in such a spacious and cosy room.
For one second I even forgot that I was actually in a hospital :)
However, the excitement was soon replaced by some loneliness and unbearableness of being ignored for the rest of the evening.
I had no visitors because I didn't tell any of my friends or family that I was admitted as I thought it was not something serious that others should be bothered.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Before it comes true...
It took me more than 10 years before I realized that I've transformed from someone who could write reasonably well to someone who seemingly likes to write, then slowly to someone who can hardly write, and finally someone who used to write, even though its still one of my dreams to become a professional writer one day.
This blogsite was created half a year ago, when I was setting my new year's resolutions for year 2010 in December last year. Without much surprise, 'being able to write again' had easily become one of the things that I wanted to achieve by end of the year, and this blogsite was created at that moment when my enthusiasm for writing was still at its peak.
However, what happened between now and then was, I had been through a MASSIVE struggle before the first post was able to be produced...
Upon the creation of this blogsite, I spent a few days just to come up with this 'great theme' for the blogsite - Dare Dreaming, in an attempt to introduce some other crazy dreams I have besides becoming a writer, such as saving some money that is sufficient for me to quit my job and travel around the world for at least two years, without having to worry about family not being supported financially when I'm away; come back enlightened and able to figure out what exactly I want to achieve in my life; then finally make a living out of something I'm passionate about...or simply anything I do that takes me through the path to realization of my dreams.
Once the theme was set, however, yet again I spent a few days just to decide which language to use. Well, there is a good reason for such hesitation actually. Though I was chinese educated until I completed my high school education in 1997, and even won a few writing competitions in Mandarin back then, I haven't been practising it frequently enough to keep some of the beautiful words and idioms I learned before. I even have difficulty to form a complete Mandarin sentence without mixing it with another dialect or language sometimes, let alone making sure its grammar mistake-free, which is quite a shame for someone who has received chinese education for ELEVEN years.
Anyway, I'd then decided to use English instead, simply because I'm more exposed to it nowadays because of work, compared to other languages. All the emails are written in English for example, and its also widely spoken at my workplace due to the great variety of nationalities we have there.
And then I finally got my hands on the actual writing. I tried to bring up those dreams in a way which I insisted must be different from how people normally do when they talk about dreams, hoping to impress the readers with my 'innovativeness' right from the beginning, as I always thought the opening of a potential blockbuster must be unique and magnificent.
So there I was successfully gotten myself trapped by a mindset of trying to come out a MASTERPIECE, after more than a decade of NOT writing.
As you could easily imagine, I spent perhaps 95% of the time to just edit whatever I'd written so far, over and over again, compared to anything else while constructing my first post.
The struggle continued until it came to a point where I'd finally run out of patience, then decided to stop writing again as a result of failing to create such an 'earth-shaking' masterpiece, and hence this site has been totally empty since then.
Well, it might seem quite obvious now what had been the major cause that stopped me from writing again back then, now that I described it in a more readable manner, but the fact is I never really saw the problem myself until much later, after some long analytical conversations with friends who have always been concerned about my progression in 'being able to write again', and never failed to enlighten me more every time we met.
I finally learned that in order to start writing again the first thing I should do is simply to abandon all the (perhaps way too) logical thoughts I had in mind all this while with a sheer intention to build a perfect blogsite - the theme, language, rhetoric, target audience, and so on - and just start writing something!
Well, not necessarily it has to be something that talks about my dreams, or something that inspires others to achieve their dreams but simply ANYTHING under the sun that I feel like putting into words or even pictures, doesn't matter. As long as I'm doing it for my pleasure and keep it going, like any other habits that can be picked up in 21 days if you keep doing the same, I believe one day it will become something very natural for me to do again, and my dream too will be realized before long.
So here I am, with my logical brain tightly shut this time, awaiting the exciting moment to come.
Cheers!
This blogsite was created half a year ago, when I was setting my new year's resolutions for year 2010 in December last year. Without much surprise, 'being able to write again' had easily become one of the things that I wanted to achieve by end of the year, and this blogsite was created at that moment when my enthusiasm for writing was still at its peak.
However, what happened between now and then was, I had been through a MASSIVE struggle before the first post was able to be produced...
Upon the creation of this blogsite, I spent a few days just to come up with this 'great theme' for the blogsite - Dare Dreaming, in an attempt to introduce some other crazy dreams I have besides becoming a writer, such as saving some money that is sufficient for me to quit my job and travel around the world for at least two years, without having to worry about family not being supported financially when I'm away; come back enlightened and able to figure out what exactly I want to achieve in my life; then finally make a living out of something I'm passionate about...or simply anything I do that takes me through the path to realization of my dreams.
Once the theme was set, however, yet again I spent a few days just to decide which language to use. Well, there is a good reason for such hesitation actually. Though I was chinese educated until I completed my high school education in 1997, and even won a few writing competitions in Mandarin back then, I haven't been practising it frequently enough to keep some of the beautiful words and idioms I learned before. I even have difficulty to form a complete Mandarin sentence without mixing it with another dialect or language sometimes, let alone making sure its grammar mistake-free, which is quite a shame for someone who has received chinese education for ELEVEN years.
Anyway, I'd then decided to use English instead, simply because I'm more exposed to it nowadays because of work, compared to other languages. All the emails are written in English for example, and its also widely spoken at my workplace due to the great variety of nationalities we have there.
And then I finally got my hands on the actual writing. I tried to bring up those dreams in a way which I insisted must be different from how people normally do when they talk about dreams, hoping to impress the readers with my 'innovativeness' right from the beginning, as I always thought the opening of a potential blockbuster must be unique and magnificent.
So there I was successfully gotten myself trapped by a mindset of trying to come out a MASTERPIECE, after more than a decade of NOT writing.
As you could easily imagine, I spent perhaps 95% of the time to just edit whatever I'd written so far, over and over again, compared to anything else while constructing my first post.
The struggle continued until it came to a point where I'd finally run out of patience, then decided to stop writing again as a result of failing to create such an 'earth-shaking' masterpiece, and hence this site has been totally empty since then.
Well, it might seem quite obvious now what had been the major cause that stopped me from writing again back then, now that I described it in a more readable manner, but the fact is I never really saw the problem myself until much later, after some long analytical conversations with friends who have always been concerned about my progression in 'being able to write again', and never failed to enlighten me more every time we met.
I finally learned that in order to start writing again the first thing I should do is simply to abandon all the (perhaps way too) logical thoughts I had in mind all this while with a sheer intention to build a perfect blogsite - the theme, language, rhetoric, target audience, and so on - and just start writing something!
Well, not necessarily it has to be something that talks about my dreams, or something that inspires others to achieve their dreams but simply ANYTHING under the sun that I feel like putting into words or even pictures, doesn't matter. As long as I'm doing it for my pleasure and keep it going, like any other habits that can be picked up in 21 days if you keep doing the same, I believe one day it will become something very natural for me to do again, and my dream too will be realized before long.
So here I am, with my logical brain tightly shut this time, awaiting the exciting moment to come.
Cheers!
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