In the hospitals, translated…
Opposite my mother’s hospital ward, was an isolation room with glass panes all around, with a little boy, whose hands were tied up together, he kept on wiggling, the nurse said it was because the intubation was very difficult, and if the child started pulling the tubes out, he would be in life-threatening danger. Later on, my mother’s arms and wrists too, were tied up and bound.
I.
The ward my mother stays in has an ocean view, my father told me, that opposite of her room was the Kranji War Memorial, that if you look out in the afternoon, you can see a cage in the middle of the sea, behind that greenish colored reservoir, you can see the cars, flying all over the places on the opposite side.
My mother said, that she’d used to call the Queen’s Hospital Airplane building, the walls were made up of red bricks, from the British, before the war, and, the inside of the building also maintained its original form, even the ancient systems, if you looked from high up in the air, the main building of the hospital looked like a huge red cross.
The nurses used those square-ish looking chairs inside those elementary school classrooms, and there was also a bench, put together from four separate chairs, nailed together, the wooden furniture can always give an old space fresher looks.
The scenes from before in the hospital was like in those war films where the hallways were cramped up with the beds, and the doctors on duty, running to and fro, and the nurses had never-ending number of tasks to handle, and every patient had her/his own electric fan that s/he had brought, there were, an assortment of symptoms, mostly were patients with Dengue fever, who were there, to get the saline drips, there was also, an elderly woman who was tied up, so she wouldn’t fall off the beds, there were, moaning and groaning sounds everywhere, causing the enclosed space even more stuffy, we’d hysterically asked the nurses to switch us into another room, and after we learned that we can’t get my mother another room, we’d had family rush over with electric fans, and, my second eldest sister and her husband who were both physicians came also, hoped that if those houseman, nurses saw them, they would pay a little more attention to my mother’s conditions. But, on that very evening, my mother’s condition took a turn for the worst just the same.
And now, it’d gotten better, for a month, she was admitted into the ICU, went back into the regular wards, discharged from the hospitals, went to the nursing homes for rehabilitation, returned back home, and now, she’s, checked, back into the hospital gain, and finally, she could get the tubes that were temporarily put into her for feeding and breathing all off, she could eat on her own, and she’s, returned, back to her original state again.
The E.N.T. wards were even more spacious, there wasn’t very many patients, it’s quieter, more fitted to get better, and my mother who’d hollered endlessly on how hot the weather was getting commented that the sea breezes came in that it was very comfortable too.
Everything is fine, then, you can, go home tomorrow.
a hospital balcony, photo from online…
II.
The Jalan Tebrau split the skies into two halves, the left side was sunny and clear, while the right, was enveloped by the dark clouds, causing the skies to turn orange. The dark clouds had been building up for awhile, then, finally, managed, to squeeze out a few drops of rain, and, the raindrops made a puddle outside the balcony of the ward, and after the rain stopped, the puddle had, dried up.
There was originally a door that linked to the balcony, but, it was, already locked up completely, my mother said, that it was probably that the hospital feared that someone might go out and jump off. The balcony was located at the nose of the airplane of the airplane building, and, you’d get an even more open view walking outward, you can see the mangroves of the Kranji wetlands, and, there was the ships in and out of Danga Bay that kept coming and going, the color of the ocean became really dark, I wondered, what did this ocean look like when my mother was younger, was the water clear or not, and, there were still, the few remaining fishers who’d fished around the bay, with their shirts off, but, their hunting grounds kept on getting reduced and reduced, and reduced, over a decade a go, the entire bay was a fishing haven for the fishermen. In the developing blueprints, the Chinese developers planned to set up a windblock using the dozen elegant highrises, and by then, the sea breeze won’t be able to make its way in. People should be allowed to see some of this, it’s just, that the hospital had, padlocked the doors, such a shame, but my mother still carried that tone, kept on saying, that if someone fell from the balcony, it would be, serious.
There were, pipes that lined the walls of the balcony, made up of plastic material, stainless steel, a mixture of colors, but the grayish and red bricked walls, were still the base, and was the base for the entire Queen’s Hospital too. There was, a set of exhaust pipes in the center of the balcony, like the headstones, passed through the complex working tubes, and connected to each and every room in the hospital, with the hopes of getting ALL the heat inside each and every room to the outside of the building, but, staying at the regular hospital rooms allowed me to understand, that those pipes weren’t, doing their jobs. That evening, my mother couldn’t sleep because it was too hot, and although she’d switched to the bed closest to the windows, the cool air from outside of the building just could never seem to get in, the entire building was hovered over by the fire borrowed by the Monkey King from one of the fire gods, the air outside and the air inside didn’t exchange at all. I’d used a magazine, to fan at my mother, wiped her down with a wet towel, like how my mother had done me when I was only a newborn child too, we’d passed through the night like this, and, finally, as the dawn was about to break, the temperature had finally, cooled back down, but, soon enough, the sunlight came in.
the world outside opened up, didn’t it? not my photo still…
Maybe, one of the exhaust pipes is faced straight into the room that my mother once stayed in, the west wing’s I.C.U., the E.N.T. wards were right above the I.C.U. There was NO windows in the I.C.U., no extra sounds, the air conditioning was on full-blast, and, there were, assortments of complex machines by each and every bed, the heartrate monitors, blood pressure readers, the dosages, beeping away. Transferring over from the purgatorial regular wards, the I.C.U. was like a space ship, with totally different settings, and, at this time of life or death, I’d had this, improper sense of new. A nurse for every patient, they’d filled out the charts and forms on a huge old wooden table, there were, scratch marks on the edges, don’t know how many patients the forms were filled on there. On the opposite side of my mother, there was, an isolation room, with a little boy inside, both his hands were tied, he kept wiggling, the nurses told, that intubation was very difficult for him, that if he start pulling the tubes out in the middle of the nights, it would cause him life-threatening danger. Later on, my mother’s wrists too, were tied up as well.
Out of the window on the other side of the E.N.T. ward, you can see the Hyatt, which had the name changed to The Thistle now, but, that arch-shaped building still looked grand, I had the graduation supper with all the school instructors in the ballroom of that hotel, a hundred dollars each person, we’d had buffets, it wasn’t cheap, everybody got dressed up, and finally, I’d seen, all the girls in make up, and, some had mixed and matched the colors, but, they’d looked extremely radiant, back then, everybody wished that they could fast-forward, and be without the hair regulations, and put on the most ravishing clothes.
And, out of that same window, I can also see the regular wards that my mother had stayed in, the C Building.
The C Building is the lady’s ward, it had a beautiful name, Cempaka, orchids, the buildings of the hospital are named after flowers mostly, only the main building didn’t have a flower name, or, maybe, it’s called, the Sultan’s Queen, and those flower bundles, the gifts for the Queen then.
Early this morning, as the doctors came to take out the temporary airway, they’d not pulled up the curtains, nor were they wearing the gloves they’d pulled out, about two inches worth of tubes out, sticky, I can’t imagine how my mother breathed with that for a little over three weeks, there was, a hole under the throat, it’d not needed suturing, the doctor said, that in two to three weeks, the hole will close up all on its own, and, twelve hours later, my mother can already speak with sound too, and the air didn’t come out of that small hole anymore.
Humans are so fragile, but the way humans healed, so amazing too.
That hole was opened, after I’d signed the papers. That morning, the doctors made the rounds, and, went to each bed to understand the condition of each of the patients, and, the doctors and nurses circled around, explained, the primary physician didn’t say anything. After the rounds, the doctor handed me a sheet to sign, said that I’d needed to sign it, for them to perform the procedures of a tracheotomy, that intubation will keep her from healing up properly, that this was a minor procedure, there may be a little bit of bleeding, but there’s no life-threatening danger………
A door separated the ophthalmology and E.N.T. wards, earlier this morn, a woman was released from the E.N.T. wards, and in the empty room, there was only my mother, she could take a walk using her walker, on that pavement made of broken pebbles, she’d told me, that she didn’t know how many years the floors stayed like this. That it surely was, durable, like we’d returned, to long ago, the two of us started reminiscing in this odd situation, plus there the coolness from the rain, she would sleep well tonight I’m sure.
III.
The moment my mother returned home, she’d started making her calls, told everybody, that everything that was placed into her body is now, out, that she’s more than lucky for it, then, rushed to the fridge to see what produce were there, then, I’d cooked while she’d commanded me, I’d stir-fried a loofa, steamed up two pieces of fish, with spinach soup, and, because of lack of cooking experience, everything tasted, a bit bland, but, it’s healthier that way, health, is the most important thing.
So, this, is the encounters of a hospital stay, and, the patients in the hospital all hoped to be released soon, but, not all of them get to be released soon, but the narrator’s mother had, and, she is going to cherish her newfound sense of better health, after this experience of near-death.
Life, the Obstacle Course 