Hospital Tales: pride
A middle aged man in a bright red shirt rambled over to the counter waving a transparent bag with a test-tube sized bottle inside.
"I got no appointment today, i come to give sample!" he said loudly in halting english.
"What sample is it, Sir? Urine sample is it?" i asked, glancing up from my heap of appointment cards. It is an unwritten rule in the Hospital Doctrine that Wednesdays is the busiest day of the entire week - so here's a tip for you - don't EVER book an appointment to see a specialist doctor on Wednesdays.
"No! This one! My 大便!"
I gaped at Mr Sample and his brown bottle.
In my six weeks of working in ABC Hospital, it's my first time coming in contact with a test-tube chock full of human faeces. I'm sorry but i can't help but wonder how he managed to stuff it inside that small bottle. He reminded me of an old lady i saw once, walking around happily with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plastic container (without a lid!) of urine in the other.
My dear fellow receptionist chose this unfortunate moment to ask, "Uncle, how can we help you?"
"I come to give sample. Da bian. It's my da bian. Where do i put it?" He asked, completely unaware of the bemused grins of some of the patients behind him.
"Err, Sir we need your green form...."
Before i could finish, he was already pulling out a slightly SOGGY document from the VERY SAME BAG and handed it to me.
"Th..thank you, Sir."
***
Besides being just a cute little ancedote to tell, this afternoon's encounter with Mr Sample gives a deceptively accurate definition of the reverse of an element of Patient Psychology 101 -- The Self-Conscious aka i-want-face syndrome. There is no place like the hospital that makes one feel instantly apprehensive, a little confused and uncomfortably intimate. And it is precisely this very feeling that causes people to put up their defences and make them dread their every return to the white building.
I've encountered female patients, when being asked of their weight in front of everyone, will ask me for a pen and paper so that they can jot it down instead of saying it out loud. Patients whose voices drop to hushed whispers when they tell me about their appointment with the psychiatrist or their dialysis treatment. Sullen-looking husbands who stand many paces away from their heavily pregnant wives, daughters who sit reading a magazine far away from their wheelchair-bound fathers and sons walking a distance in front of their mothers who hobble painfully on a walking aid.
When it happens, i just stand there watching with more than a twinge of sadness, reality is sometimes so contrived that it looks like something out of a Mediacorp studio. We can relate to them, don't pretend that you can't. Every one of us are wounded in some way, we think we have something to hide, we are ashamed of something that we shouldn't be. I think of the times me and my Dad went shopping for cute bandanas with my Mum who had lost all her hair to chemotherapy. Those moments that shame and embarrassment had no place in, the moments that defined family. Just the 3 of us, we were refugees on the cancer train, holding on to each other waiting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know it's sappy, but i can't help it. I love them.
And now whenever i am torn between pride and letting go, i'll think of the noisy man in red, brandishing a bottle of his faeces proudly for all to see.
"I got no appointment today, i come to give sample!" he said loudly in halting english.
"What sample is it, Sir? Urine sample is it?" i asked, glancing up from my heap of appointment cards. It is an unwritten rule in the Hospital Doctrine that Wednesdays is the busiest day of the entire week - so here's a tip for you - don't EVER book an appointment to see a specialist doctor on Wednesdays.
"No! This one! My 大便!"
I gaped at Mr Sample and his brown bottle.
In my six weeks of working in ABC Hospital, it's my first time coming in contact with a test-tube chock full of human faeces. I'm sorry but i can't help but wonder how he managed to stuff it inside that small bottle. He reminded me of an old lady i saw once, walking around happily with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plastic container (without a lid!) of urine in the other.
My dear fellow receptionist chose this unfortunate moment to ask, "Uncle, how can we help you?"
"I come to give sample. Da bian. It's my da bian. Where do i put it?" He asked, completely unaware of the bemused grins of some of the patients behind him.
"Err, Sir we need your green form...."
Before i could finish, he was already pulling out a slightly SOGGY document from the VERY SAME BAG and handed it to me.
"Th..thank you, Sir."
***
Besides being just a cute little ancedote to tell, this afternoon's encounter with Mr Sample gives a deceptively accurate definition of the reverse of an element of Patient Psychology 101 -- The Self-Conscious aka i-want-face syndrome. There is no place like the hospital that makes one feel instantly apprehensive, a little confused and uncomfortably intimate. And it is precisely this very feeling that causes people to put up their defences and make them dread their every return to the white building.
I've encountered female patients, when being asked of their weight in front of everyone, will ask me for a pen and paper so that they can jot it down instead of saying it out loud. Patients whose voices drop to hushed whispers when they tell me about their appointment with the psychiatrist or their dialysis treatment. Sullen-looking husbands who stand many paces away from their heavily pregnant wives, daughters who sit reading a magazine far away from their wheelchair-bound fathers and sons walking a distance in front of their mothers who hobble painfully on a walking aid.
When it happens, i just stand there watching with more than a twinge of sadness, reality is sometimes so contrived that it looks like something out of a Mediacorp studio. We can relate to them, don't pretend that you can't. Every one of us are wounded in some way, we think we have something to hide, we are ashamed of something that we shouldn't be. I think of the times me and my Dad went shopping for cute bandanas with my Mum who had lost all her hair to chemotherapy. Those moments that shame and embarrassment had no place in, the moments that defined family. Just the 3 of us, we were refugees on the cancer train, holding on to each other waiting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know it's sappy, but i can't help it. I love them.
And now whenever i am torn between pride and letting go, i'll think of the noisy man in red, brandishing a bottle of his faeces proudly for all to see.
Labels: life observations
