[ 02 APR 2015 ]
Boon Yi accompanying Mom to her ward.
Picture by Tay Kay Hwee.
[ 02 APR 2015 ]
March was a relatively good month for us as Mom’s condition stabilized.
All of us managed to get some breathers and to get back to our regular routines. I also took fewer images during that period.
On April 2, just as my photojournalism class was about to start, I received a text message from my eldest sister to call. I knew instinctively that something was not right.
Within an hour, Mom was rushed to SGH for breathlessness.
The stay this time was slightly more than three weeks, with close to one week in ICU.
I couldn’t bring myself to make any pictures of her for the next 12 days.
[ 14 APR 2015 ]
Mom had spent the past week in three different ICUs as her breathing became more and more labored. With oxygen pumping at 100%, her spO2 reading, a measurement of the concentration, was below 95%. Oxygen was not reaching many parts of her body.
In ICU, the doctors inserted a tube through her mouth to administer the antibiotics. That also meant she could only be fed liquid food through her nose.
Basically, Iressa, the cancer medicine that she was taking, had caused her immune system to weaken. She was treated for a combo of pneumonitis, pneumonia, and at one stage, MRSA.
Earlier, the doctors had informed us that should her condition worsen, ICU was no longer an option.
[ 14 APR 2015 ]
The ‘Get Well’ balloon my nephew paid with his savings has followed my Mom around the hospital.
[ 15 APR 2015 ]
Mom was always complaining to us that every time she tried to fall asleep, she would be woken up for another blood test but she also knew that they were necessary.
[ 15 APR 2015 ]
Our stay at the hospital was getting longer and longer. We just felt that if she woke up in the middle of the night, she would feel safer to see one of us around.
Often, we had to tell her white lies about why we were there at ‘strange hours’.
After a while, the “I happen to be in the neighbourhood so I just pop in” excuse didn’t work anymore.
[ 15 APR 2015 ]
The waiting area outside ward 48 was our ‘second home’ for several weeks. While I find hospital generally depressing, I have also started to feel that this is where you will see a lot of love.
[ Facebook entry – APR 20, 2015 ] The woman two beds away from Mom’s has not woken up for a week now. A few days ago, doctors told her family she would go soon but she has not given up. Perhaps she was waiting for her ex-husband to show up, and he did. For the past four days, a pony-tailed man has been cleaning, massaging, feeding, reading, praying. That’s her ex. Last night, he went to the temple to pray to his God. He is offering half of his life so that the woman he still loves can live a little longer. There can never be enough love.
[ Facebook entry – APR 21, 2015 ] The woman passed away shortly after midnight, and he stayed in the ward till sunrise, hours after her body was taken away. His reason for staying the extra hours, “her spirit is still there.”