Rant 883 / That's Milk?

FRI















So I tried to order fast food to my office on Deepavali.

MCD doesn't deliver to my office! What kind of fuckery is this??!?!

Fortunately the hawker centre nearby was still opened, so this was the first time I visited that place. Usually I'm out of the office by lunch because... I don't want to eat with my employees. Generation gap.

Would you want to eat with your parents and their friends during lunch on weekdays?

Anyway they have Thai steamboat over there. Who the heck eats in the industrial areas of Singapore when they're free enough to eat steamboat meals with friends?











My bro probably discovered the joy of cooking for someone who appreciates his cooking.

I tell you, you get a nice feeling when someone compliments on your cooking.

Anyway the beef stew he made on Deepavali was pretty good, so he made a larger pot of it today.

On Deepavali, I left a piece of rump steak to thaw in preparation for a stew that night but found more things to do in the office than expected, so I told him to google a recipe like I did and do it himself.

Stews are easy enough that even retards can't ruin it, so I wasn't worried. After all, you just dump everything into a pot of water and cook till they're all mushy. And add a bit of salt and pepper.

Today he went to buy more beef just for this.

I was actually planning to make avocado salad with the extra celery but I was carrying too much when I got home to go and buy the avocados and carrots. This was a fortunate surprise.












So I've decided to send her to Assisi Hospice. The social worker has spoken to me and he has agreed to handle this for me.

The oncologist estimated she has several months left if she manages to avoid a serious infection. Due to the gaping wound on her chest, the risk of infection can't be low. I'm actually surprised she hasn't got a fever yet despite having that wound for months.

The tube to her brain, according to the neurologists, is not a good idea. In better circumstances, that would be okay, but again due to her wound, the tube will create the risk of bringing the infection into the brain. In short, too risky, not recommended.

Surgery is already not an option because of the spread. After scanning her abdomen yesterday, they found that it has spread everywhere.

Chemotherapy is also not recommended due to her age and her physical condition.

In fact the oncologist also recommends palliative care at this stage and spoke to me about the two hospices I can choose from: Assisi and Dover Park.

Stay-in hospices were recommended partly because we don't have a maid, all 3 of us are young and working/studying, and she is going to develop certain symptoms that will required trained specialists to handle.

Because she is not expected to live much longer, hiring a maid is also not a feasible.

The social worker spoke to me this afternoon on some of the same issues, and explained further about the hospices.

Assisi is near Novena MRT while Dover Park, despite its name, is at Tan Tock Seng hospital. One main difference he highlighted was that unlike Assisi, Dover Park offers the option of staying with the patient on her final nights in a private room.

Assisi does not allow visitors to stay overnight.

I'm choosing Assisi. She is going to be unconscious by then. Staying near her won't make her feel any better.

Even now, her psychomotor control is very bad. This morning a friend of hers told me she wasn't eating yesterday and had to be fed. I only visited her in the morning so I didn't watch her eat. She was still ok the day before.

So today I went over during lunch and saw that she was barely able to handle the fork and spoon.

I've discussed this with my bro and his gf, so we'll try to visit her during lunchtime and dinnertime. I can't do much about breakfast. I really don't want to get myself more depressed by depriving myself of my entertainment at night. They can handle dinner much more easily since they have classes till 6pm at NUS nearby.

She'll be transferred to Assisi next week, probably Tuesday. I have no idea what's going to happen then.

Staying in hospices won't be cheap. Without subsidies of any form, it will hit about S$6000 per month.

If my family income is about $2000, I may get 50% subsidy. This is quite possible actually.

However the government subsidy will only last 3 months. Appealing for more will not be possible unless our savings get wiped out by these bills. In other words, I won't get anything beyond 3 months of subsidies, if I get any at all.

The hospice will get someone to assess our finances so that they can decide how much subsidy we need.





The social worker was kinda strange. Maybe it was part of his job but he sounded as if I'm carrying a huge burden by handling everything at home, work and etc. This seemed to be worsened by the fact that I only knew about her condition a few months ago.

What.

This isn't bad. I've been provided with everything I need to survive after her departure. There's nothing terrible about what's happening now other than her imminent death itself.

Emotionally, she's been telling us that she was dying since years ago. We've all long accepted the fact that she's hit the average of 10 years that cancer takes to return. That it took this long was already a fortunate thing for her.

Perhaps if the same had happened to other people, it might have been terrible for them. For me, I have a job with very flexible working hours limited only by how much I'm willing to fork out for transport, so I don't get additional pressure from it. That probably helps a lot.

What's happening to me now is nothing. In a way, I am one of the luckiest people in the world.

In a way.














SAT

For some reason she seemed stronger tonight. My bro visited her in the afternoon and found the nurse feeding her. Just now I merely had to push food onto her spoon with the fork.

Skipped the slice of wholemeal bread as usual. Too chewy. Asked the nurse if I could replace it with something softer but she was too busy to answer me properly. It was medication time, so I wasn't even supposed to disturb her. I only did it because I thought it was a very simple matter.

Apparently it was not. She handed me the menu and told me to choose from it.

The problem is that the bread wasn't mentioned in any of the options, probably because it came with ALL the options. I just thought it was a waste to throw it away every time.

I'm sure some of you would consider eating it. I did, but now I'm old enough to realize that if I ever start eating her food, she might develop this notion that she could eat less so that I could eat more. Who knows? She could very well be imagining that I'm not eating well right now.

That's obviously not true. I just made some awesome chicken breast stir-fried with ginger and spring onion this afternoon.

Then I failed at dinner when my Beijing cabbage stir-fried with chicken breast got way too watery and the starch I tried to throw in... lumped together.

Epic fail.

I learnt then that the starch reacts much faster when thrown into hot water. The temperature is pretty important I guess.

Ah well. At least I feel better now that I know that the nurses feed her whenever we're not around, which means they feed her during breakfast and tea time (at 3pm).

I think the most interesting part of tonight's visit was the old lady who had just arrived today. According to her two visitors, she had "severe dementia". To make it worse, she was pretty deaf.

When I walked into the room, she was already talking loudly to nobody in particular. Or maybe she was talking to someone but whoever that was was ignoring her completely.

According to another patient, she was like that the moment they brought her in.

Even if one could comprehend her mix of Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese (and perhaps some other dialects), it probably couldn't have made any sense.

Near the end of my visit, she kept calling out to me in Hokkien and said some things that sounded like Cantonese. I think she was telling me to bring her home or maybe to the bathroom because she was either urinating or passing motion.

Called out to me lots of times but in Rome, we should all do as Romans do. In this case I just ignored her. At first she kept telling me it was very urgent and at the end, it was out.

Good thing they made her wear diapers... I think. Overheard the female visitor tell the male that she tried to tear off her diaper earlier. Hopefully they had put it back on again.

She wasn't even aware that she had a fractured leg, according to her male visitor. Probably her son, or maybe son-in-law and husband of her female visitor.

I just didn't like how he seemed so irritated.

Then again, I don't have a mother like that.