On that fateful day, I woke up as usual in the morning, did the routine stuff like changing into my uniform, eating my breakfast and going to the lobby to wait for the school bus to arrive. As usual, I arrived at school at around 7.00 a.m and climbed 4 stories of stairs to get to class. Upon climbing the 3rd flight of stairs, I heard screaming and yelling from 2 stories above me. No doubt that was from my class, and I rolled my eyes. Typical classmates.
When I first entered the classroom, chairs were all over the floor and tables were overturned. The neatness of the classroom from when I last saw yesterday was now replaced by chaos. My table and chair were even gone and I had to keep bending down and looking under tables to search for my books that will then identify my table. I found my table and took a random chair and sat down heavily, taking off my bag simultaneously. I joined another classmate in playing his iphone and in the blink of an eye, 20 minutes passed. We were actually late for flag raising!
As a facility secretary, I had to be the last to leave the class so that I will be sure that the door is locked. We had two more minutes before flag raising starts and we dashed all the way down the corridor. I was born with epilepsy, and if you didn’t know, epilepsy can cause a person to faint anytime, anywhere, and there will be absolutely no warnings. I suppose I had a seizure, as the next time I woke up, I was on a stretcher, heading into the ambulance and there was a sharp pain in my head. My vision was blurry, and all around me were voices but they seemed like whispers to me, none of them making any sense. The next moment, I blacked out again. I woke up in the hospital, and the first thing I saw were my parents seating next to me, their faces full of concern. The usual sensation came to me, the sharp aching in my head. The last time I had a seizure was almost three years ago and I had thought that I had finally gotten rid of this “old friend” of mine. Who knew that he would visit me once again, just when I thought that I could live like a normal kid again……….
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Life in Hospital
I just had an epileptic fit and was hospitalized. The first thing that came to me when I woke up was a sharp aching in my head, threatening to overwhelm me. I struggled to sit up but my arms just gave way when I applied effort. I was bombarded with questions from my parents, asking how I was and whether I felt alright. I nodded my head, as that was all I could do and that mere movement brought a fresh wave of pain crashing into my head. My eyes was swollen and I tried opening it but to no avail. Gingerly, I touched it, expecting another wave of pain but none came. It was a bulge, and I could only open my right eye. Eventually, after one or two hours, I was able to sit up and talk.
A doctor came by and asked many questions that seemed like common sense to me. I answered the first few, but as she asked more and more, I got irritated. I thought that patients need to rest when they first recovered and here was this doctor that was preventing me from resting. Can’t she wait till the next day or so? I had no choice to answer but that did not stop me from giving her irritated replies and so, whenever she asked a question, I did not really try and think but just gave her an answer that first came to my mind, followed by a hint of irritation. They gave me some food to eat but the just the sight of it made me lose my appetite. The looks were bad, but the taste was worse. Within my first bite, I decided that I would rather starve than eat that “thing” that they gave us. I asked my parents if I could not eat the rubbery food and eat something else. They tasted it and said that it was horrible too and offered to buy fish ball soup for me. Nodding eagerly, as anything was better that the rubbery food, they bustled off.
This continued for one day and I can assure you life in hospital is torturous. All you can do in hospital is sleep, eat, talk, go to the toilet, sleep. Time seemed to go very slowly in the hospital and I could only hope for the day to end, and that maybe the next day I would be able to get out of this torturous place. My movements were greatly hampered and I had to have my parents support me so that I could walk. I couldn’t even bathe myself and I felt very useless then. A drip was connected to my hand and whenever I accidentally brush against something, my hand will hurt as the drip will be pulled.
On the second day I was in the hospital, my teachers and classmates even came to visit me, and my consortium director even gave me a comic book to keep me occupied in hospital. That book was humorous and at least helped to take up some time. Hours flashed by and the cycled repeated once again. By then, the swell in my eyes were gone but they was still a distinct blue-black on my eye. My headache had also reduced but my forehead felt soft, as if there were water inside.
Finally, on the third day, I was released and was able to get rid of the overpowering smell of medicine in my nose and couldn’t wait to get back home. Now that I had experienced life in a hospital, I can assure you, it is definitely horrible.
A doctor came by and asked many questions that seemed like common sense to me. I answered the first few, but as she asked more and more, I got irritated. I thought that patients need to rest when they first recovered and here was this doctor that was preventing me from resting. Can’t she wait till the next day or so? I had no choice to answer but that did not stop me from giving her irritated replies and so, whenever she asked a question, I did not really try and think but just gave her an answer that first came to my mind, followed by a hint of irritation. They gave me some food to eat but the just the sight of it made me lose my appetite. The looks were bad, but the taste was worse. Within my first bite, I decided that I would rather starve than eat that “thing” that they gave us. I asked my parents if I could not eat the rubbery food and eat something else. They tasted it and said that it was horrible too and offered to buy fish ball soup for me. Nodding eagerly, as anything was better that the rubbery food, they bustled off.
This continued for one day and I can assure you life in hospital is torturous. All you can do in hospital is sleep, eat, talk, go to the toilet, sleep. Time seemed to go very slowly in the hospital and I could only hope for the day to end, and that maybe the next day I would be able to get out of this torturous place. My movements were greatly hampered and I had to have my parents support me so that I could walk. I couldn’t even bathe myself and I felt very useless then. A drip was connected to my hand and whenever I accidentally brush against something, my hand will hurt as the drip will be pulled.
On the second day I was in the hospital, my teachers and classmates even came to visit me, and my consortium director even gave me a comic book to keep me occupied in hospital. That book was humorous and at least helped to take up some time. Hours flashed by and the cycled repeated once again. By then, the swell in my eyes were gone but they was still a distinct blue-black on my eye. My headache had also reduced but my forehead felt soft, as if there were water inside.
Finally, on the third day, I was released and was able to get rid of the overpowering smell of medicine in my nose and couldn’t wait to get back home. Now that I had experienced life in a hospital, I can assure you, it is definitely horrible.
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