Grandma Passed on... An Eulogy

Grandma just passed away moments ago.

She is at last free from this wretched disease call dementia and has moved on to a better place.

As a mother, she raised two successful sons as a widow through the post WWII years, making do with what little resources she has.

As a grandmother, she takes care of us while our parents are out there working hard, making sure that we grow up to be honorable, disciplined and strong of will.

Grandma has been part of my life for my entire life and I am sad that she is no longer around.

Ah Jia, you will be sorely missed but we know that you have gone on to a better place.

😢😢😢

The Wake of Thion Mee Kiew will be held:

Date : 18th - 19th April 2019

Cremation will be held on 20th April 2019

May She Rest In Peace.

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A Tale of Two Hospitalization

24 Mar 2019

It's a Sunday afternoon when Sis and family came to visit, with my nephew looking forward to play "pass the ball" with happy dementia grandma. However, grandma wasn't feeling well that day and came down with a fever in the morning. A dose of paracetamol did not do much to help to lower the temperature and we made the decision to send her straight to the hospital. While the family is going through the routine checklist to prepare grandma for hospitalization, I entertained the kids with Meeple Circus.

As I drove grandma to Changi hospital, I receive one after another call from my best mate, indicating that there is another emergency matter on his side too. After dropping off the family at the hospital accident and emergency department and parking the car, I called my best mate.

"Yo, mate, whazzup?"

"I am currently in the Changi hospital A&E. I have an open wound that is weeping water and I think I am running a fever. Can I check with you on the details of my insurance coverage?"

"Hey mate, I am just around the corner. Hang on and I will swing by to visit you in person."

"What?!?"

After making sure that Dad has registered grandma for treatment at the A&E department, I walked round the corner and found my best mate sitting there with a swollen eye, and a scratch wound the size of a 50cents coin, sitting there, shivering.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"Well, I had a slight skin eczema, scratched it and for some reason, it started to fester and weep water non-stop. This morning, I woke up with a fever and my entire leg swollen. Went to visit a neighbourhood doctor and I was immediately referred to the hospital. I still have a Taiwan trip with my wifey this friday. Think will be fine?"

I took a look at his wound. it has two lines of water flowing down to his ankle and I can imagine the colony of germs happily breeding at the open wound.

"Your wound does look infected. However, if you are running a fever, than the germs must be quite aggressive. Let see what the doctor says."

After checking the type of insurance my best mate has, I had him check into a private room ward.

Meanwhile, over at my grandma side, it seems that the geriatric ward at hospital is full on a Sunday afternoon and grandma will need to be warded at the observation area until Monday when other patients are discharged, freeing up more beds. Good thing that grandma is running a high fever and is semi-conscious, pretty much oblivion to the noise and movement that goes in and out of the observation ward.

This highlights the acute shortage of beds for elderly patients in the face of an onslaught of an aging population. The Singapore government has been aggressively building hospital in the past 10 years, starting with Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (659 beds) in the north, Ng Teng Fong Hospital (700 beds) in the west and Sengkang Hospital (1000 beds) in the north-eastern part of Singapore.

On the following day, best mate undergo a surgical procedure to remove the infected flesh from his leg and the end result is not pretty. Turns out that the infection was worse than expected and a huge portion of the infected flesh has to be gorge out. The wound is so big such that it has to be secured with a vacuum pump in order to keep the wound air tight and water proof to prevent further infection.

Morale of the story - Do not treat any open wound lightly or things may turn out worse than what you expect.

And do not scratch unless you want a big hole on yourself!

Scroll to the end of the article to see the open wound

or if you are sensitive to blood and gore, CLICK HERE TO LEAVE THE PAGE!

 

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Dementia Transformed! An Angry Grandma turned Happy!

It has been two and a half years since my grandma had a stroke and the family has been through a lot since than. I stopped writing for a while because Unfit Runners have fallen into a routine running the same old Marina Bay route almost every week and I was occupied with taking care of my love ones who were falling prey to one disease or another. 

Let's continue where I left off...

If you recall from my earlier articles, grandma was an angry dementia patient. Swearing, yelling, biting and kicking family members were routine affairs and the family went through many trials to adapt to an angry dementia grandma who was totally unpredictable. The doctor assure us that this stage of the dementia will eventually come to pass and she will transit into a calm and happy dementia patient.

The time of transition came 22 months later...

It was in the Autumn of 2018 that grandma got admitted into Changi Hospital for a serious bout of lungs infection. She stayed for more than 2 weeks before being discharged and her behavior totally changed after she was discharged.

Firstly, she became too weak to venture upstairs anymore and we bought a new bed to be placed at the first floor. She was so weaken by the infection that she just kept sleeping... and sleeping till my sister was worried that there was something wrong her.

Where did the energetic and angry grandma go? Her behavior seemed to be abnormal as compared to the time before the hospitalization and we decided to send her in for more checks, but she was given a clean bill of health.

Over time, her health started to improve and she was able to perform normally again. However, we noticed a significant deterioration in her memory and she has lapsed into her younger. My dad now became her dad. I became her son and my niece became her grand daughter. It seems like she has also forgotten about how she was like before her stroke and that lost memory also removed her anger and depression of being sick and disabled.

She has became a happy dementia, glad to spend her time, eating, sleeping, watching television and during rare mornings when her sanity was restored, attempted to read the newspaper.

Her relationship with our helper also improved significantly as she now sees her as her close friend who takes the best care of her and stopped being angry at her for usurping her role as the head of kitchen and a waste of money. The only downside is that her bladder has weakened a lot and she always seems to forget about having to visit the toilet 5 minutes ago. My poor helper has to resort to sleep beside her in the living room, to prevent her from getting hurt during the frequent visits to the toilets in the middle of the night.

The family was glad to have grandma transformed into a happy dementia patient, though we were also sad as we understood that her dementia has progressed to the next stage. At least, she is at peace.

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