Ward 172

There is a patient  a few doors down who calls out every few minutes. The call is like that of a parrot, sharp, deep and annoying after a while. He cannot help it. I saw him and believe he suffers severe neurological damage, and is in a vegetative state.

Ward 172, on the seventeenth floor, is one of the four neurosurgery wards. Mum was admitted here for two weeks before and after her spinal surgery, and now she has been re-admitted here again to monitor her condition and get to the bottom of her vomiting. I walk around the corridors and occasionally peek into the rooms. Those few seconds when I peek into other rooms, I see so much... patients lying there with their mouths open and tubes inserted into their nostrils... patients writhing in their beds in great pain... a wife spoonfeed her husband, a mother massage her severely paralysed child...

Illness affects a lot of people, not just the patient in question. And me being here, being able to care for my mum, is nothing compared to what so many people do quietly and invisibly. There are so many unsung carers out there, who resist tiredness, who must overcome despair and anguish, and try and try and try hard to provide and care for their loved ones in the hope that the loved one will get better again. We, the carers, are the silent masses behind every patient, who provide precious love and support through our words and actions of encouragement. we are people from all walks of life, speaking various tongues, from all social backgrounds are all gathered here, brought together by the fragility of our human bodies, brought together by our care and love for our loved ones.  Human suffering is universal, and human compassion and care too crosses all boundaries.

I am touched to see family and friends gather around other patients, just as some of mum's relatives and friends have come to see her when she was hospitalised (less people came to visit this time, because mum does not want to alarm people again...). Besides the fruits and foods they bring, they bring much encouragements, they bring stories  of the outside world into the hospital ward, and they offer patients comfort and invaluable support to complement the professional care and medical assistance the doctors and nurses provide.

My story is not unique. It is repeated and replayed day in and day out throughout the world, and often is untold. When I think this way, when I see other relatives and friends take care of their loved ones, I remind myself I am just one of many. And that in itself is a source  of strength to push on and to care for my mother, no matter what. Because so many people do, and so many people do without  complaining...