One of my friends sent me a bunch of flowers while I was in the onco ward. Nurse told me that no flowers were allowed there. It had something to do with the pollens and low immunity and allergy or infection, or something like that.
We had a newcomer to the room, a lung cancer case, admitted with high fever and coughing with phlegm. She was given a small, cylindrical container to collect samples of her phlegm. Nurse went round checking and recording and took that container of phlegm sample with her. Everywhere she stopped, she set the container down on the trolley table, the very table that patients eat the meals from. The moment the nurse left the room, I gave my table a good wipe with the wet ones that I had with me. I had to do it discreetly so that the other patient won't notice and be offended. Sorry, but I had more than enough problems of my own and I definitely don't need anymore. And if the nurse can't remember to take care of me, I had to take care of myself.
One patient came in with a distended belly. They set a tube in her belly to drain the fluid. After a couple of days, they discharged her with the tube still intact. She left at about 3 pm and was back again that night. She said the fluid could not stop flowing and was dripping all along the corridor to her apartment. While at home, she had to change her pants 5 times as they kept getting wet. Sometimes, it would be better to request for another day's stay for observation or until the condition had stabilised rather than be discharged and then had to rush back to A&E again.
The nurses there are very accommodating. Sometimes, a patient would want to change their bed to another vacated one, and the nurses would comply by switching the beds and bedside cabinets around. Some days, somehow, there seemed to be a lot of patient movements that one doctor commented, 'are they playing musical chairs?'
I admired the guts of the nurses in the onco ward. A lot of patients there are very sick. For the seriously ill, the chances of being carted out in a box were as high as being able to walk out of there. I had spoken to a nurse who had switched over from a banking job to be a nurse and understood that she had specially asked for onco ward as she found it very challenging.
Probably due to the common nature of our illness, there was a lot comraderie among the patients and relatives. We helped watch out for one another when the caregivers were not around. Whatever we didn't want from our meals, especially fruits and sauce, we would pass it to others.
Changi's operations were better organised than SGH. SGH's rice was hard and I found it very difficult to swallow even with hot water added. I gave up struggling and asked them to switch to plain porridge instead. The meal times were erratic, sometimes late.
SGH only provided hot drinks for breaks, no bread. If one is hungry, ask and they can only give biscuits. I was used to the tea breaks in Changi and had expected the same from SGH. Due to the numerous trips away from the room that I had to take for the various tests, that I initially thought I had missed the coffee cart. I found out this was not so and had to ask my family members to get me snacks in case I was hungry in between meals.
For sponge bath, nurses at SGH used wet ones and I didn't feel as clean as I was in Changi. Sponge baths were also done by those in the morning shift.
The bedsheets in SGH were not changed daily and sometimes we had to request for a change. Once, I was given a pair of pyjama pants with dried goo all over, that I noticed only later. Some idiot in me held back from requesting for a new pair and I spent the day trying to clean some off with wet ones and regretting my decision.
Overall , the SGH nurses at onco ward did very well. Very professional and very calm and collected.
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