i guess the emo contents from the last post was sort of prompted after a semi-traumatising (and very eye opening) experience on sat-sun where me & my maid underwent caregiver training at the hospital so that we can properly take care of my mum when she gets discharged in the uncertain future.
i guess it struck me that life is really very fragile and realised that a vegetative person can be so helpless :( though we were all told these things by the doctor/nurses and every one of us has read somewhere about taking care of the handicapped etc, and you even see the person lying there in the hospital bed, but the thing is... what you see is just the surface. the clean sheets, the blanket, the person lying immovable on the bed. Yes, her eyes arent open, yes the scars and the part where the skull is removed looks quite bad, yes the machines look like they are really needed to support a life.... but thats not half of it. Not close.
I guess every thing i learnt over the weekend just reinforced in my mind, the sad helplessness, and i feel so sad and sorry and heavily responsible all at the same time.
When you learn about feeding thru a nasogastric tube, there are so many things that could possibly go wrong, it's mindblowing. You have to withdraw contents from the stomach first and test the content's for it's pH. (in a twisted way, like a chemistry experiment huh) At a certain pH, you can't feed the person. If you can't get any contents withdrawn, you need to check the mouth for coiling of the tube, you need to turn the person onto their left. you need to pump in 20mls of air to hopefully be able to dislodge the tube from the stomach lining to be able to withdraw contents. Or else, it might all just mean that the tube might have come out of the stomach (bad/dangerous/could have got to the lungs). You need to calculate the amount of feed to pour in. (if 80 ml of old liquid was withdrawn, then you need to put it back together with (200-80=120) ml of new feed... but if more than 120ml of old content was withdrawn, you put it all back and not add new ones etcetc) Diff medicines need to be given in diff ways. etc etc
When you spongebath/change diapers/turn a person, there are so many intricacies too. Certain ways to pull and push a person (if i may be pardoned to use this comparison- much like a heavy heavy ragdoll) at only certain body areas, so as to get the best leverage possible, the ways to leave the body lying such that there won't be over-pressure on certain bodily points/bones so that there wont be bleeding/bedsores. How to change clothes and bedsheets all while the person is lying right there on the bed still etc etc. I guess heaving someone back and forth certainly makes you realise all the behind-the-scenes work nurses do everyday. Also makes you realise sadly the extent of your loved one's disability. But all we see on the surface is the person lying there. So i guess, it was really eye-opening.
Am really quite worried though. My bro really almost couldn't care less. My dad (wonderful dedicated husband he is though) has never appreciated the trouble that my mum used to put into keeping hygiene in the kitchen/cooking/housework etc, much less higher level stuff like this, that he thinks can be solved by hiring a maid alone. Thankfully, thank god this new maid we have hired is really super good at everything (what a rare rare rare find, took us 20 maids or smth to find her haha) my mom would have liked her i think :( but anyway thank goodness for her, she's really damn capable. But im quite scared... for very complicated stuff like measuring and pH and etc etc joints, dislocation, what to do or not do, when the doctors explain it to us, even i have a hard time absorbing (and we have gone thru how many years of science education?) so my maid and dad were totally lost. Heavy burden of responsibility it seems, falls on me and it's like a matter of life and death??? Really need to pay attention x10924710825701.
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