Monday, June 22, 2009
Kiasu-ism
22-JUNE-2009:
I had to do a blood test last Wednesday. Our local health centre runs a pathology clinic every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:30am to 11:50am. Patients are seen on a first come first serve basis and only 30 patients will be seen in a day. The receptionist at the surgery adviced me to go early because according to her, they're often booked out and have to turn patients away. I have no problems with early. When I was pregnant with Dom in M'sia, I got to the hospital at 8:15am for my monthly checkup. The doctor only started seeing patients at 9am (at the earliest) but I always got there very early to get a number because (1) There was no such thing as an appointment (actually, there was but the appointment was only for 'morning' or 'afternoon' and the purpose of the appointment was so that the hospital could retrieve my medical records from some vault), and (2) The first time I arrived after 9am I had to wait for 3 hours (also mostly because the doctor had to go off for some emergency operation). If you ask me now, I think it's a stupid, stupid system. Or perhaps it's necessary because Malaysians are never known for being punctual.
So this time, I thought no problems. The health centre is only 5 mins walk from my place. I'll get there early ... even before it opens. I'll be the first one there and I'll be done and be home by 8:45am. When it comes to 'kiasu-ism' no one can beat the Malaysians (except the Singaporeans, of course).
That morning in question, I took my time. I didn't want to get there too early and wait in the cold. I got there at 8:21am and was very surprised to find a queue already at the door. I was number 9 that morning and I finished at 9:10am. Still, I didn't mind a bit as long as I was the first 30.
The next morning, the doctor called me on my cellphone with my blood test results. I think that was so nice because back in Malaysia, I only found out about the results during my next visit which was typically 4 weeks later. The result shows that I have thrombocytopaenia (i.e. very low platelet count), which is nothing to be particularly concerned about because I had the same condition when I was pregnant with Dom and was expecting it to happen again. Only this time the count is much lower that it had ever been previously. In fact, the reason I had the blood test was because I noticed rashes all over my legs and some on my arms, which I later found out was internal bleeding underneath the skin. This didn't happen the last time. I will be seeing a haematologist on Friday. What happens, I imagine, is that I'll be put on steroids (tablets) and I can't have an epidural, which is what happened the last time.
On the topic of epidural, I'm actually glad that I can't have it because I can never quite make up my mind about it. I'm not against it but I also don't fancy having something stuck into my spine and I'm afraid of side effects. On the other hand, if I don't take it, I might feel that I've not done justice to myself if I have to endure hours and hours of painful labour when I can actually avoid the pain.
I also did a little bit of research on the Internet and slightly modified my diet, namely:
(1) Cutting out dairy products - which means I'm now drinking only soya milk and eating my breakfast cereals with soya milk. No cheese, no butter. Does anyone know if yogurt is considered a dairy product?
(2) Cutting down sugar intake, i.e. no fruit juices for me.
(3) Lots of vegetables and less meat - I just had a healthy salad for lunch today, and I had salad for lunch for the past 2 days.
I think the diet helps because the rashes on my arms are completely gone and the ones on my legs are fading. With the help of God, everything will be fine.
