Various updates

When I first got back to Ipoh after my mother’s knee operation, I had quite a peaceful week in the sense that none of my PLWHA clients called me.

Somehow it is when I am out of Ipoh that those calls kept coming. I was in Klang Valley at the end of last week for my mother’s follow-up appointment in Putrajaya Hospital when a few calls came in.

First call came in while I was at the hospital, asking for Puan Afizah. From the way the caller spoke, I knew she was an Indian lady. The lady was actually a friend of Devi who called to seek help for Devi’s children. Devi herself doesn’t own a phone, so she had to depend on her friend to make the calls. I told the lady I was in KL and asked her to call my colleague instead, as this colleague is Devi’s co-buddy. I then sent a text message to this lady giving her my colleague’s number.

Then as I was relaxing at my brother’s home on Saturday, Yah called. When I saw Yah’s name, I wondered what she wanted. She had stopped calling me to talk about her love life, so I was hoping she wasn’t going to go into that again. Well, she did not. Instead, she asked if I could tell SN (of Ipoh HIV clinic) not to disclose to Yah’s in-laws on the date of Yah’s appointments. Huh? I told Yah it was none of SN’s business to disclose the patients’ date of appointments to others. Yah herself should know by now what type of a person SN is. In fact, I think if ever Yah’s in-laws attempted to get such info from SN, they’d probably get a scolding from her as she has better things to do!

Frankly, I think Yah wasn’t really asking me to talk to SN. It was just her way of telling me about her problems with her in-laws. Remember Yah used to have lots of problems with her in-laws who were always demanding for money – like it was Yah’s responsibility after the demise of her late husband, their brother. I thought it had cooled down a bit but apparently it had not. In a way, I think it was Yah’s fault that this matter was brought up again. When Yah got a job in Ipoh she went and stayed with her sister-in-law despite all her previous experiences with her in-laws.

Now the in-laws are asking Yah to pay a fixed monthly amount as “living allowance” for her mother-in-law. Their mother and they are telling Yah to provide some monthly allowance? When Yah refused, one of the in-laws told Yah’s employer that Yah has HIV and that he should not employ her anymore. So now Yah is jobless.

But the in-laws (the outlaws?) have not given up chasing Yah for money. Haiya, ini macam punya orang pun ada ka??? I told Yah to just ignore them.

On Sunday morning, I got a text message from an unfamiliar number. The sender introduced herself as Lin’s daughter. The message was to inform me that Lin had been warded in Ipoh GH due to high fever.

When I got back to Ipoh on Sunday afternoon, and after some rest at home, I decided to drop by the hospital to visit Lin. My house is not that far from the hospital and I needed to go out to buy something anyway. But when I got to Lin’s bed, the whole clan (I think many were Lin’s siblings) was there except Lin. Lin’s youngest daughter who recognized me (she had joined the Family Day trip early this month) told me that her mother was having a bath. Since there were simply too many family members there, I decided not to wait. I thought it would be better if I were to visit on a weekday.

Today I checked - Lin was no longer at the hospital. She must have been discharged. I will check on her again later…