Updates

I was the lone volunteer on duty during HIV clinic last Wednesday. The 2 trainee volunteers in my team had work-related matters to attend to.

But it was no big deal, really. SN too was not around since she had to attend a course elsewhere and so I had to postpone whatever matters I needed to discuss with her.

Only the junior nurse was around to refer any cases to us but according to her, although there were supposed to be 4 new cases that day, only one turned up. So yes, I only met one new patient.

As I was getting bored waiting, in case the other 3 patients may turn up, I decided to text Asiah. It had been quite some time since my last contact with her – she had then just been confirmed pregnant and if I recalled correctly, she should be due to deliver anytime soon.

Coincidentally Asiah was at the hospital for her blood test when I sent her the text message. I took the opportunity to go down to meet her since there weren’t any more cases referred to me. Asiah and her husband were at the canteen having a drink. Usually her husband would shy away from me but since he was having a drink, he couldn’t simply get up and sit elsewhere. I finally got a clearer picture of how he looked like!

Anyway, Asiah’s full term of pregnancy is in early January. Although she has not got the confirmation from the doctor, chances are her c-sect will be scheduled 2 weeks earlier. That’ll be soon enough. She promised she’d inform me once she knows when she needs to be warded at Ipoh GH. It’ll be easier for me to visit her then.

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I called up Sofie yesterday to find out how her family was doing. Sofie had brought Saiful to the Ipoh GH to set an appointment with the eye specialist. His appointment is set in February 2010. Hmmm… must be a long list of patients waiting to see the specialist.

I had initially planned to bring Sofie’s children to shop for their schooling needs early next week, but according to Sofie, Saiful is scheduled to be circumcised today. So I think I’ll give him a bit more time. I’ll wait until later next week to bring them shopping.

Maybe before that I can bring Yati’s children to shop for their schooling needs first. Yati texted me last night, telling me that her husband AJ seemed to be getting weaker but simply refused to go to the clinic or hospital. He seemed to think there is no hope for him anymore and as such no point getting treatment. Yati is beginning to lose her patience with him.

I told Yati that AJ may need a bit more time to get out of it and that she should keep on coaxing him to go for treatment. I even told her to threaten him that I’d be visiting them at home if he refuses to go to the clinic/hospital (her family that they’re staying with are not aware of his HIV and so they don’t want us Buddies to visit them at home in case her family becomes suspicious). No, we don’t visit them at home without their permission… I just wanted Yati to threaten him a bit…

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For the first time ever, Buddies will be organizing our own World AIDS Day programme instead of joining the programmes of other NGOs. About 7 or 8 of us will be going to an Orang Asli village for an HIV awareness programme. I’ve finally got my powerpoint presentation ready. I had to redo the slides as the ones I had previously were either in English or the one or two I had in Malay were a bit more technical. We have been advised to keep the presentation in simple Malay and without too much statistics which may just confuse them further. The important thing is to inform them on the basics of HIV.

So yeah, my next blog posting will probably be about the visit to the Orang Asli village.