And the visits for the year has begun

Although I usually slow down a bit in January after a hectic back-to-school shopping month in December, January 2015 hasn’t even ended and already I’ve done 3 visits for the year… 2 home visits and 1 hospital visit.

First visit was of course to Laila’s home. Remember Laila, the orphan… one and only daughter of the late Shila? Laila usually spends the school holidays at her paternal grandma’s house in another state and has never joined us during our BTSS. Her grandma, the one taking care of her, would usually buy the necessities first and I’d reimburse her the amount when I visit in early January. Laila seems to be doing fine. She’s already in form 3 this year, how time flies.

Just when I thought I could just do all my work from home for the rest of January, updating whatever necessary, Aini’s daughter sent me a text message, informing me that Aini had to be hospitalised. So yep, that was my next visit. As usual, I’d take the opportunity to do some stairs exercise when I visit any of my clients at the hospital. And since Aini was warded on the 8th floor, up I went all the way 192 steps up.

Aini looked weak. She could hardly walk. Worse, she had been staying alone for the past month. Her eldest daughter is studying at a polytechnic in another state, her second son has gone for PLKN, and the 3rd son, in form 4 this year, stays at his grandparents house, which is nearer to his school. If Aini collapses at home, nobody would be around to help her. I told her to stay at her parents home, together with her youngest son, once she is discharged.

While I was driving to Taiping yesterday for my clinic duty there, Aini called to inform me she had been discharged. Thank goodness she did manage to get the new card from the Welfare Dept (the card indicates that she is a recipient of financial aid from the Welfare Dept.) as I told her to. Last year, because she did not bother to get a copy of the card (to her what’s important is that the monthly financial assistance gets into her bank account on time), she had to pay over RM250 when she was hospitalised. This time around, if not for the card, she would have had to fork out over RM300. But since I had already taught her daughter what to do, just by showing the welfare card, they didn’t have to pay for hospital charges.

Anyway, there was no new case referred at the hospital when I went yesterday. So I just got the ID clinic roster for this year from the nurse, to enable me to do up the voluntary duty roster for us Buddies.

Then off I went to a bicycle shop with the intention to buy 2 bicycles for Dahlia’s children. One for her 14 year old son who’s very active in school activities (the school bus driver usually doesn’t want to wait for him) and another for Dilla, the 16 year old girl who just gave birth to a baby girl late last year. She needs the bicycle to go to the culinary college where she has started classes.

But when I got to the shop, which was recommended by Dahlia herself as she said the bikes there are quite cheap, the shop wasn’t even open yet. And it was already almost 11 am! I then decided to go straight to Dahlia’s house. Only Dahlia and the 3 toddlers were around… her 2 youngest children aged 3 and 1 1/2 years old, and her 1 month old granddaughter.

According to Dahlia, the baby’s blood sample had already been taken for DNA testing. The DNA test is needed as proof to charge the guy who had raped Dilla last year, resulting in the pregnancy. Apparently, the police records show that this isn’t the only rape case the guy was involved in. There was an earlier rape case, but no action was taken because the family of the raped girl retracted their report.

I must commend the way both Dahlia and Dilla are handling the situation. Despite the looks neighbours are giving them, despite the trauma that Dilla had to go through, they are going on with life without moaning about their past. Dahlia is getting some extra income by giving tuition service at home, while Dilla seems to be doing fine with her culinary classes.

I really hope a bright future awaits them.

And oh, as for the bicycles, I decided to just leave some money with Dahlia and told her to get her children to go to the shop themselves to buy the bicycles.