Baby K - Post surgery

A few days ago, I received a text message from Mrs K, informing me that her little girl had been discharged one week after her heart op, and that they were already back home.

Coincidentally, on the very same day I got a parcel from my bank. You see, this little fella here appeared on the computer screen after one of my online banking transactions.

Am not a soft toy collector, as a matter of fact, I had never been the soft toy kinda child (I was more into hide & seek, konda-kondi and the likes), but since I do know of so many children from poor families, I figured I could give this to one of the children.

And since the parcel came on the same day as Mrs K's text message, guess who got to be the new owner of this little fella? Yep, none other than Baby K.

This afternoon I went to visit the K's. The little girl was at first quite grumpy (Mrs K said, dia baru lepas merajuk), but the moment I gave her the octo, ahh, she was back smiling again. So easy to pujuk one! :-)

Mrs K took off the girl's t-shirt to let me have a look at the scar - the cut on her chest was about 3 to 4 inches. I can just imagine how itchy it's gonna be when it dries up. I told Mrs K to put the girl's t-shirt back on so she wouldn't be scratching her chest!

The girl seemed to be doing fine. Oh yes, she does complain from time to time, but nothing serious. They just went to Ipoh GH yesterday to get the stitches off. Their next appointment in IJN will be next month.

Mrs K is on 2 months unpaid leave to take care of Baby K. It's gonna be tough for them next 2 months, especially since they need to move to another house by year end. I will be monitoring more on the children's educational needs.

I hope they have learnt their lessons and will spend more wisely this time.

Visiting & shopping season!

With school holidays beginning this Friday, I anticipate lots of house visits and/or phone calls to many of my PLHIV clients. It's that time of the year when I'd have to get all the updates of the exam results of the children under our sponsorship programme, and it's also time to re-assess the families needing financial help.

While some of the families can afford to utilise whatever money they have first to buy their children's needs and then get reimbursed later, some other families like Sofie's can't afford to do that. So, like I used to do for Yah's, Fuzi's, Mrs K's and the late Lily's families, I may have to bring Sofie's children shop for schooling needs this time.

Yesterday I went to visit Hana. The last time I went to her house during my Raya rounds, nobody was home despite me telling her before hand that I was coming (and she said she'd be home, but she ended up elsewhere without informing me).

It has been quite some time since I last met Hana. It was high time I assessed her situation again. Good thing I went yesterday. Her youngest son will already be in standard one next year so there's an additional child to be considered for our Children Education Fund.

Another reason I visited Hana was to discuss with her about her house. Those who may have been following my blog earlier may remember about her family house perched on a hilly area. And since that house was no longer safe for occupancy (one of the wooden planks made way causing Hana to fall and break her arm) and she couldn't afford to repair the house, the whole family moved to a nearby house, paying rental of RM150 per month.

The initial agreement was that she'd be paying RM50, her mother (who's also still working) RM50 and her father RM50. BUT, her father who is staying with his second wife never met his end of the bargain. So Hana and her mother had to come up with RM75 each, which, to them, is a lot of money.

Since the title of the land of the earlier house is under the mother's name, an option would be to repair the old house. But based on the condition of the house, the better option would probably be to demolish the old house and build a totally new one. But since Hana and her mother definitely can't afford it, we've been looking around if any organisations would sponsor such a thing.

There may be one organisation willing, but a representative will need to visit the place first before a decision can be made. Hopefully we can get a positive response.

As I left Hana's house, I called up Rosnah to ask if she was home. Her house is just on the way, not far off from the main road. She's on night shift at work this week, meaning she's home during the day. So yes, I did drop by her house.

Along the road from Hana's to Rosnah's place, you'd see quite a number of durian sellers on both sides of the road. Yep, it's durian season. But nope, I didn't bother to buy.

When I got to Rosnah's house, her 11 year old daughter was watching TV. Rosnah's mother was folding a whole load of clothes. It had been raining almost every day, the unwashed clothes kept piling up. From what I saw yesterday, I think they had to wash at least 3 laundry baskets full of clothes! (Or, if my mother was to describe it, she'd probably say "penuh satu kereta lembu"!)

Rosnah then served me drinks, and... DURIANS! And as I was leaving she also gave me a small container of tempoyak, a plastic bag of ulam raja, and 3 durians - fresh from the tree behind their house. Thank goodness I didn't buy any of the durians sold by the roadside!

Yep, once in a while, like this instance, I'd be the one getting the goodies instead of me bringing them the goodies. It doesn't happen often though... I think the last time I got something to bring home were the lidi brooms courtesy of Yah's late mom!

So, durians anyone?

Of birth certs and ICs

Last week both myself and Anita received a big "Urusan Seri Paduka Baginda" envelope containing the reply from JPN Putrajaya (to my letter enquiring on how to go about Anita's case) and a whole bunch of forms to be filled up.

Good that we got the reply with all the procedures and what not, telling us to go to JPN Ipoh, but our problems are far from over. Just looking through the forms makes me pening already. Who can sign the surat akuan? Who can be the penganjur?

Kak Ana and I decided to go to JPN Ipoh without filling in the forms first. We'd need to meet the officer to ensure we get the right people to fill in and sign the forms.

Last night Anita called to ask if I'd be free today to go to JPN. I had some urgent matters to settle at the office in the morning so I told them I should be free after 2 pm. And this morning we confirmed to meet up at JPN Ipoh at 2pm.

Just after I left my house nearing 2 pm, Anita called to tell me they had just left the home. Duh! That would mean they would only reach Ipoh after about 1 hour 15 minutes or so. I decided to stop by our NGO center, but after a while I figured I might as well go to JPN and ask around first. And so I did.

First to the IC department. Asked one lady at one of the counters where I should go just to get some clarifications. She told me to get a number first. Went to the counter to get a number, the lady told me to go direct to counter 9; no need to take number.

Since the customer at counter 9 was taking so long with the officer there, I decided to go up to the birth registration department first.

This time after enquiring at the information counter, I was asked to go direct to the next counter as the lady there was the officer in charge of late registration of birth. I still had to wait my turn, but the guy in front of me looked like he was almost done, so I thought I wouldn't have to wait that long.

But the guy had soooo many queries, from one thing to another. I couldn't help eavesdropping as his story was rather interesting. The guy, quite an elderly guy, had married a foreigner, but after giving birth, the lady cabut and left him - leaving the baby with him.

Now he wants to register for his baby's birth, but since it is considered late registration, there's another form he'd need to fill. The problem is, his marriage was not registered in Malaysia. Which would not be a problem to register the child if the mother was around... but she's not! And worse still, the birth of the child was not at the hospital, as a matter of fact, the officer at the counter couldn't help but chuckle when the guy wrote in the form "Tempat lahir: Tepi Jalan." She told the guy to at the very least just name the jalan. Ya lorr uncle, tepi jalan mana? :)

After listening to the guy's problem, I guess the late registration for Anita's baby shouldn't be much of a problem. I just wanted to make sure who could sign the form if the person is not a family member.

As I was heading back to the IC department, Kak Ana called to ask where I was. They had just reached JPN. I decided to wait for them, and was pleasantly surprised to see not only Anita and her baby boy, but also Kak Ana's daughter carrying none other than my little Cek Mek, and also another child staying at the home, 2 year old Nanda.

Goodness, Cek Mek has grown! But I was a bit concerned noticing some sort of rashes she seemed to be developing at her neck and her arms. I was even more concerned when Kak Ana mentioned that the problem started after they changed her medication. She's already 5 months + but still on medication? The doctor had not been affirmative about her HIV status but every time the little girl was brought to the hospital, they'd definitely poke her with those needles to get her blood tested.

Now even Kak Ana is worried that Cek Mek may be positive after all. (I had been worried since day one when she was delivered through normal delivery.) However, I am still hoping and praying that she's still being given medication just as precautionary measures and not because she's HIV positive.

Anyway, back to the problem of Anita's IC. I was told by the officer that since Anita's parents are not around (mother passed away and father nowhere to be found), we'd need to get 2 people who had known Anita for at least 10 years to sign the surat akuan. That would definitely leave me and Kak Ana out.

Somehow we'd still need to get the help of 2 of Anita's half sisters. The evil sister in Ipoh is out of the question. Anita has another sister in KL whom according to her, "boleh bawa berunding" while another sister back in her kampong, wouldn't mind signing the form but would be reluctant to come when called for an interview by the JPN.

Kak Ana and I decided that it would be best to submit the forms in KL to make it easier for the sisters to go for the interview. As for the sister back in her kampong, we told her to coax that sister, telling her that we'd pay for the bus fares when she is needed to go to KL.

So that was round 1. There shouldn't be too much problem with the little boy's birth cert (except for citizenship status which can only be confirmed after Anita settles her IC problem - but that can be rectified later), but looks like we still have a long way to go to get Anita's IC done.

Next step - coax her non-evil sisters...

Updates

Baby K, the hole-in-the-heart toddler, underwent her heart op on Wednesday afternoon. When I sent Mrs K a text message around 2.30 pm to ask on the little girl's update, I was told Baby K was just wheeled into the operation theatre. They were told the op would take between 2 to 3 hours, after which they'd be allowed to see the girl, from outside the ICU.

By Thursday afternoon, Baby K was sent to the ward to enable her parents to see and touch her. By Friday, she was already crying asking for more milk but Mrs K was advised not to give too much for fear of the girl ending up vomiting.

Well, so far so good... alhamdulillah. More updates later.

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Our Fellowship Committee met up on Wednesday night to discuss on our upcoming Fellowship Night, scheduled to be held on 1st December. The last DeepaRaya gathering we had back in 2007, the theme was "Sarong Night" where everybody had to come with a sarong - didn't matter how they wear them. Most wore their sarongs outside their normal clothes.

This time too we opted for something that wouldn't require the volunteers to take too much time to get ready especially since some of them would be coming right after work. So the theme this year is "Fancy Headgears". Any kind of headgear with the exception of sports caps are allowed.

Hmmm... so what kind of headgear should I be wearing huh?

Cowboy?

Red Indian?

Boxing?

Witch?

Or if I'm too lazy to find a suitable headgear, just put a wastebasket on my head and call it a headgear?

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Our awareness campaign for the Orang Asli community is on. Today our vice-chair and myself met up with 3 ladies who stay at Orang Asli settlements although they themselves are not OA's. Through them, we are arranging for the awareness campaign to be held on Sunday 6th December, in conjunction with World Aids Day. The kampong is easily accessible by car, which was what we were looking for since this the first of such programme for us. Depending on the outcome of this one, hopefully next time we will be able to conduct a similar programme at other OA settlements.

Finally we get to do our own programme for World Aids Day instead of the usually "tumpang sekaki" of whatever events organised by other organisations!

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The Ipoh International Friendship Night will be held at a Golf & Country Club next Sunday. With the aim of bringing together foreigners working or staying in or around Ipoh, and familiarising them with the various community associations and programmes in Ipoh, some NGOs were invited to showcase their services or programmes. Buddies were invited as well.

I have managed to get 4 volunteers other than myself to join me at our booth. It will be a good opportunity for Buddies to make ourselves known to more people around Ipoh.

*All pictures taken from photobucket.com

The hospital visit

The maknyah who called earlier had called our hotline number again. My colleague who's currently holding the phone then informed me about it. Again the caller, S, sought help, saying that the friend, D, who was by then hospitalised, probably needed counselling help. S asked if any of us would be visiting.

Problem was, S only mentioned D's "nama glamour" and not the real name. When I asked my colleague for details like which ward etc, she didn't know. She had to wait for S to contact her again. I told her to get S to call me direct.

On Wednesday about 6 pm S called me. It was difficult to get the true picture on D's situation by just talking to S on the phone, so I promised to visit. It would be much easier to visit while D was at the hospital. But it was too late to visit on Wednesday so I said I'd try to visit yesterday. S told me the visiting hours for the district hospital was from 3.30 to 6.30 pm. So we promised to meet up at the hospital about 3.30 pm. I then contacted one of our trainee volunteers who's also a PLHIV to ask him to come along with me if he's free. He agreed. At least if the HIV+ maknyah insisted that I wouldn't understand because I'm not HIV positive, I could use the trainee volunteer as an example of an HIV positive person with positive thinking.

So yes, yesterday, at about 3.15 pm we made a move from Ipoh. We got to the hospital about 3.50 pm only to find out that visiting hours were actually from 5 to 6 pm. Duh! S was nowhere to be seen either. The doors to the wards were locked and only authorised personnel would be able to open the door from outside with their card.

However we managed to get in after explaining to the nurses that we were from a support group.

D was in a 1st class room - a single room. Thank goodness. It would be difficult to talk P&C stuff in a general ward. D was sleeping when we got into the room, but his mother was there to take care of him, so we talked to the mother to get more info.

Apparently D never told his mother about his HIV+ result earlier. He had already got the referral letter to see the ID specialist in Ipoh but he never went. Since his mother never knew about it, she was in no position to coax him to go. Looking at his condition, relatives believed it was 'buatan orang' and decided to bring D see a bomoh up north. His mother didn't go.

After coming back from the bomoh, D began to say nonsensical stuff. At times he'd try to run away from home, to the extent that his mother would sleep at the front door to make sure he doesn't escape. Once he did manage to escape early morning around 4 am. But after subuh, his mother saw him outside the house, shivering. When his mother asked, he just said, "Setan hantar balik, tu hah, tak nampak setan kat situ?", pointing his finger to a direction. Nobody was there.

When I asked D's mother if D had been feeling depressed before this, the mother said it was difficult to say because D never seem to share his problems with family members. It would probably be better to ask his fellow maknyah friends.

I was hoping I'd be able to meet S but he never turned up. Maybe he did turn up later but I couldn't wait. I was about to leave when D finally woke up from his sleep. His mother told him, "Ni hah, ustazah datang..."

I looked at D, D looked at me, and then D said, "Ni bukan ustazah!" (He could tell I wasn't one, compared to some people who seem to think I'm one just by my looks!)

I asked him how he was feeling. He didn't say anything. After a while he began to make faces. Upon seeing that, his mother said to me, "Tu nak mula merepek lah tu. Puan cubalah cakap dengan dia." But D still didn't say anything, he just looked at his mother. It was only after his mother hid behind the curtains that D began to talk to me.

However he was imagining things and talking all sorts of nonsense. "Doktor tu dah silap potong kaki saya... tapi lepas tu dia dah ganti dengan kaki lain. Yang heran tu mana pergi kaki asli saya?" (No such thing happened, he never had any surgery before this.)

"Ni kaki betul lah ni... kalau kaki palsu takkan ada luka-luka ni", I responded. "Ye ke?" he said.

I then asked if he felt any pain.

D: "Sakit lain takde lah, sakit hati ada!"

Me: "Sakit hati dengan siapa pulak?"

D: "Dengan mak saya."

Me: "Apasal pulak sakit hati dengan mak?"

D: "Dia saja nak buat saya sakit."

Me: "Mana D tau? Takkanlah mak nak buat macam tu!"

D: "Ye betul. Dia suka dengar cakap Fatimah. Fatimahlah yang hasut dia. Tiap-tiap hari dia datang. Tadi pun dia ada datang."

Me: "Fatimah tu siapa pulak?"

D: "Setan."

DUH!

Fatimah is a character in D's imagination. And nobody came to visit earlier in the day as claimed by D.

D kept on talking about some other stuff as well. Some made sense, some didn't. But even the ones that did make sense were not necessarily true.

Personally I think D's problem is not just HIV. He has some other personal problems as well which he had not been sharing with anybody. He had been thinking about his problems too much, he is beginning to imagine things which aren't happening.

D's mother then sought my opinion. I told her to continue with hospital treatment, but that maybe she should also seek the help of a proper ustaz, to help D spiritually. Whatever she decided I told her if possible to avoid the services of bomohs. After seeing the results of the recent visit to a bomoh, D's mother didn't argue with me on this point.

Based on my observations, I believe this is the same maknyah Sofie had been telling me about as mentioned in my previous posting. Of course I didn't tell either D or his mother that there were talks about him spreading around.

Before we left, I took down the phone number of D's mother. I also left her my name card and told her to call me if need be.

I then told D to hang in there and not to give up hope. D just nodded. I didn't get to see S, but I do hope he will call me soon. I think it is important to talk to D's close friends to find out more.