Relatives that will kill you

Slightly more than a month ago, Mr BF's mom was diagnosed with stage 4 of lung cancer. The doctor said she doesn't have much time left, as in, with therapy, her life can be prolonged by a year and a half.

Since then, we've been doing all kinds of research on the types of food she should be taking, the kind of stuff she should abstain from and so on. Which also meant that we had to do a lot more grocery shopping for healthier foods and suddenly I was going to the hospital very often. Although, she did finally get discharged and could rest at home.

On Monday, we received a call late at night saying that his mom was feeling very unwell and needed to go to the hospital immediately. We rushed down only to find the flat crowded with people, all fussing over his mom. In fact, they had called for an ambulance, which I thought was a wiser choice since the medics that come along would know how to handle the situation better than us.

When the medics came, they said that they would send her to Changi Hospital since it was the nearest hospital. Protests came immediately from the hordes of relatives saying that she had been going to SGH and that they would have her records and such. They argued loudly for quite a long while with the paramedics. The medics explained that:

1) The ambulance should always take the patients to the nearest hospitals cos any further delays can cause more damage or pain to the patients

and

2) 995 is not a service only meant for your family. There are others who need this service and each patient they service had to be send to the nearest hospital to cut short the time needed to spend on each patient.

Both are extremely reasonable explanations which I agreed with totally.

But said relatives were unconvinced asking "why it was so difficult for them to send her to SGH". They insisted that if they weren't taking her to SGH, they would send her to the hospital themselves.

I got so pissed and had I not been an outsider, I would have told them to juz get the fuck out of the house.

If this had been a critical situation, were they going to be fucking responsible if something was to happen along the way to the hospital?

But for the sake of Mr BF's mom, Mr BF stopped the arguing and just told the paramedics that we would send her to the hospital ourselves. The medics, even though exasperated with the relatives, still were very patient with his mom and reminded her that if the pain was unbearable, she would have to get to the hospital by an ambulance.

Then 2 days later, we ran into same relatives in the hospital. One of them, which I shall call, Bitch Aunt, took Mr BF aside and starting interogating him. Asking him if he had questioned the doctor on what she was suffering from and such. Mr BF had explained before that she was suffering from cancer, and there was a tumour in her lung and had spread to the bone blah blah blah. But Bitch Aunt refused to accept this and started questioning him like he was responsible for what had happened. I tried to cut in, explaining the situation cos I was fucking pissed with her fucking attitude, but she kept ignoring me.

The final straw came when she asked if the doctors had planned any medical program for his mom and what the chances are and so on. Mind you, she spoke as if the hospital is the one responsible for his mom's condition and we all owe her a living or something. Mr BF only remained quiet which added to my frustration. I cut in finally, getting her eye contact, and told her that the hospital already didn't think she could be cured. In the words of the doctor, "I can prolong her life with chemotherapy, but I can't cure her. Cancer is incurable."

Having said that, Bitch Aunt fell silent. It had finally get into her head.

But not for long, cos she started questioning us on her food intake, on why his mom was not eating meat and not eating well when she needs lotsa nourishment. We had done our research and while the hospital wouldn't stop you from eating whatever you want to eat (cos they think u're gonna die sooner or later, so may as well feed you whatever you want), meat will actually feed the cancer cells which may worsen her condition. We fight, with the belief that she would recover eventually. It has happened for other cancer patients; so there is a chance that it would happen to her as well.

Bitch Aunt, realising that she was not able to win this argument, backed off. I swear I would have slapped her right there and then if she had continued. Of course, my temper had been fueled by my lack of sleep these days.

Other than Bitch Aunt, there were other stupid relatives who advised Mr BF's mom not to undergo radiotherapy becos they said it would kill her straight away. I do not deny there are side-effects of going for such therapies but it was necessary becos the tumour was bleeding and if the bleeding is not stopped, it could lead to sudden death. The relatives didn't know what they were talking about, given that they do not know the actual situation. As if things aren't bad enough, Mr BF's mom doesn't have much will power and would listen to anyone. She started questioning the radio therapy, saying why would her family want to make her go through that when she didn't have to.

Oh, and Bitch Aunt brought Mr BF's mom to some Taoist priest who made her drink some water with some leaves inside, saying it would cure her cos apparently, she didn't get cancer, she was just suffering from disturbance from some bad spirits. What the fuck?!

And she actually believed the priest cos she was still hoping that the hospital had made a wrong diagnosis and that it was just a lung infection and nothing else.

It was bloody frustrating.

Argh.

There were a lot of incidents and ill advise that I would want to rant about, but given that I'm getting more and more pissed off while typing this post, I shall stop here.

And i just wanna say, you motherfuckers who don't fucking know a single fucking thing, just fucking shut up. You are not fucking doctors who don't know the entire picture so just shut your trap. Your so-called advise, which is just a lot of bullshit, will only do more harm than good.


p.s. I would like to apologise to my friends whom I have not been contacting lately. As you would know from this post, I have been extremely busy and tired. Will try to do coffee when I can.