That's where we should be this week, in the north of Colombia, where the Pacific meets the Caribbean, if we hadn't had the cancer diagnosis. We had to cancel everything, get earlier plane tickets and scuttle home, after very hurriedly packing up the flat in Singapore, with eight years of stuff in our luggage.
I haven't been feeling well since the end of November, with my temperature going up and down, and feeling generally without energy or interest in anything. At Christmas my UK doctor had a blood test done but nothing seemed terribly wrong. So we returned to Singapore where I saw the Uni doctor who clearly thought I was some sort of elderly, attention seeking hypochondriac with too much time on her hands. She suggested that I was suffering from hot flushes! To get rid of me she referred me to the local hospital where I saw a very switched on Belgian doctor who set me up to have a series of scans and tests.
The last one was the CT scan which clearly showed my trashed gall bladder and a nasty lump on my liver. They whisked me straight into hospital and started to pump antibiotics into me as they thought it was an abscess. Sadly it was not, but instead a cancerous tumour.
The Singapore doctor, Mr Daniel Tan, is convinced it is an infection up from the bile ducts, through the gall bladder and then into the liver, self contained and operable. Back in the UK, I've had blood tests and a MRI scan to add to the discs and reports we brought back with us and now we're waiting for the consultant's decision. There will be a case study session on Friday when all the specialists meet, so we shall see.
As you can imagine this has come as a bolt from the blue in the life of someone who thinks of herself as happy and healthy! A week in a Singapore hospital was an experience! I've never actually been ill in hospital before, only for planned, mainly gynaeological reasons. Just being in hospital, with little sleep and with various tubes in your arms, makes you feel ill and querulous.
The Ng Teng Fong General Hospital Jurong was very impressive, brand new, three towers with lots of shops and restaurants on the ground floor, ample parking below ground and on the first floor bridges linking to the MRT and bus station and various shopping malls. One tower is for clinics, one for wards and one for the Community hospital. Nothing is free in Singapore, but there are levels of charges and different degrees of comfort (single rooms, four bed and I guess bigger wards). The facilities are state of the art and nursing impeccable (with a range of nationalities as in the UK, but many from the Philippines and Vietnam) English is of course the admin and main communication language.
What took a little getting used to were the regulation pyjamas, pink for girls and obviously blue.... And as well as an identification bracelet, with a (gps?) tracker on one's arm, in case you go awol in the shopping malls?
The Chinese ( both ladies I shared with were Chinese) take hospital visiting very seriously and go loaded with bowls, chopsticks and all sorts of food and proceed to have a party round the bed. It's charming but not so good for adjoining beds. I haven't had much appetite for months and the antibiotics made me too nauseous to enjoy any food, even by proxy. There was an impressive choice of menus, Chinese, Malay or Western, but too much!
Another very different thing is the presence of the maid or carer. In my first ward, where the poor old soul had had stroke, her carer was with her 24 hours, sleeping on a kind of window bench. What a hideously boring life. She helps with the hospital care and is trained in what to do when her lady goes home. And while the lady slept, she talked to friends on her phone and watched tv.
An interesting experience, but not to be repeated if possible!
Well, all the family has rallied round, bringing food, flowers, books - I have read about 50 novels this year- and it has been lovely to see them all. Phil was all set to leap on a plane to Singapore. Poor Geoff has been doing everything and spoiling me. He was seriously unsettled when I fainted in our room at the Paddington Hilton just before Christmas, something I've never done before or since! I was more upset that we had to cancel High Tea at Browns Hotel, and I missed the Paul Nash exhibition.
So we are now waiting for the verdict of the doctors. I'll let you know!
Sorry to be a party pooper, Cherry
I haven't been feeling well since the end of November, with my temperature going up and down, and feeling generally without energy or interest in anything. At Christmas my UK doctor had a blood test done but nothing seemed terribly wrong. So we returned to Singapore where I saw the Uni doctor who clearly thought I was some sort of elderly, attention seeking hypochondriac with too much time on her hands. She suggested that I was suffering from hot flushes! To get rid of me she referred me to the local hospital where I saw a very switched on Belgian doctor who set me up to have a series of scans and tests.
The last one was the CT scan which clearly showed my trashed gall bladder and a nasty lump on my liver. They whisked me straight into hospital and started to pump antibiotics into me as they thought it was an abscess. Sadly it was not, but instead a cancerous tumour.
The Singapore doctor, Mr Daniel Tan, is convinced it is an infection up from the bile ducts, through the gall bladder and then into the liver, self contained and operable. Back in the UK, I've had blood tests and a MRI scan to add to the discs and reports we brought back with us and now we're waiting for the consultant's decision. There will be a case study session on Friday when all the specialists meet, so we shall see.
As you can imagine this has come as a bolt from the blue in the life of someone who thinks of herself as happy and healthy! A week in a Singapore hospital was an experience! I've never actually been ill in hospital before, only for planned, mainly gynaeological reasons. Just being in hospital, with little sleep and with various tubes in your arms, makes you feel ill and querulous.
The Ng Teng Fong General Hospital Jurong was very impressive, brand new, three towers with lots of shops and restaurants on the ground floor, ample parking below ground and on the first floor bridges linking to the MRT and bus station and various shopping malls. One tower is for clinics, one for wards and one for the Community hospital. Nothing is free in Singapore, but there are levels of charges and different degrees of comfort (single rooms, four bed and I guess bigger wards). The facilities are state of the art and nursing impeccable (with a range of nationalities as in the UK, but many from the Philippines and Vietnam) English is of course the admin and main communication language.
What took a little getting used to were the regulation pyjamas, pink for girls and obviously blue.... And as well as an identification bracelet, with a (gps?) tracker on one's arm, in case you go awol in the shopping malls?
The Chinese ( both ladies I shared with were Chinese) take hospital visiting very seriously and go loaded with bowls, chopsticks and all sorts of food and proceed to have a party round the bed. It's charming but not so good for adjoining beds. I haven't had much appetite for months and the antibiotics made me too nauseous to enjoy any food, even by proxy. There was an impressive choice of menus, Chinese, Malay or Western, but too much!
Another very different thing is the presence of the maid or carer. In my first ward, where the poor old soul had had stroke, her carer was with her 24 hours, sleeping on a kind of window bench. What a hideously boring life. She helps with the hospital care and is trained in what to do when her lady goes home. And while the lady slept, she talked to friends on her phone and watched tv.
An interesting experience, but not to be repeated if possible!
Well, all the family has rallied round, bringing food, flowers, books - I have read about 50 novels this year- and it has been lovely to see them all. Phil was all set to leap on a plane to Singapore. Poor Geoff has been doing everything and spoiling me. He was seriously unsettled when I fainted in our room at the Paddington Hilton just before Christmas, something I've never done before or since! I was more upset that we had to cancel High Tea at Browns Hotel, and I missed the Paul Nash exhibition.
So we are now waiting for the verdict of the doctors. I'll let you know!
Sorry to be a party pooper, Cherry
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