Hospitals and Treasure Hunts

Basically, that was the two "highlights" of my weekend, including Friday.

On Friday, after having fever for 4 days, my daughter was admitted to hospital for dehydration (I cannot for my life understand how that happened, as she drinks copious amounts of water), and for blood tests for the dreaded D word. Admission to hospital in itself isn't so traumatic. It's the whole experience thereafter. First, there were no single rooms, which makes you wonder if you're gonna get what the person in the next bed has. (So many sick people, the hospital was fully booked). And hospitals obviously try to discourage visitors, so each room has only one chair. So it's kind of awkward trying to find a place to rest your bum.

Then came the worst part. Administration of the DRIP. Again, in itself, it shouldn't have been so traumatic, but for some reason, the girl's veins couldn't be located, and the doctor had to make several attempts at drawing blood!!!! The poor girl, was very brave at first, when the first needle went in, she didn't react at all. By the 2nd attempt, tears were rolling down her eyes as she tried to control herself, but after a while, all hell broke loose, and her sobs were almost making ME sob as well. My daughter is a toughie, by most standards. When she fell and cut her head two years ago, and required to undergo general anaesthetic for surgery, she went for the GA all by herself, without us. So, to see her break down like that was very traumatic for us.

Anyway, thank God, finally, after changing from left to right hand, the doctor managed to draw enough blood for the blood tests, and place the drip nozzle in place. The next major worry was her remark that the blood looked so thick, she feared it could be dengue. The next few hours were worse than when we were waiting for exam results.

It is a royal pain, aitelyu, to be on the drip. The confounded thing has to follow you everywhere, to the toilet; AND the drip makes you want to go quite often. In addition to the fact that the girl's calves were weakened by the fever, and she couldn't walk, lugging her to the toilet with drip in tow was quite a task.

It turns out, she has a bacterial infection called mycoplasma, treatable with antibiotics. What a relief. I could have hugged the nurse when she nonchalantly said, "oh biar doktor jelaskan lah, keputusan blood test tu; tapi bukan denggi lah"....Mind you, apparently, mycoplasma, if untreated, can lead to meningitis, etc. Very scary stuff.

She was discharged the next day, thankfully.

Meanwhile, I have been involved in helping out my church's college and career fellowship (CCF) group with their treasure hunt. It's quite fun, recce-ing the route, taking the pictures of the clues and formulating the questions. Very amateur level, but fun, nevertheless.

The highlight of the hunt, was THE WHEEL OF FEAR. It involved spinning a wheel, to determine how far you stand, to receive an egg being thrown at you. White would be the nearest, about 10m, i reckon, followed by blue, 12m, and red, 14m. Someone (from your team) throws the egg at you and if you catch it, you get 10 points. If it hits you, you get 5 points. If you miss completely, ZERO points.



It's amazing how many people are terrified of egg projectiles. I wanted a cracked egg to be minus points, but the other committee members are more compassionate.