Was supposed to reach ttsh (tan tock seng hospital) by 9am. I woke up at 8.30am -.-||
First part was just an introduction to ttsh and the departments that they have. we were in the meeting room of the care and counselling department in the medical center. lol. it's a little different from how i've envisioned the whole thing to be:) quite a small group (9 pple. one didn't come). they kept it small i suppose, for a reason.
amazingly, 4 out of 5 of my sw project group mates (me, lynette, linus and adeline) are visiting this hospital. hahaha. so when we split into 2 groups for the hospital tour, the four of us just went off with lawrence (i think tt's his name.. he's the medical social worker working with the geriatrics department. the first thing we did was to take a group photo O.o lol.
i've not uploaded the photos from the phone.. so no photos as of yet.
he brought us around.. tan tock seng looked small.. but it's super big on the inside. and guess what? it has the second most number of beds in the hospital. the hospital with the most beds is IMH (grace, my last sw group project member, is going there:D)
so we had a personalised tour by him.. we went to the different wards (the class A wards are on the highest level. great reception area. really looks like a hotel room..), went to the different departments (emergency, physiotherapy, radiotherapy, geriatrics), saw a special bridge linking square 2 and ttsh (wide enough for a hospital bed to go through), saw the benefits for the workers in ttsh, went to the ttsh museum, went to a garden in ttsh.. yup:) Along the way we talked to him as well.. realized that he has a double major (sw and chinese! :S) and he's going to go on to masters soon.. sponsored by ttsh. quite interesting :) asked him why he wanna work with old folks (personally not very interested in old folks) and he said that partly 'cos of compassion, partly 'cos usually they don't get a lot of benefits.. how much of your income are you willing to spend on your grandparents? compared to the amount spent on kids, it's really very little. he wants to give a voice to the elderly :)
oh. we went to the mortuary too :S lol
yup. so that was quite an interesting trip :) then we went off to the icu (intensive care unit) to visit adeline's dad. didn't go in.. 'cos only family members allowed.. so just waited outside and talked. and while waiting outside, we found out that...
adeline was in the same primary school as me! (poi ching:)
lol. but she's two yrs younger. and she was in chinese calligraphy too.. but only joined after primary 4.. i was in chinese calligraphy for 6 years! woohoo. but never saw her 'cos eca was not really much recommended after june in p6. yup:)
talked a little to linus as well.. about God's calling. he's very sure that God has called him to be in the counselling field.. and i shared about my own passion for children with developmental disorders:) i guess as i take more medical/clinical modules, my desire to help people in the hospital grew as well. wonder if there's any chance of me working there in the future:)
waited for lynette.. then the four of us went off to long john's to eat lunch:) along the way, we realized that.. lynette was from the same jc as adeline! lol. okay. the world is small.
and i know xiaoting (she was a freshman in matric a yr back..) and xiaoting was lynette's classmate. ha ha ha ha ha.
anyway, after lunch, all four of us adjourned to grace's house for project meeting. we reached at the same time as the person we were supposed to interview =S that reminds me. i wanna transcribe the interview :) lol.
i think interviewing mrs chia was quite encouraging. her husband has had multiple sclerosis for about 10 years.. and hearing of how they cope with it along the way and how God has constantly provided for them financially was encouraging:) and caregiver stress was relatively low in her, though can still see that she's a little fatigued from taking care of her husband everyday. but can also see that she trusts in what God is doing and understands that thingsppen for a reason :) yup.
i think the main message which she wanted to bring across was that we should never treat the person like an invalid, like the person is a burden. yup.
it's a long day :) went home after that (ard 4.45) and fell asleep. LOL
then woke up ard 6.30pm to eat and went off to gracehaven.
ah. gracehaven. i went there (i think i was the first one there O.o) and wanted to exchange for the pass to go in (if you've not been to gracehaven before, there's a gate with barb wire on top. to protect the kids) and the security guard kindly informed me that he couldn't find my name on the list of volunteers. faint.
i called hazel ('cos lost boonliong's number) and told her about it.. then they called mingjie (the social worker in gracehaven who's working with us) who subsequently called the security guard and tried to get clearance for us (yenling came along and realized that her name's not on the list either). but the system can't be bent. ah well.
our names weren't on the list 'cos it's not our usual slots to tuition the kids. i was personally quite fretful 'cos i've prepared things for charmaine to do ad i was supposed to help her with chinese oral 'cos she has chinese oral exams the coming thurs and i can't go down tomorrow to help her. ah well. in the end got michelle (who was tutoring another girl) to help me with charmaine as well. the houseparent on the guys' side was nice to help me pass the chinese book to charmaine's houseparent who passed to her:) lol
oh well.
afterwhich, yenling and i (everyone else got clearance!) went off to have dinner and to go down to singapore general hospital (SGH) to visit a friend of ours (kaiyan) we knew from Alive! hmmm. people who know him will know that he was diagnosed with lymphoma (if i dun recall wrongly) and he's just finished his chemotherapy not too long ago. he's very young.. still less than 30. yup. so hearing tt he's gone back to the hospital is quite worrying..
he seems fine though:) rosy cheeks, on drip.. looking a little tired, but nevertheless healthier than when i first saw him after his chemo. yup. he asked us to pray for him at the end, so we did.
i'm glad that i got the chance to see kaiyan. didn't get the chance when he was first admitted in the past 'cos of various reasons. yup. and i'm glad for the chance to know yenling more. lol. we talked:) and it was an enjoyable time:)
forgot to mention tt i quite like ttsh. hahaa. got lots of scenery.. doesn't feel like a hospital (especially the radiotherapy section). yup. maybe i'll consider going in there if there arise a need for me to go into the hospital in the future. lol.