A sharing by Luke Low
It was near Christmas. Our community hospital was abuzz with festive preparations, and many patients were joining in the carolling.
Except for Mr Tee*. Mr Tee was an elderly man who had had a stroke sometime back and recently had begun to fall quite frequently. He was in hospital for rehabilitation in order to regain his functional independence. Mr Tee was lying in his bed and looking at the ceiling, so I decided to sit down with him. His answers were short. I’m tired and just want to rest….I am not the singing type…I’ve had a long day.
A patient returned to his bed next to Mr Tee’s, accompanied by his visiting family. I saw Mr Tee turn his eyes away from his neighbour’s family and stare out the window. I decided to ask Mr Tee about his family. There was no reply except for a long silence as he continued to look into the distance.
Dinner arrived at the ward and I prepared to get up and go off. Mr Tee unexpectedly spoke then. Isn’t home food much better? Too bad I am not home. This gave me an opening by which to engage him.
Mr Tee told me more about his family over his dinner.
Mr Tee had been living with his wife and his daughter’s family. His wife had been looking after him since his stroke, and he had lost his pillar of physical and emotional support when she had died the previous year. This past year, he had faced increasing difficulties with self-care and ambulation.
His daughter and her family were living in his apartment, and he had recently transferred the title to the apartment to his daughter’s name. His grief over losing his wife and having to be dependent on his daughter had weighed heavily upon him. In an attempt not to trouble his daughter, he had tried to do more for himself, with the resultant fall that had landed him in our hospital.
Mr Tee was to have gone home a few days before Christmas, but his daughter and her family had decided to go abroad over Christmas. As there was no carer at home, he was forced to delay his discharge. I feel useless. I need help from everyone. There is nothing much left for me in this world came up repeatedly as we spoke.
We looked forward to his going home for the New Year, but he was hit by another blow when his daughter returned. His daughter did not wish to bring him home. Instead, she wanted her father to go and live in a nursing home.
Legal advice was sought with regards to his daughter’s responsibility to care for him. However, as his daughter was prepared to pay for his nursing home stay, she was not abandoning him. It was just that the solution she was prepared to fund was not his desired one, which was to return home.
I remember that day when he gave up all hope of returning home and consented to admission in the nursing home. He had that look of unspeakable, indescribable anguish on his face.
*Name has been changed.
—– Dr Luke Low
Family Medicine run’s in Dr Luke Low’s family blood, seeing that it has infected both him and his brother. It has given him a passion for his patients and inspired him to contribute to his fraternity.
The commentary and vignette were reproduced with permission from the book “Being Human, Stories from Family Medicine” edited by Cheong Pak Yean and Ong Chooi Peng and published in 2021 by the College of Family Physicians Singapore.
Pictures of illness experiences were drawn by NUS medical students in workshops conducted from 2012-2017 by A/Prof Cheong Pak Yean. Senior family physicians subsequently shared vignettes and commentaries based on the pictures.
