A sharing by Ang Lai Lai
Scars
I remember my twenty-year-old patient, a quiet undergraduate and a self-professed introvert. She was the adopted child of an older unmarried woman.
One day, she came to my clinic because she had missed her period. The pregnancy test was positive and I let her think through what she wanted to do with her unplanned pregnancy. She decided to have a termination of pregnancy in spite of her religious beliefs. I accompanied her to the gynaecologist.
After the procedure, she sent me a thank you card and a ceramic plaque inscribed with the words A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. She also stopped attending my clinic after that. Perhaps she did not want to remember her past.
A few years later, she returned to tell me that she had become a teacher and was in a new relationship. She had come to let me know that she had moved on.
The Psychosocial Conundrum
In the drawing the question is asked, why (did you) not use condom(s)?, rather than, why did you engage in premarital sex? The girl looks young, with her hair in ponytails and hair band and I what looks like her school uniform, and she looks despondent. The woman with her is older. Could she be a counselor or her teacher? There is an angry face in the thought bubble. Is that the face that of the girl-child or other parent?
The pregnant girl has an entire suitcase full of emotions ranging from fear of her parents’ reaction, to their disappointment and anger, her shame, and her worries about finances. She is crying and begging for forgiveness and hoping for acceptance. Meanwhile, the sun shines and life goes on.
In some societies, young brides and teenaged mothers are not uncommon. Is mental readiness for motherhood a perception, or is it a physiological event?
The young woman in the vignette decided to terminate the pregnancy. Although the abortion had no medical sequelae, she went through a psychological crisis and it took her many years to close that painful chapter in her life.
——Dr Ang Lai Lai
Dr Ang Lai Lai practices in a polyclinic and is part of the clinical faculty for undergraduate and postgraduate Family Medicine training with NUS. She is also accredited as a medical mediator.
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.
