Weekend at CGH: Missing Breakfast & Lack of Oxygen
So I realised I might be running late for my 9:30am polyclinic appointment with my family physician - to find out how my bloodwork was (taken a week before, a quarterly assessment of my multiple maladies, post-Stroke; which includes diabetes, my deteriorating kidney status and purine acid status) - and chose to miss my breakfast at home, wheat-bread slices all laid out on the plate but unbuttered, and taking only a glass of warm water (having forgo’d my daily coffee intake for the past few days already) … and I thought, “okay, I’ll just take a slightly late breakfast after the appointment then” ... a decision which I will regret later.
(Above is an older pic, from the week before as I headed for my blood-tests)
Upon confirming my health and status (as is the requirement these days to enter the polyclinic), I noticed the crowd this Friday morning was noticeably smaller, with folks moving at quite a hushed and glacial pace too. Wearing a face mask will get you stared at these days, if not a glance at least. A “cough” though, is another matter. And I am glad I took along one of my last lozenges to coddle my itchy throat, as I moved around, trying not to cough in the lift.
Upon checking my BP and weight - as everyone always does before seeing the doctors(s) - I’d also realised my weight had been lighter than I have been in the last few years too! So this 3-weeks-of-coughing and controlled dieting because of that, and my gout issues of late, certainly bore fruit! Not that I’d been exercising recently - of course I blame the coronavirus ~ *cough-cough*
Look, a couple of kilograms shaved off my delicately obese status, is always a “positive improvement”, okay? Don’t burst my fats-bubble!
Fast forward to me sitting in front of my doctor, and me taking the opportunity to tell him about my 3-week-cough, and him deciding to check my oxygen level, to which he was pretty startled, as he found it “too low”. He even used the finger-clamping Fingertip Blood Oxygen Monitor (Buy on Amazon) to check himself to confirm is the tech was good to go, but I was at a “91-92” range, when a healthy normal human being was “100”, so that set off alarms in him.
He had doubted it was the symptoms of COVID-19, but had told me he’d have to send me to Changi General to check up, and I was thinking “right after breakfast, I will!”.
”Am I going by ambulance?” I cheekily asked, to which he answered this was not something I’d go in by cab.
Maybe I should’ve over-reacted a bit more then. Maybe I should have asked more about what would happen next , so at least I would have somehow arranged to have my battery charger and cable for my mobile phone brought to me ... but quite frankly I didn’t want to be alarming my 80+ year old mum at home about, you know? But I didn't think it through more thoroughly, or had taken it more seriously, which no doubt left my mum and family in a unsorted stage later...
My mobile-phone situation is a on-oging drama in my henglife currently regaled here, so I’m not going to repeat it all again, but suffice to say it had been one of my better decisions this year so far, to have transferred my SIM card to a older phone - which at least can SMS folks, in lieu of no WhatsApp and social medias - and decided to bring it along with me, this morning as I headed to the polyclinic for my check-up, in this recollection of my weekend at Changi General Hospital.
To Be Continued…
(Above is an older pic, from the week before as I headed for my blood-tests)
Upon confirming my health and status (as is the requirement these days to enter the polyclinic), I noticed the crowd this Friday morning was noticeably smaller, with folks moving at quite a hushed and glacial pace too. Wearing a face mask will get you stared at these days, if not a glance at least. A “cough” though, is another matter. And I am glad I took along one of my last lozenges to coddle my itchy throat, as I moved around, trying not to cough in the lift.
Upon checking my BP and weight - as everyone always does before seeing the doctors(s) - I’d also realised my weight had been lighter than I have been in the last few years too! So this 3-weeks-of-coughing and controlled dieting because of that, and my gout issues of late, certainly bore fruit! Not that I’d been exercising recently - of course I blame the coronavirus ~ *cough-cough*
Look, a couple of kilograms shaved off my delicately obese status, is always a “positive improvement”, okay? Don’t burst my fats-bubble!
Fast forward to me sitting in front of my doctor, and me taking the opportunity to tell him about my 3-week-cough, and him deciding to check my oxygen level, to which he was pretty startled, as he found it “too low”. He even used the finger-clamping Fingertip Blood Oxygen Monitor (Buy on Amazon) to check himself to confirm is the tech was good to go, but I was at a “91-92” range, when a healthy normal human being was “100”, so that set off alarms in him.
He had doubted it was the symptoms of COVID-19, but had told me he’d have to send me to Changi General to check up, and I was thinking “right after breakfast, I will!”.
”Am I going by ambulance?” I cheekily asked, to which he answered this was not something I’d go in by cab.
Maybe I should’ve over-reacted a bit more then. Maybe I should have asked more about what would happen next , so at least I would have somehow arranged to have my battery charger and cable for my mobile phone brought to me ... but quite frankly I didn’t want to be alarming my 80+ year old mum at home about, you know? But I didn't think it through more thoroughly, or had taken it more seriously, which no doubt left my mum and family in a unsorted stage later...
My mobile-phone situation is a on-oging drama in my henglife currently regaled here, so I’m not going to repeat it all again, but suffice to say it had been one of my better decisions this year so far, to have transferred my SIM card to a older phone - which at least can SMS folks, in lieu of no WhatsApp and social medias - and decided to bring it along with me, this morning as I headed to the polyclinic for my check-up, in this recollection of my weekend at Changi General Hospital.
To Be Continued…
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