TMC - the greatest hospital on Earth

I've been back from the hospital for almost two weeks now.

It's been a pleasant and wonderful experience staying at Thomson Medical Centre. I was treated humanely there. The nurses were careful not to inflict any pain on you. If there's supposed to be the tiniest bit of pain, they made it pain-free ie. like the removal of the drip from the hand. They warned you of any possible pain ie. the removal of the catheter - the nurse asked me to take a deep breath before pulling it out. It's totally unlike KK where they just come over to you and say,"I'm going to remove the drip and tubes from you." and pull out everything without a word like you're immune to pain.

Sure I've been through a huge amount of pain without screaming like a pig led to the slaughter, but it doesn't mean I'm devoid of physical feeling.

The only bad thing that comes out of this C-section with epidural experience is that I suffer the full effects of epidural. I got the tremors, the urge to vomit, and now the backache. I'm really worried that the backache is here to stay. I've been trying to rest for as much as I can in order to get healed from the backache.

I'm disappointed that William is not about to change, not even for the sake of the baby. He's still up at 1am to check out his soccer betting and lottery websites. I don't want the children to have a gambler for a father. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with a gambler. Much as I've been warned, and much as I've been restraining myself, tears still wet my eyes whenever I think about where this marriage is going. I can't allow myself to rot with a gambler for the sake of a baby. Perhaps a baby is precisely God's sign for me to leave the marriage. As I recall, I only had the courage to get out of my previous empty marriage after I had Coco because I woke up to my senses that I could not allow Coco to see that boy as a role model for a father or a husband.

Perhaps it's God's will that I stayed at a two-bedder at TMC, that I got a neighbour who was so outspoken. We spoke alot despite our brief meeting in that 1 or 2 days' stay together. It made me realise that I've been living in a small world of my own, that I've been focusing on the wrong things to be in this rotting marriage.

She told me about her younger sister who divorced her husband and left her 3-month-old baby after a 3-year marriage for a gambler of a boyfriend. It sort of 'inspired' me. The younger sister had been having marital problems over allowance and her mother-in-law. The marriage ended after the younger sister consented to an immediate divorce on the ground of 'adultery'. After some time, she left this gambler of a boyfriend after she found a much richer boyfriend who loved her so much that he transferred $50, 000 to her bank account. I can't even get a $50 note from William without him asking why I need it. You know what they say about the willingness to part with money as a measure of your love for that somebody? They're right. And Fann Wong once said that a man who is stingy with money is also stingy with love. And she's so darn right. Who says that she's an airhead? She's probably one of the smartest women in Singapore.

To a large extent, I admire this woman for her guts to leave her own flesh and blood in the name of love (and lust I suspect), and her pursuit for happiness as she herself defines.

It makes me realise that I've been focusing too much on what this society wants, and how it looks at me. There're so many people out there who don't bother about how others look at them as long as they are happy. Perhaps I've been too brainwashed by a church I went to since my early teens - 'Others may but I cannot'.

I've asked Pastor Jimmy if it's biblical for me to divorce William since he has not committed adultery or blatantly abandoned us. He said that although William has been 'faithful' in the physical sense, he has not been faithful to his vows he made at the altar ie. to protect and to cherish me.

For so long, I'd thought Pastor Jimmy would oppose to the idea of divorce for whatsoever reasons. For so long, I'd thought I have to endure whatever rubbish William heaps on me.

It's a great relief to know that I'm free to leave this marriage, as long as I want to.

For years, I've pictured myself living in a 3-room flat with Coco. Just me and her. It just might come true soon.