Another Roller-Coaster Ride

My father was suspected to be bleeding internally as the chest tube connecting to his chest was filled with fresh blood.

He looked weak and hopeless.

He was beginning to feel that he might never make it home.

The doctor requested for a chest scan or x-ray.

My father said no.

"I want to go home," he said.

I was worried as I read the updates from my sisters via Whatsapp.

After some time, they updated that my father was willing to do the scan and even asked them to ask the doctor who would perform the surgery if there was internal bleeding.

As usual, I prayed for no liquid in the lung, thinking that the liquid was suspected to be in the lung.

I stood waiting outside the scanning room. I could not sit down. I wanted to get a feel of what the nurses or doctors were communicating.

A nice Indian lady approached me,"Are you waiting for someone?"

I could not hold back any longer.

I wept,"Yes."

She asked,"Is he your relative?"

I replied,"He's my father."

The nurses at the counter stopped their small talks and looked at me. The patient and family members at the waiting area stared.

The lady went into the room and checked out the situation for me.

When she returned, she assured me that they were waiting for my father to settle down before they started the scan.

She assured me that that was a standard protocol and everybody did it.

She got me to sit down and wait while she brought me a warm cup of water.

She also got a nurse from the scanning room to update us on what they were doing.

As soon as the radiologist had done the scan, he emerged from the room and told us that there was internal bleeding indeed. However, as the area collecting the blood did not have any major organs, it was not critical. He would try to find the artery that caused the bleeding and block it via a fast procedure. A surgery was the last resort.

We waited for half an hour.

Our relatives from Malaysia arrived. They were my father's elder brother, elder sister, elder brother-in-law, his youngest sister and his eldest brother-in-law.

They were visibly worried. We tried to assure them that the doctors were treating my father's bleeding.

When the doctors were done, they said that they blocked out 2 arteries and they hoped they found the right ones.

When I visited my father the next morning, the bleeding had stopped.

By the afternoon, he was deemed stable enough to transfer to the normal ward.

And we were relieved, once again.

We are praying that nothing else would happen again.

My father is too exhausted from all the scares and trauma.