Now, back to my personal story.
Today was the last time i travelled back from JB to SG for working at the current company. Ironically though, tomorrow will be the first day for me working at the new office. Two Fridays ago, we were all busy packing our stuff in the old office.
After 4.5 years with the company, i only had one box of stuff for moving!
I took the yellow bus that goes by the Tuas checkpoint this evening and alighted at Boon Lay. I then took a cab back to Sengkang, which cost me almost SGD30. By the time i reached 'home', it was already 10pm.
Mom did not send me back to SG because i did not want her spending long time driving on the road. This has something to do with the unfortunate event that i mentioned in one of my earlier posts last week.
Mom had a minor stroke on her face about two weeks ago, and she is now suffering from facial paralysis on half of her face.
If you recall, two weekends ago, mom was actually feeling dizzy for a few days. I worked from JB home on Monday and Tuesday, and she felt ok on Wednesday and sent me back to SG that day. Then on Wednesday night itself, she called me up and said that she went for an evening exercise and her friends told her that half of her face looked distorted. That was when she realised she had a stroke.
(Seriously, i was surprised that she didn't know about it when it happened. She said she did feel the stiffness on the facial muscles but she just thought it had something to do with taking the medication for days for the giddiness.)
I think the consecutive few days of giddiness must have been a symptom of an imminent stroke. Unfortunately, all the doctors she visited (Western and Chinese) failed to detect it earlier.
Initially, mom did not want to go to the hospital to see a Western doctor because she insisted that all Western doctors will only prescribed steroid for her treatment. So, she visited a Chinese physician for acupuncture for a few days. I told her to at least have a checkup at the hospital and a lot of her friends also urged her to do so. Then finally on the Sunday before my KL trip, she went to the General Hospital for a CT scan. The scan showed that there was a blockage of a blood vessel in her brain and that was the likely cause of her stroke. She did further tests at the hospital on the following day and she told me that the doctor could not find the root cause of the blockage and prescribed her with a lot of medicines.
She did not take any of the medicines as she believes that Western medicines for treating stroke are harmful to the health. I could not convince her otherwise. She continued to visit a Chinese physician everyday for acupuncture and take Chinese medicine instead.
Last Saturday after i was back from KL, i sent her to visit the Chinese physician. I then met up with LF, who told me that her ex-mother-in-law also had similar stroke before and recovered from it after seeing a Chinese physician. She brought us to that doctor and had mom did the first treatment. We could see an instant improvement right after the treatment. The doctor said that mom will have to have the treatment for 30 consecutive days and he is confident that she can get well by then. However, he did tell us that there is a high probability for all stroke patients to get a second stroke within the first year if not treated properly, and normally it is not possible for the patients to regain 100% of the facial muscle sensitivity.
The entire treatment is gonna cost RM8k. Frankly i am not sure if she can really get well after spending all the money. If not, then i don't know how much more i gotta scoop out for her. As a daughter who is not by her side all the time, i guess the only thing i can do now is just to find a way to cure her and make her stay healthy, no matter how much it is gonna cost.
I am very sad seeing mom like this, as just a few weeks ago she was still all well and healthy. Now, i can only pray to God that she does get well and will learn from this lesson and start watching over her diet. I have always told her to be careful of what she eats, especially to stay off food that is of high cholesterol, but just like a lot of older people, she simply does not listen to me. Considering this is just a minor stroke and it could have been worse, we shall take it as a blessing in disguise if this can serve as a warning to mom.
Labels: life
