Tuesday, September 06, 2005

CRIB, all thanks to Dengue

JO was down with dengue fever. Paid her a visit today at CGH with VT, Victor and OKD, a colleague of mine.

She was one of many who fell victims to the aedes mosquitoes in recent months, and one of dozen of my colleagues who did so. According to the Health Minister, as many as 550 people were diagnosed with Dengue per week and about 8% of them need hospitalisation. Non-critical surgery were put on hold to allow dengue patients for admission.

JO was resting "CRIB" when we arrived. Of course, the CRIB here stands for Complete Rest In Bed, and not the baby crib. But Victor has to make a joke out of it. I don't think JO was amused. Her bubbliness was gone. So were her make-up and that, I'd thought, made her looked kinda sweet. She also looked tired and lethargic. We bought her red roses and that sort of cheered her up a little. Other than that, she was pretty quiet and didn't laugh very much at our jokes which was a little off-coloured at times. I kept reminding Victor that there were children (JO's two young daughters were with her) in the midst of us and that we'd better watched what we were joking.

Well, either JO was truly tired or she could not respond to our jokes the why she could have for she has to put on her "best behaviour" in the presence of her daughters. There should be no tolerance for "vulgarity" in front of the kids, much less in front of your own kids.

I think we overstayed our welcome a little 'cause she kept hinting to us that she's tired. We hope she'd get well soon.

2 comments:

Victor said...

I truly didn't mean to make a joke of the acronym 'CRIB' - I really didn't know what it stood for. (The only meaning that I know of the word is as used in 'baby crib'.) You see, the last time I was hospitalised, I only had a sign with the letters 'NBM' hung on my bed. No, it didn't stand for 'No Balls Missing' (although that was certainly true, hehe, see I know what you were thinking). I subsequently learnt that it meant 'Nothing By Mouth'. However, I must admit that the very thought of seeing the not-so-puny JO on a crib was indeed very funny.

One of my observations - was it a deliberate attempt on your part to spell out one of our colleagues' name in full or was it an oversight? Either way, you are hereby advised to rectify that lapse of good judgement soon before someone keen on protecting her anonymity 'wallops you into a pulp'. He has a legal right to demand that you use at most just her initials.

With all these confusing acronyms that the medical fraternity is using, coupled with the horrendous handwriting which most doctors have, it is a big wonder that we still receive good quality medical care in Singapore with no wrong medicines being prescribed.

Chris Sim said...

You hospitalised for what ahh? Bersunak ahh? wahahahaha..

Honestly Victor, I really see no wrong in using our real name, unless I'm writing something slanderous, scandalous and I need to protect their privacy. But as you can see, what I've been writing in my blog are hardly that. In fact, most of what I wrote are occasions of joy, light-heartedness and happiness, unlike someone who's full of pessimism... hahaha..

You'll never know victor when it comes to misdemeanors committed in hospitals. Take it from a man who's been married to a nurse for 16 years.