She, With The Real Scar

There was anxiety in me, being wheeled into a room of 3 other elderly patients. It would be the first hospitalization for me, and my first experience first-hand with the medical staff. As I bore with the pain that poked through the pelvic region as the nurses transferred me from the A&E bed to the ward's bed, I felt unsure of the kind of experience I was going to go through.

I never quite understood the difference of a B1 and a B2 ward. I had heard of so many complaints of inefficient nurses in the subsidised wards of Changi General Hospital. I thought a B1 ward would be similar, despite the much lower subsidy rates.

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"Good morning, sayang. Do you want to have a bath before your breakfast or eat first and wait for the doctor to make his rounds?"

Despite the informal address, Shireen never really smiled while waking me up to take my blood pressure in the morning. But I knew there was genuine warmth and sincerity in her voice.

"Hmm, I'll mandi first lah."

"You want a scrub or you want to try sitting on the chair? You dah boleh bangun tak (can get up already or not)?" She was concerned whether I could withstand the pain of getting out of the bed, knowing I was squirming with pain everytime they transferred me to the X-Ray table.

"I want to duduk. I want to try mandi on my own..."

She wheeled me immediately the toilet wheelchair, the one with the hole in the middle of the seat (for ease of business).

"Careful... Yes, you get her on the chair like this, and then you put her leg like that with the towel, you just hold it as I wheel her into the toilet..." giving instructions to another nurse who was helping me hold up my fractured leg and pushed me to the shower room.

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I pressed the call button and waited for any nurse to "rescue" me and help me get dressed. The moment might have seemed forever as I was clutching myself to the towel although it wasn't exactly that long before Shireen opened the door.

"Dah abis (Done already), sayang? Got someone here to see you. Its Ustad Sallim Jasman..." she trailed off as she buttoned my blouse for me.

"Oh yah, Tok Wan...," knowing well why he came to see me so early in the morning.

"You're related to him eh?"

"Hmm, yah, he's my granduncle."

"Oh, he was supposed to be my Tok Kadi (Muslim marital priest) for my wedding. But my tunang (fiance) died of a motorcycle accident 2 weeks before our wedding. That's why I keep telling you, God loves you, He's given you another chance to live, unlike my tunang..."

A poignant silence filled the air. I couldn't say anything. If I had remembered correctly, I just looked at her and smiled.

She never broke down, she never looked at me in the eye. And that was when I knew she could never quite muster a smile. Yet, the expressionless face that greeted me was probably crying her heart out every single time she was alone.

If I could count on the movers and shakers of my world, she'd have to be one of them. Shireen, the one with the real scar.