On 9th November, Monday morning, I went out to the gym as usual in the morning. When I came back, the hall lights were not switched on, which was unusual as Mom usually would be awake. Giving the benefit of the doubt I thought perhaps both my parents could have been very tired and just got up late. As I was preparing breakfast,Mom just came down and told me that Dad couldnt get up. I went up to see him and he was sleeping.I thought it could have been one of his episodes where he didnt sleep well and therefore didnt have the strength or energy to get out of bed.
So I went to work as usual. While I was at work, something rang a bell and I thought , perhaps he could have had a stroke? I called my brother and he said he would go and see him later. He did, and called me to tell me that he did a few tests on dad, when he asked him to smile there was no sign of sagging on one side. he also asked him to raise his arms..while he couldnt raise his right arm, he did show some movement, so my brother said he didnt think he has stroke. Somehow I had this nagging feeling.. perhaps you dont need all the symptoms to show that you have stroke, jsut anyone would do. We discussed this and decided we should send him to the hospital to pre-empt any serious damage.
I called Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) to ask how about to get an ambulance. It would have been difficult for my brother and i to carry down Dad on our own, especially when Dad is not able to move himself or get up at all - he was not even able to sit up on his own. HKL told me to call 999, which we did. When my brother called 999 he was directed to HKL again, and had to answer 1001 questions about Dad and his symptoms before they would despatch an ambulance. Finallly after waiting for 30 minutes, an ambulance arrived. To our shock they said they were from PPUm and they were going to send Dad there. We told him that this cannot happen as Dad's records are all in HKL and besides, we had made arrangements with Dr Ngau to receive him there. They told us that that is how it works, when you call 999, they will direct to HKL which manages all the emergency cases and they will allocate the cases according to area. So happens our area falls under PPUM. They were unable to send Dad to HKL as they are under orders to send only to PPUM and should they do otherwise, they will be questioned.
Then the paramedic told us that there were 3 options we could do: 1.They send Dad to PPUM 2. They help us to carry him into our own car and we take him ourselves 3. Call for a private ambulance
For option 2 he said that first he needed to assess Dad's situation to see if it's possible for us to take him in our car as it is risky. After assessing Dad's condition, he found that his BP was too high and that he was in a state of confusion as he didnt even know where he was. He also took his blood glucose level which was 5.7 (normal). So we had no choice but to call for a private ambulance which costed us RM250.
The private ambulance took about 2 hours to arrive. When we called, they were making other trips and told us they could only be at our place in 1 hour. But due to the jam, and they also lost their way, it took them a good 2 hours to arrive. Finally they arrived after a long wait and we were on our way to HKL.
By the time we arrived, it was 7pm. The doctor informed that they needed to do a CT SCAn and also some blood tests to determine what the problem was. Finally, the result showed that there was a burst vessel in Dad's brain which cost some bleeding. Although the bleeding was minor, about 1cm long, it affected the right part of his body and his swallowing reflex. That meant he has difficulty in swallowing, with high susceptibility to choking, and that could cause the food to go into his lungs instead. As such they needed to insert Ryles tube into his nostril to feed him via the nostril.
By the time we got him warded in the Neuro ward, it was about 1.30am and by the time we got home it was 2am. what a long day it had been.
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