Mom's 7th Physiotherapy

This morning was a calmer journey to fetch Mom and Dad for Mom's 7th physiotherapy at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Simply because her appointment was at 10:30am instead of the rush-hour 8:15am.

Both my parents and me have time to wake up later than on weekdays, and take our time for breakfast and be ready for the hospital.

As promised, Mom and Dad was already waiting at the usual covered walkway entrance to their block in Woodlands Street 13 at 10:00am.

I got a Union Red Cab from home to fetch them. The traffic was not bad at all, and fortunately, the cab company has yet to consider raising the fare as the other cab companies in Singapore had already done so.

I could have taken a hour-long journey bus ride Service 168 directly to Woodlands Regional Bus Interchange, but I traded it off for a workout I squeezed in before I got ready instead.

I made a good choice. It was invigorating to start off a busy Saturday.

I have to attend to the 2 most important women in my life, Wify and Mom. Morning... Mom, and afternoon Wify!

And what a fantastic Saturday it turned out for me personally!

We reached the hospital 5 minutes before the appointment started and registered.

There were more people than we use to at the waiting area, but our queue number 0040 was called less than 5 minutes after we sat down waiting.

Therapist, Ms Fong Lin was there to attend to Mom.

First off, to the Exercise Hall, where Mom had her series of questions to answer. She has been feeling better after the previous session.

I guess the prone position traction she had the first time really works.

She had to do more varied exercises this time around with the exercise ball, the elastic band and weights. She had to do them with 30 repetitions each but she did more.

She is really psych to get well, and the determination expression on her face just made me proud of her.

I saw Dad was very pleased with Mom's energy... he quipped "... so you are also into weights." Mom just smiled as she continued her side-pull exercise with both knees attached to a 1Kg pulley.

Like routine, next was to Nurse Doreen for traction. Always a delight to meet this chirpy lady.



Though Mom did not really like to have it in prone position, as she felt kind of breathless that way. It worked for her the last time. so she decided to endure it anyway for the sake of recovery.

30 seconds traction at 24Kg, 10 seconds rest at 10Kg for 15 minutes. This time using a rather newer traction machine Digi-Trac 900. The pulley was at the top as compared to the older machine with its pulley on the front.

She was rather quite doing the traction, I was not sure if she felt uncomfortable and pain or just breathless in the prone position. She said she was fine a few times when I asked her.

I went to the counter to pay for her treatment as she had her hot compression on her spine. It cost about S$58.00 for the 1 hour 30 minutes session, but paid only S$14.09 after a government subsidy.

Her next appointment will be a month later, on Saturday 26 August 2006, at 9:15am. Noted. Phone calendar appointment set!

Then, for the interesting part of the visit, lunch at TTSH Kopi Tiam!

All 3 of us had Yong Tau Foo. Both Mom and Dad cannot resist the sweet sauce, while I had the red-hot spicy sauce.

The food was good, but the conversation that came after that was my favourite. Catching up with the both of them and never fail to reminisce.

I think I had memory blockout for some reason sometime ago, for I could not really remember many things from my past.

Today, I got my memory refreshed with Mom's help, that I had 3 other siblings that has passed-on while they were very little.

I had an eldest sister who did not get to full term. It was Mom's first pregnancy. It was quite devastating to her as she recalled it. She had a miscarriage at 4 months into her pregnancy.

Both Mom and Dad could not remember if they had given her a name.

I had another elder sister, the 6th who passed away when she was a few months old. Her name was Fatimah. She did not tell me exactly how old she was and what happened to her.

And the last one, a younger brother, just after me, the 10th in the family who was about 1 and half year old, who died from a syndrome called Baby Blue.

She did not know what that was, but it had to do something with his heart. His name was Zulkifli.

I do not remember his face or ever having a younger brother, other than my present one who already has 1 son of his own and a girl on the way this October.

Hmmm...

And today too, I get to know that Mom had only attended a few months of Primary 2 class before the Japanese decided to bomb Singapore in World War 2.

The most interesting thing part of it all, is that she is literate!

Having attended only a full term of Primary 1, the start of a child's education, since kindergarten was unheard off then.

She managed to taught herself with reading and writing the Malay language, Jawi and read the Quran.

She is able to do simple maths to get herself by and, understand and speak a some English since she was a teenager.

All this, while under the Japanese occupation!

One tough and resourceful lady with a bright mind!

I have no doubt if education was at her disposal then, she would have been academically successful. A career woman, maybe.

Anyway, she has already been successful in her life as a compassionate person, a great mother of 8 surviving children and a wonderful wife to Dad.

That's my Mom... Mariam!