Chapter 22. After a month in the hospital, I could go home

Home – this word with four letters apparently is extremely coveted by a patient who is being treated in hospital. Besides home, possibly “eating” is a very meaningful word to patients…

If the last days in the treatment room after my heart surgery I went through it by doing the exercise in the morning for the rehabilitation, eating tasty food which had high protein to heal the surgical wound, and sleep soundly. Then in the second treatment – that was the treatment I had since I got gastric bleeding – the last days were the stressful days…

During my second treatment period, in the treatment room in the building II Floor 5 I was placed with other patient in the treatment room 1. Sizable, as a bureaucrat of category IV/b I was placed in the treatment room class I. My roommates were switched. When on the first treatment my neighbor was – Mr. Saleh – a Papuan from Kaimana who always spoke Bahasa, both he and his wife. So on my second treatment room my neighbor was Mr. Jonardi from Lombok, and Mr. Zahedi from Bangka.

Actually the days in the treatment room – especially in the second treatment– were passed quite tensing and depressing. Tensing since the question of when the bleeding in my stomach would be healed was a big question. For that, I had to wear diaper to accommodate my poop and every doing my “business”, the color had to be checked first, if it wasn’t black or blackish meant that I’d been healed from gastric bleeding. So day by day the nurse from the same floor of my treatment room always argued with me about which was the “true color” of my poop. I said it’s green or dark green as leaves, but the nurse thought it was still black.

After some arguing, the nurse gave an alternative way that I was asked to submit the “sample” of my poop to be examined in the Lab. In the afternoon I got good news: that my poop didn’t contain any blood even a little. Meaning, I was healed from gastric bleeding! Soon I’d be allowed to go home by my doctor – dr. Ario Suryo.

For 2 weeks in my second treatment period due to gastric bleeding, I was only allowed to drink a glass of milk for my daily meals. But to fulfill the number of calories by 2000 calories per day, then a big glass of milk was given to me every 4 hours which were at 06.00 a.m., 10.00 a.m., 02.00 p.m., 06.00 p.m., 12.00 p.m. and 02.00 a.m. A glass of milk was usually given by the kitchen staff that entered my room, put the milk on my little table and shouted, “Milk!” I then usually hurriedly grabbed my milk – with the help of my wife or my guardian of course – so that the milk could soon be drunk when it’s still hot or warm. The case was cold milk tasted so bad…

Since I was only allowed to drink milk, so when I saw food any commercials on the television in my room – whatever it was hamburger, fried chicken, pizza, even Indomie, I became quite envious and drooling because I really shouldn’t eat food as it was today. Only milk, milk, milk and milk which was allowed….

The change-over of my poop to be dark green from previously deep black – was a significant progress for my health. Especially after the Lab test result of my poop sample that had been out, that my poop didn’t contain blood, so a healthy feeling was filling my heart. How pleasant to be healthy!

I then calculated myself when would I be allowed to go home by the doctor. I counted at least 2 -3 days later I would be allowed to go home, because before I was allowed to go home the food that usually was only milk would be surely replaced with the solid but soft foods, such as porridge and such. Afterwards, it would rise to solid foods as the foods for the people who aren’t sick…

Apparently I was wrong, although I still drank milk everyday which caused my body felt relatively weak, in a bright Wednesday afternoon I got the news that my doctor – dr. Aryo Suryo – had allowed me to go home. So the nurse from the same floor as my treatment room immediately prepared a medical report and details of the hospital services to be given to me for the price to be calculated at the checkout counter in Building I Floor 1, the Askes counter.

After my wife paid my second treatment bill with the “cost sharing” as much as Rp. 1.6 millions, I got my discharge letter from Harapan Kita Hospital. I could go home! That afternoon my wife’s car was filled with the luggage when I was in the hospital, including the pillow, blanket and mat. And because the woman who was staying at my sister’s house also came riding another car, then I decided to return to my sister’s house in Cilandak using my sister’s car driven by the woman…

Since my body was seemed limp – because for all this time I couldn’t get out of my bed and just drink milk as a daily diet, so to add energy to drive home that afternoon; I, my wife and the women ate chicken porridge in Jakarta Fried Chicken outlet which was located next to Harapan Kita Heart Hospital. The chicken porridge wasn’t really that special…. but I ate it with gusto. After eating, the car then moved slowly … towards Cilandak…. (To be continued)