patient visit..

11 nov 2008

Blackrock



we decided to meet up at 2.30pm outside health sn building.then,we were heading to the car park where james parked his car..

3.00pm sharp,we arrived at kay and bryan's house - our patients!

andrew and i - kay

jammy and kieran - bryan



since kay wasnt quite well on dat day,brian was the one who gave us a lil bit info about kay.

he told us about how kay found out dat she had the disease. at first, they thought it was some kind of parkinson disease due to the symptoms dat she had. they went for medical checkup and the doctor said kay had a disease called progressive supranuclear palsy. it is a disease correlate to damages of some part of the brain. It has been progressed quite rapidly. within 3years' time, kay showed a rapid decline with her mobility,speech etc. It was hard for her to read the books,moving around and painting which is the most important thing in her life.kay is actually a painter. She even sold her drawings and became a member of an established painting society;water colour society. And being unable to paint was the biggest sadness in kay’s life. When Andrew and i entered kay’s room,she lied on the bed. Bryan said she was a bit unwell that day.but i could see that kay was very happy to have us visited her. I was the one who supposed to start the kinda of interview. *nervous* thank god!the conversation went well. It was just a lil bit slow becoz it was hard for kay to reply to us. I could feel that kay was trying very hard to make sure each of our quest being answered. Some quest remain unanswered though. It was okay. Bryan said it was just her mobility that being affected but not her mind. Her mind was still active. It was very sad when i knew that kay really want to answer my quest but she couldn’t talk..
The rest of the questions,we just asked bryan. I could see or even feel*exaggerating*the love of a husband to his wife..bryan took really good care of his wife eventhough they had a trained nurse for kay.

And at the end of the day,bryan told us that as a doctor,if u could remember every single of your patients’ name,they would be delighted and will feel that they are being appreciated. It means a lot to the patient. It was my first patient’s advice and i’ll remember it for the rest of my life..=)



this is a story about the disease:



Patricia Richardson


My father, Laurence was an intelligent, proud, funny, robust, active, and athletic man with many types of arthritic injuries and health problems that disguised the onslaught of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). Still, he was a tiger. In fact, he was the one taking care of my mom when she was in declining health.
At one point, we noticed that dad was falling a lot. We thought it was mom pulling him down, but it was the other way around. The areas of the brain that were affected most caused increasing damage to his motor skills.
My dad's disease was gradual, but it progressed steadily toward the end. I found this so sad and wondered why dad deserved this kind of suffering. In his final days, my sisters and I slept in dad's room and stayed with him around the clock. We petted his brow and held his hand. We played guitar music for him as he had done for us as children. We talked to him, gave him permission to go, laughed and cried, prayed and waited.
It was only after he died that his disease was confirmed. So few people have even heard of PSP. And now I want to do everything I can to prevent others from undue suffering.