In order to recover from an illness, the responsibility lies on both parties. On the doctor to prescribe the correct medication and advice and on the patient, to follow the advice.
Yet many patients, blame their doctors when they don’t get better. They say
‘the medicine not good wan’
and when probed, they admit that…
’sometimes i forget to take medicine lah… so busy… got to go market lah, go shopping, then my friends come for mahjong’
‘the medicine so bitter! how to take?’
‘the medicine so smelly! (cream) must i take it?’
’sometimes lazy lah… ‘
Here’s a real-life encounter with a friend who has an acne problem.
Friend: Hey, I went to XYZ for my problem… I put the medicine on but got biting sensation.
Me: What medicine?
Friend: ….. (medicine name)
Me: I think that’s quite normal, as long as you don’t break out in rashes or the condition worsens.
Friend: ok…
Me: By the way, you know how to use your medication?
Friend: Er, not really.
Me: (proceeds to explain the cause, the concept andthe application of medication appropriately)
Friend: Oh, what is medicine2 for?
Me: It’s supposed to help you for your condition too.
Friend: Can don’t put that?
Me: … Why wouldn’t you want to put something that is helpful for your condition???
Friend: Er, it smells gross…
Me: 良药苦口利于病。。。
***
friend: they give me a total of four items .. total $20 bux, don’t think those are very gd ones
Me: y do you think so?
acne-struck: coz only $20, so cheap.
Me: so you think cheap medicine aren’t good?
Me: do you think febs is good for flu?
acne-struck: yah…
Me: is febs expensive?
Me: and i think your medicine doesn’t help you because you never follow yr instructions properly and you’re ‘too lazy’ to take yr meds.
***
(*disclaimer: i know i sound very mean up in those too anecdotes. that’s cuz i’m more frank with a friend. if that was a patient… my tone would be much more different)
sometimes, i think, what’s the point of talking to this kind of people when all efforts taken to help them understand and assume responsibility for their own illness falls on death ears and brick walls?
Drats, CNY is around the corner! It’s time to flee from…
1. truckloads of complementary medicines and health supplements for me to ‘validate’
2. relatives who ask me what i want to specialise in (this year i’ll tell them psychiatry, then no one will come ask me for advice for fear that they’d be mistaken as psychos! heheh)
3. asking to interpret and explain the effects of ‘my small yellow tablet, red and white capsule and little white tablet that i take every morning’
4. the particular auntie who’ll say: girl ah, you are looking more and more like a nurse! how come u study so long still haven’t started working ah?
At least i’m lucky i don’t have relatives who’ll ask me whether i’m attached. phew! Probably they think should wait till i graduate? or maybe they think i’m too hopeless to get a boyfriend. (yeah, probably the latter…)
Insight no. 1:
Know why i struggle so hard to do well in studies? And why i’m so driven to achieve thru it?
Cuz i know of no other way for me to gain the approval of others. And definitely, not through my looks (or personality).
I’m working on it… i’m working on it… Need to repair my trampled self-esteem.
