The Story of a Little Girl and How She Taught Me About Life

A Ward in Penang General Hospital was as busy as ever. It wasn't suppose to be the place where you should be looking for a patient especially at this period of time when the final meds are busy flocking and desperately competing for good cases.

However, that also happens to be the only place where I can find a case of deliberate self-harm or worse, attempted suicide.

There was a teenage, little girl whom I had met recently in the ward. The Ward Sister told me that she was admitted due to suicide attempt by ingesting a fatal dose of paracetamol.

I've tried to interview her but I failed. She kept mum on everything and held herself from saying a single word. She even avoided eye contact with me.

As a solution, I went through her medical record. After finished reading her story, I know that the life she had went through was not the life that every one would have been wishing for.

She has lived the life of that a loner.

To make matter worse she was conceived out of the wedlock. Her mother and her father are somebody's wife and husband.

According to a note in her file, she seems to be deficient of love because her parents put more commitment on their 'legal' family.

In order to fill the vacuum, she looked for love from a boyfriend. Initially, she thought that the boy would be the answer to her problem, but in the end, after all the 'sacrifices' she had made, the boy did something that she ought to expect. He dumped her for a new girl!

That hurt her too much that she thought the only way to put the pain away was by taking her own life. That was when she decided to swallow a huge amount of Panadol pills ( It was reported that she ingested 40 pills in one go! ) in order to achieve that.

As I tried to communicate with her to assess more about her suicide attempt, a smartly dressed, Indian, male specialist came by.

I stood up to give him some room or privacy with the girl but he insisted on me continuing my job.

The kind specialist even invited me to discuss about the patient's condition. We communicated using medical jargon as to disguise our conversation so that the patient won't be anxious about her condition.

But still, it is not ethical for medical practitioners to discuss the patient's problem in front of the patient.

He told me that the girl was presented quite late. That means the toxic effect of the drug was already pervasive before she got the treatment and the damage done was quite severe.

Well, since I was doing psychiatry at that time, I wasn't interested in knowing the biochemistry profile of the patient. I asked the specialist if he knew anything about the girl's background. Something that we can change or improve to make her life better.

After asking that nonsense questions, his face started to change. It was as if there is something big and difficult in his heart for him to let it out.

Then, he went around the patient's bed, grab my shoulder and led me to a more seclusive spot.

There, he told me one thing that made the girl's future seems to be as good as gone.

The girl's liver had failed completely. She won't live long.

She only has, approximately, 6 more months to live and her only option to survive is to get a liver transplant.

"Can she get a liver transplant?" I asked the specialist. Hoping for a fairy-tale ending.

The specialist just shooked his head, as I expected.

In this country, if it happens that you had attempted to commit suicide and was lucky enough to make it into the recipient list, the chance is your name will be down below on the priority basis. There is a strict criteria that governs on who has the priority of getting a transplant organ.

With the current shortage of vital organs, it's a common understanding that sometimes, even those who are at the top are likely to die first before the transplant organ is finally available for them.

Then, the air of silence predominated our surrounding. The specialist and I were quiet as we reached an irreversible conclusion. Even the sound of the trolley's wheels screeching and the hustling noise of shouting nurses were hardly noticed. All seemed to stand still for a moment. Dead.

That was the moment when that natural, naughty thought of 'life is unfair' kept on whispering and 'kacau' in my heart.

I really didn't know what to do except to leave her fate to Him. I just realized that my limit has been reached.

But, I refused to giving in to the 'life is unfair' thought.

The question of fairness shouldn't be brought forward. The darkness only prevails when there is no light.

I honestly do wish to have somebody to be blamed for this but as a doctor, we were taught to try our best to resist the temptation of being judgmental.

In the end, however, that little girl had, at least, taught me and made me realized how fragile we are without love.

Most importantly, she was also a living example of a worst consequence that can be if we neglect our responsibility in mistakes that we have done.

Especially, if that mistakes are the results of our own wild lust.

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As the specialist walked away, I once again looked at the poor little girl.

She was laying on the bed while hugging a white teddy on her chest.

Tightly.

Her eyes looked straight out of the window possibly with her mind wandering what would be the next thing that can happen to her.

Sadly, no one in the ward at that time had the gut to tell her the bad news.