After living in hospitals for four months, the time had come for us to go home and take care of Naomi on our own.
By the end of May 2010, the cardiologist told us that Naomi's heart was stabilising and that in a few weeks time she could leave the hospital and go home. With the ICD implanted, there was no reason to stay in the hospital. Of course, Naomi still had brain damage but there was nothing they could do to fix the damage. It was permanent and could don't be healed. There was nothing they could do for her anymore. The general notion was that she would see little improvement. It hurt to be confronted with this conclusion but we remained determined to help Naomi recover, which we would have to do at home.
The problem was: we did not have a home. At least, not in Singapore. We had left Shanghai with just two suitcases and all this time we had slept in the hospital and various hotels. We stayed in Singapore on a tourist visa. As my work and company were in Shanghai, I had no employment in Singapore and therefore also no employment pass. Without that pass, we were not able to rent a suitable and affordable place to live. We could only stay in a serviced apartment or hotel room. Neither could we enrol Sienna in any schools. We realised that all we had (and took for granted) in Shanghai, we had to put into place from scratch in Singapore, which was going to be our new home city.
The first step we took was to rent a small yet expensive serviced apartment and started to prepare for the day we would leave the hospital. When that day came, we were relieved and fearful at the same time. We had been in hospitals for the last four months, surrounded by doctors and nurses. Now we had to survive on our own.
I still remember the feeling of that first day at "home". Naomi lay motionless on the sofa bed in our tiny living room. Because of her damaged brain, she was no longer able to sit, stand, walk or otherwise control her body. Both her arms were contracted and her legs were incredibly stiff; like sticks. She could see and hear us but could no longer communicate. It was like we were living in some sort of alternate reality; a nightmare we could not wake up from. But is was real and it was heartbreaking.
Naomi needed our care 24 hours a day. We rarely slept and the hard reality now really hit us. How were we going to do this? It was really challenging – both physically as well as mentally. We had to prepare and give Naomi her medicines at various intervals throughout the day and night. Every three hours we had to feed her through a nasogastric tube and we needed to replace that tube when necessary. Replacing the tube was a tricky and very uncomfortable process as the tube needed to be inserted through Naomi’s nose, past the throat and down into her stomach. It could easily make her vomit, something she was already prone to do. She would vomit up to three times a day and we had to protect her from choking when she did. We also needed to take quick action when she would bite her lower lip, which she frequently did, to the point that it would bleed. She would bite, hurt herself and then bite even harder in response to the pain. Each time that happened, it was difficult to make her stop clenching her teeth. It was very distressing because in the hospital she had already bitten off a chunk of her lip and we needed to prevent her from causing more damage. We also had to look after her wounds from the surgeries, keep her clean and do numerous exercises with her. We needed to be with non-stop.
Besides caring for Naomi and getting to grips with everything that had happened over the last few months, we of course also needed to take care of Sienna, who had gone through a tough time as well, often asking us when her big sister would be able to talk and play with her again. Despite Naomi's condition, Sienna would still draw close to her and enjoy Naomi's company. We missed the Naomi from before. I especially missed her voice, her stories, her many questions and her singing.
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