sixth floor

i am seldom sent up to the sixth floor to help out when i volunteer at the cancer soc every tues. the office there is half the size of that on the fourth floor. one third of the area houses the medical staff, another one third is a conference room while the last third is more like a store cum recreation room. the few times i was there, i helped with packing goodie bags and sorting out stock.

this morning, i was assigned to label all the tubes in the FOBT (faecal occult blood test)kits on the sixth floor.

i had to remove the form from every kit, fill in the serial number of the two tubes provided and seal the kit back again. apparently, sometimes the tubes and the form get separated when the public dropped them back to the cancer soc for testing. so this labelling is to facilitate easy tracing. 

this month is colorectal cancer awareness month. these kits are given out free at most guardian pharmacies, polyclinics and at the cancer soc which are then returned for testing. if blood is detected in any one of the two samples, the person will be asked to take further tests. the response has been very good so far so that means tens of thousands of tubes have to be labelled.

anyway, when i started at 10am, it was kinda lonely in the rec cum store room. my ipod had run out of juice so i just listened to my own head chatter as i worked along.

then 2 elderly men came in. they sat down at a table at the far end and started playing chinese chess. 

after a while, it struck me that they were eerily silent as the only sounds came from the slight scrapping sounds of wooden pieces on paper as they made their moves.

 

no groans of despair, no triumphant yelps, no clearing of throats.

then 2 more appeared and this time, they cleared some boxes to set up the table for table tennis. it was apparent they have done this many times before as they were fast. and again silent.

when they started playing, only the rhythmic tock-tock of the ping pong ball filled the air.

i sat with my back to the door which was opened some minutes later.

and a loud booming robotic, expressionless voice jolted me out of my autopilot mode.

it was another elderly man who was 'talking', just that i couldn't make out what he was saying to me, waving an envelope in his hand.

his companion whom i assumed to be his wife, repeated what he said and asked if the box next to me was meant to deposit FOBT kits for testing. 

oh. i directed them to the fourth floor.

then it suddenly became clear to me.

every Tues. New Voice Club for throat cancer survivors. on the sixth floor.

i remembered now cos some weeks when i signed out to leave, cindy would ask me if i play table tennis. i laughed and said something about having poor circuitry between my head and limbs. she said the new voice club members meet every tues on the sixth floor and that the staff would go up and have a game or two with the old folks.

more elderly men appeared. they all seemed at home. some stood around to watch, some made coffee, a couple walked into the medical staff area, probably to 'say' hi. 

and all of them were neatly dressed, with their shirts buttoned all the way up.

someone had gone into the conference room by then, and put a hokkien CD on the DVD player. he left the door open so that we could all be entertained by the melancholic warbling.

meanwhile i worked along, my head chatter all gone as a new world was unveiling before me.

annie, the officer in charge, appeared with two trays and soon, the smell of fried beehoon and something else filled the air. 

the whole room had come alive. 

later, i found out that throat cancer survivors have no more voice box and they have to breathe thru an opening in their lower neck called a stoma.

every tues, after the games, socialising and food, a speech therapist trains them to speak again. it is difficult because they have to learn to breathe properly first before they can trap the air in their mouth and then project their voice.

so, many of them rely on an electronic larynx which is attached to their lower neck. to speak, they have to press a button and make audible sounds. so you need a free hand to do that....

after a while, they became more animated. it takes some getting used to. their voices i mean.

they sounded raspy and hoarse. and quite soft. so some used an electronic amplifier as well. that explains the booming voice.

my table was a few feet away from the table tennis game. once, the ball landed almost on my head and another time, right in front of me.

i laughed, they laughed too.

with opened mouths and laughter in their hearts.