top of page

Spending my Birthday in ICU

After days of going through long and painful medical procedures, THE day had come. It was my birthday! Unlike many of you, I had the “privilege” of spending my birthday in the hospital - not how any 17 year old wants to celebrate (hopefully I’ll never have to experience that again). After midnight, at around 1a.m one of my nurses came in to the room and he said “ i know usually you would have a birthday shot” but then made me smell my a type of steriliser for my neck which contained a base of 75% alcohol and said to me “here is your birthday shot, I hope you never drink again” (thanks for the wish buddy, it has actually come true).

My family is big on celebrating birthdays, usually at midnight, we go in to the persons room, sing happy birthday and cut cake, although they tried to arrange it, sadly they were not allowed in after the designated visiting hours. My sister spoke to the nurses about coming in for 5 minutes at midnight and the nurse said to her “ I know you want to celebrate with him but if you want him to celebrate many other birthdays with you then you must let him rest this time”.

My morning started off with a feast of different coloured medication and a while after that my family came to surprise me with a singing balloon and some cake. They sang, I read the cards signed by my extended family members and then came the REAL DEAL - the ONE and only bite I was allowed to have of my birthday cake! My favourite cake - Paul Lafayette’s chocolate cake (if anyone wants to buy me a piece, I can send you my address ;) ) and 5 minutes after that, they had to leave.

Later on that evening, I received an amazing birthday gift and was told I could FINALLY leave Isolation. Best birthday gift ever! My evening was filled with friends and family that came to visit me on my special day. As previously mentioned, when you suffer from heart issues you don’t have much energy and I really think that day I was overwhelmed by the amount of visitors that came to wish me and ended up over-exhausting myself.

Overall, I do not think it was an extremely terrible birthday and I made the most of it but next year I know I will celebrate in a better style.

To read the next part of my story, click the link below -

 The importance of being an organ donor! 

​

The fact that signing up to be an Organ donor you could save up to eight human beings from dying is a bigger positive than you can imagine. Saving a humans life is one of the things people can sometimes only imagine of doing. Through the act of Organ Donation, YOU can change this. 

 

Organ Donation gives everyone the ability to save a life. In fact, your eyes could help someone you’ve never met see the world. Your organs could make someone on the edge of dying get their breath back. Organ Donation mostly takes place after a signed up Organ Donor has passed. There is an extremely large gap between the number of registered donors compared to those awaiting Organ Donation world wide. 

 

The way I look at it is like this - when you were a child, you probably had the idea of one day wanting to be a Super-hero. Once you pass, you will no longer be needing those organs and they could be put to great use by saving another human beings life. When a person receives an Organ Transplant, not only do you become their hero, but you also become a hero to the many people involved in his/her life. 

Sign up to be an Organ Donor in Hong Kong today!Click the image below -
bottom of page