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People doing PR/ marketing/ corporate communications, would be thrilled to note the amount of media interest generated by a single fall. The classic line goes- Any publicity is GOOD publicity.
I suppose you understand that I would trade in any of that for an injury-free fall.
But let’s look on the bright side of life. Strangers who have never read this blog or tuned in the morning show on weekdays, are now aware of the existence of this awesomely clumsy person.
C from Sony BMG was online with me the other day and confessed that she first heard of my name, when her colleague came home with the news that someone had a fall in the toilet on a media junket to attend Jolin’s concert in Taipei.
Some of you might not have known (or paid attention to) me long enough to recall the other accident.
That took place in my favourite hotel (Having stayed there four times, United is indeed my favourite. No sarcasm there…)
The structure in the loo was that I had to stand in the bathtub to shower. By a stroke of dumbness, carelessness and clumsiness, I slipped and fell OUT of the bathtub.
My head hit the floor, which was quite a distance -considering my height and that I was in the bathtub.
By the way, both of my legs were still hanging in the tub.
The toilet bowl was three steps away. Any closer, my favourite hotel would have to deal with a (fat) male corpse and a bloody toilet bowl.
I took a while to get up. Well, I had to do it myself cos I was staying alone.
The people from Sony BMG Singapore and Sony BMG Taiwan were extremely shocked when I casually mentioned to them over a cup of tea that I had a great big fall thirty minutes earlier. I suppose they would have a lot of explaining to do, if their regional headquarters found out that someone just died hours before Jolin’s concert.
The itinerary was changed, and they rushed me to a Chinese physician, who had reportedly attended to plenty of celebrities. Whatever. I am quite sure that my case was unprecedented. I couldn’t see if he was laughing or anything cos he had me take off my shirt in a jiffy and rubbed the right of my lower back.
That was why I interviewed Jolin later that evening with an awful goh-yeok smell.
I wasted no time in getting an MRI done on my head when I returned to Singapore.
That very expensive scan produced results which made everyone happy.
***
I’m recounting this incident not to highlight my apparent clumsiness.
It’s because I’ve ran out of blogging topics. Hahaha.
Seriously, I want to underline the importance of an insurance policy.
I headed to a private hospital this time. The costs are higher, obviously. However, I was assured by my good friend cum Financial Advisor that the bill would mostly be accounted for by the insurance company.
Hospitals have limited resources. Simply, this just means that people who are in pain but are NOT going to die from the pain (anytime soon) will have to continue enduring the pain, because there are other people around who may or may not be in pain but MAY just die at the snap of the fingers.
I’m sure public hospitals don’t want long queues at their A&Es. The “Q means good” theory works for F&B people, but not medical professionals.
When an accident happens or when you’re in pain, you won’t want to be hanging around, wait a few hours to speak to a doctor and wait another few hours to be allocated a bed. Having done three different operations in the last six months (anyone can beat me?), I’m in a relatively good position to compare the speed of how things are being done in different institutions.
And when you want to be in a position of choosing which hospital (and perhaps eventually, which ward) to go to, you would want to be assured that someone is (co-)paying your bill. Unless you are very well to do, (Good for you! Can we be friends?) or relish the idea of putting yourself in an open ward where you face the bleak possibility of witnessing your “neighbour” entering vertically and leaving horizontally for good, I think we all ought to have some money invested in a policy.
*This is NOT a sponsored post.
