Frankly, after one false start, I wasn't feeling that good about the operation, yet what can I do?
On the actual day (Jul 08), I was the 4th patient scheduled for operation. Based on Mr A's estimation, my turn will come around noon, so I had to fast from 8am. In reality, I was too nervous and scared to eat much after 7:30am... Then the waiting started..
Around 11am, my sis messaged me that there is an emergency case that had to be done, so my operation was pushed back and I became patient No.5. The clock continued ticking.. and I was too nervous to even read that I just lay down and stare at the walls... with my mind going everywhere and anywhere.. but you won't know from looking at me as I seemed like a pillar of 'calm'..
Around 3:15pm, one of the nurses came in and told me to get ready.. my heart started racing and I called my sis whom I promised to call when I am up for the ops.. Then, the nurse passed me a gown, which is nothing but a piece of white cloth with laces to tie around my neck and across my back, and told me to wear it. I had to strip down to my birthday suit using only my right hand as my left hand was holding on to an IV bottle (full of some solution which I don't quite remember). The nurse helped me, and I was beyond embarrassment.. :x :x
15 minutes later, my sis rushed over from her work place (just a few blocks away). I felt so much better with her around.. By then I'm already laying on top of a beige-colored canvas stretcher placed on a hospital gurney. There was a pole along my left and right side. The gurney could barely hold me as its width is the same as my shoulders'. My sis said that for those patients who are 'wider' than the gurney, they would need to be strapped in tightly. I can't help but be very nervous and scared (of it toppling over) whenever I was wheeled around on it.. :x :x
Due to the layout of the hospital, the operating theater (OT) is located in another block quite a distance away so I had to be 'delivered' via an ambulance. This was the first time I've been inside an ambulance, and boy what an OLD ambulance it was.. paint peeling, drawer handle missing, grease and dirt all over the place.. :x :x My sis followed me onto the ambulance, together with 2 other nurses.. Actually, it is fairly rare for doctors to follow patients to the OT, so I was being given the "VIP treatment".. :p :p
Once we arrived at the OT, I was pushed into a prep room where another nurse asked me for my full name, NRIC, the surgery that I was gonna undergo and verified my signature on several consent forms that I've signed earlier. In the mean time, my sis went and changed into her scrubs.She came back just as the nurse was done with all the verification. I was then 'hoisted' onto another gurney using the canvas stretcher by 2 strong male nurses..
Then, I was pushed to a waiting area while they continue to prep the OT. My sis kept me company all these while and that really did calm my nerves... nurses and doctors were walking by.. many of them knew my sis.. :) after waiting for a while (I can't really tell how long it was as I have no concept of time then), I was wheeled into the OT.
It is a whitish room. It felt old, like a classroom that was painted white. Hanging down from the ceiling is two big surgical lights, looking kinda menacing like a pair of tentacles from a metallic beast. There are some equipments by the side and at the bottom of the room, blipping, humming and churning away, but they barely registered in my mind as I was completely transfixed by the metal table in the middle..
It really was 'just' a metal table, nothing fancy, with no handles or patterns, just like the ones you see on TV.. I was lifted and placed onto that table. The 2 male nurses took away the two poles and I ended up laying on top of the canvas on the metal table. A nurse covered me with a white blanket. I saw a lady in scrubs standing next to a machine, she is one of my sis's superior and she was gonna be my anesthesiologist for the operation.
She then proceed to stick electrodes on my chest, hands and feet to monitor my heart rate during surgery.. An (anaesthetia) oxygen mask was pulled over me and I was told to breath normally through the mask.. At the same time, several nurses placed a plank-of-some-sort under both my shoulder blades to allow my hands to 'hang loose' beside my body.. The lady anesthesiologist then informed me that she is injecting anaesthetic through the venous cannula on my left hand. I can actually feel the liquid flow into me and it really hurt like hell!
All these bustle around me was both intimidating and petrifying.. I told myself to stay calm and don't think negatively.. I kept on breathing in and out of the mask, following the doctor's instruction.. and slowly they changed it from pure oxygen to anasthetic gases...
The last image I had in my mind was my right hand gripping my sis's hand, for assurance and strength.. and then I lost conscious..
No comments:
Post a Comment