Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Life under the Knife

Having a medical condition is not a uncommon scenario and almost everyone of us would have been under some medication, the reason for it could be a simple cold or it could be a disease with a weird name which can be pronounced only by doctors. But not everyone has undergone a surgery, I had a chance to undergo one few days back and my Grey cells gave me a idea to write that experience in my "new" blog and here it is. Let me try keeping it minimal.

Stomach pain was not something new to me and I had been experiencing it right from my childhood. I used to get this pain 2-3 times a year during my schooling and the frequency was increased during my college days. In fact, this pain came in the form of Jaundice few years back. All these days the doctors diagnosed it as Acidity, Heat problem, Indigestion, etc. But when I got this severe pain on 27th August'08 for the 3rd consecutive day I didn't knew it would turn this big. I was forced to push myself along with my roommate Peeps at 9.30 PM to a famous hospital near by my house and I was made to rest among few others patients suffering with different form of pain. A general physician attended me and gave a injection, after half-an-hour the Doc came back and was surprised that the pain is still not relived, the dose was repeated again and still no relief. The Doc did some examination and I was sent for a Ultrasound scan, after the scan I was asked to come back the next day to meet a specialist. It was 3AM when we came back home and the pain continued till the next day morning. The next few days we were bounced between Doctors, blood tests and scans. Finally on the third day a senior doctor confirmed that I suffer from a problem called "Choledochal cysts" a disorder right from birth and he suggested surgery as the only solution, if left untreated it would lead to liver cancer. I was not really shocked about it, in fact I was happy about the fact that someone has diagonalized the reason for my 23 year old stomach pain. But it was tough for my parents to accept that their only child has to undergo a major surgery. Somehow my parents were convinced and they rushed to Bangalore the next day.

The next few days were spent on fixing the surgery date, insurance coverage, simple formalities in my office, etc. I got myself admitted to the hospital on September 4th after a nice yummy dinner, preparations for the surgery started right away. The next day I was happily sleeping till 7.15 AM knowing that my surgery is at 7.30 AM. I was taken to the operation theater at the right time and some 7-8 doctors surrounded me to fix my errors. They told the surgery is expected to last a maximum of 4 hours and I was given my anesthesia, within seconds my vision started to pixelate, voices started to fade away and I was entering a dark state leaving my senses behind. I knew that my beloved ones are waiting outside with their fingers crossed.

I woke up at 4.30 PM with a lot of people surrounding me and I was told that 4 hour surgery was extended to almost 8 hours creating panic among my parents and relatives. I couldn't feel any big pain because of anesthesia but I saw a lot of tubes and valves attached in my nose, neck, abdomen and hip. My next 3 days were hectic with pulse rate almost doubling, high temperature, 5 injections a day and extra tubes connecting my stomach and nose, this made me feel as if I am a computer program put in debug mode with lot of breakpoints and watch variables . My recovery was quite fast after that and I started off with some slow walking. I am a guy who loves walking and used to walk miles happily, but at this stage walking a few meters made me tired and I realized just being healthy itself is a big gift from God. Even after 5 days after surgery I was not given any food or not even a sip of water and I was just living with drips. This diet along with the blood loss during surgery made me loss more than 12 kg of weight. After 7 days they first gave me half a sip of water for that day, on the next day it was some liquid food and day by day they increased my diet and I was also getting rid of all my tubes. Finally on the 10th day I was back at home continuing my recovery process for the next 1 month.

Homemade food from my mother along with little medicines was giving me the required calories to pass my days. TV and books were my weapons to kill my time, I started watching all the movies including the dubbed ones in KTV, Sun, Vijay and what not. It was tough for me to get sleep when my body was in full rest, so books and music were my sleeping pills. I visited the hospital for dressing and review once in a week, after 4 weeks the doctors gave me green signal for regular activities and office.

As a token of memory for all these things I now own a big 'L' mark on my abdomen and will be carrying it throughout the journey of my life.

4 comments:

Sethu S said...

Raghu,Excellent write up!

The surgery is bad,but the way you expressed it ,i don't mind going under a knife to experience whether it was same with me.

"Debug Mode" was awesome - again proving that u r one of the geeks-:)

Arun Raghavendar said...

Thanks Sethu..

Vijesh said...

Nice Raghu. I still remember the evening just after the surgery of how you look on the debug mode. Unlike a program, there were lots of musical instruments too, that beeped on regular intervals.

Oh boy! That was hilarious to read about. Also, You got a wonderful parents and awesome rommie to help you through this journey.

Sankar said...

Scary. Good that you had the courage to fight back.