Finding myself in the lost world..

Sunday, October 03, 2010

An interesting week..

[11:00 am]

The last few days has been a pretty harrowing experience for me.

It all started when a painful lump appeared on the buttock cheeks two weeks ago. Thinking it was just a pimple, I ignored it and carried on with life as normal. Fast forward two weeks later, that lump manifested into a painful abscess, one which drained blood and pus continuously.

The pain was unbearable that I went off to the polyclinic to have it diagnosed and treated. When the doctor saw it, she referred me to the hospital as it was beyond their capabilities. That really freaked me out.

The referral to the hospital proved to be the most frightening moments of my life. Waiting at the A&E department of the a newly built hospital (which I shan't name) was a nightmare. The A&E department looked more like a polyclinic, unlike those A&E departments of the more established hospitals which I have visited.

Just a simple act of waiting to be admitted took me 3 hours. And this was after I was examined by the doctor, who simply quipped that the abscess can be cured through application of creams. I nearly punched him in the face. If all I have to do is to apply cream, the polyclinic doctor would had prescribed it to me and not refer me to the hospital.

I told the doctor that I would prefer to undergo surgery to remove that abscess. I was warded and operated on that very night. Going into the operating theatre is an experience I won't forget. The bright flourescent lights and extremely cold air-conditioning really made the experience terrifying.

I was lucky that I was operated on under anasthesia and slept through the whole procedure. By the time I woke up, it was over and it was highly successful; they removed a 3cm by 2cm piece of flesh from my buttocks. And the whole area is a open wound.

Staying in the ward for observation was a pretty uneventful affair with the attentive nurses and doctors checking on me every two hours to make sure I was still alive. This was a stark contrast to the A&E department. But the most embarassing thing was to have my butt "molested" by the hordes of nurses and doctors throughout the entire stay.

And to think my entire 20+ years of my life, it has been confined to my mother..it was pretty embarrassing.

The following day I was discharged with instructions to make sure the dressings are changed at the polyclinic on a daily basis. As a dutiful patient, I followed the instructions and went to the polyclinic the following day to change the dressing. I don't know what the nurse did, but the next thing I knew, the wound was bleeding non-stop and no amount of measures could stop it.

They had no choice but have me go back to the hospital and have it reexamined. There I was, bleeding non-stop for 3 hours and changing the dressing thrice when it got soaked with blood. Even my underwear was so soaked with blood that I had to dispose it. Guess I easily lost close to 15cc of blood that day.

When I got readmitted, the doctors were surprised to see me as the operation had been successful and the new dressing before I got discharged did not agitate the wound. When they found out what happened, they were thoughtful for a moment before examining the wound again.

By then the bleeding had stopped by itself. 5 doctors and 3 nurses (2 of them polytechnic nurses on attachment) basically looked at my blood-splattered butt while one of the doctor vigorously "attacked" the wound to induce bleeding. But there wasn't any and cleaned up the wound and induced pressure bandaging to prevent any bleeding.

There I was, admitted overnight for observation to make sure the bleeding has stopped. And on a
Friday.

Now I am discharged and chilling at home with the fear that tomorrow the polyclinic will screw up my wound again if I go back for change of dressing. But I will not be going back to the same polyclinic, rather I will go to another one recommended by a friend of my mom.

And to think I was supposed to go for a diving holiday this week. What a letdown. Now I have to settle all the claims using my travel insurance (which luckily I bought). How interesting can it be..

Labels: Random Thots

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