calls of concern are welcomed too

So it didn't go as bad as everyone described.

Having braced myself for the "excruciating pain" as described by countless of people (sometimes accompanied by a gleeful grin at the end), I was pleasantly surprised to see that I'm pretty much normal, happy and can only feel numbness in my cheeks.

But that said, I shall not count my chickens before they're hatched and be gleeful about my perfectly painless experience (as of now). After all like Kelvin (goh, not low) said, I'll ask you again in three days. I don't know what's gonna happen once the numbness wears off.

Ladidum. But enough with pessimistic foreboding, let me be narcissistic and relate the entire experience (as well as reassure other about-to-dewisen people that operations aren't as scary as you think, really).

Started the morning by waking up, erm, not too early. Haha ended up having to cab to Mount E. Reached about 20 minutes early (i love cabs, don't you?) and my ward was really quite nice! But then again, it'd better be. If I don't get nice ward and service after paying a whooping above-5k figure, I'll sue. hur hur. Which reminds me the op is bloody expensive and guess whose pockets that cash is coming out from? MINE.

humpprh.

Anyway, more on the ward. It has it's own television, a phone to make FREE calls to any local number, a nice handy remote control for tv buttons and calling of the nurse, nice locker, handy safebox and a damn clean toilet. Haha ok I haven't been through an op before so I don't know if these facilities are completely normal (and I'm coming across as a noob), but really, it was all very exciting ;)

And as we all know, whenever sam gets into that frenzy of excitement over a new experience, she camwhores :D

4-D anyone?
Me grinning excitedly at the camera... Sorry if it's blur. These are all products of my not-so-cool camera phone

Okay so I actually liked the hospital gown at first. It was a pretty shade of azure that is a tad more flattering than your usual pale sickly-green hospital gowns. But it wasn't before long that I found out the bad side. Like how the entire gown is gaping open at the back (oh modesty!) with only flimsy strings to hold them together. And how the material is so thin you freeze your ass (and back) off in the expensively aircon-powered Mount E hospital ward.

And how I found out they freaking stripped me while I was completely knocked out from aneasthetia. That was rather, ha ha, disturbing.

Anyway, mum doctors and nurses commented I was the most cheerful and lovely patient ever:D Haha I am the perfect shining example to the myb question: "you love patients who are...". They said patients are usually scared shitless, sombre and whiny before an op. I was uncommonly excited, camwhoring, smiling and waving to everyone and well, the only thing i whined about was being hungry and not being able to have breakfast at coffeebean. Hah.

Okay la, I just felt excited to undergo a new experience. Plus, it feels good to be called a brave girl (:

Oh and for those who've never been knocked out by anaesthetia in an operating theatre before, here's how it goes. It was really quite interesting. They wheel you into this huge operating theatre thats all white and bright and clean. There're more than 10 people there, nurses, doctor and anaesthecian. And they use this roller thing to roll you from your bed to the surgeon table. It's pretty fascinating (:

Next comes anaesthetia. Basically they jab you with this needle where they will then add the sleep-inducing stuff into. Apparently my veins were too fine so they had to poke the needle in three times before it was successfully inserted. Ouch, for someone who hates jabs, being jabbed three times is nothing short of a nightmare. The doctor was chatting to me to distract me though, and the last I remembered of our convesation went:

"Oh my niece studied in Warwick Law as well! She's now a senior partner in Ho and Partners. Warwick's a pretty nice place, about 150 miles away from London. You can take a train there in under an hour but it's really expensive so I'd suggest you... "

Then WHAM. I was asleep.

Next thing I knew, I woke up 2 hours later in the operating theater with a mother of a sorethroat, coughing but still managing to wave and smile at the nurses and doctors. Ha ha. It's a bit like reality tv you know? Even when you feel like shit, you still smile and pretend everything's great.

Okay so I wasn't supposed to be awake so early. According to nurses I'm supposed to wake at about 12plus in the ward, not wake immediately in the operating theatre. But I was already awake (and bored), and I couldn't go back to sleep. So when we reached the ward I figured it was high time to use the lovely ward facilities which I paid a freaking 5k plus for.

I turned on the television, but it was all boring. Reached for the free phone to call mum, but realised she was out of town. Then I excitedly pressed the nurse button and asked for my handphone from the safebox. From then on, it was happy sms-ing and talking on the (free) phone for almost an hour to while my time away.

And no, you didn't read wrongly. I could speak on the phone, amazingly. This explains the blog post title too, I have zero problems with talking so calls of concern are enthusiastically welcomed :D

Oh and I forgot to mention, the nurse gave me chocolate ice cream, iced milo and iced water for me to eat/drink while I yakked on the phone as well. Such great service!

Cabbed home afterwards and had nice porridge bought from the nearby coffeeshop. Ha ha so much for not being able to eat. Dinner was in the form of more porridge and vanilla icecream dug out from the mini-poppers I have in my freezer :D

In the end, the entire process wasn't too bad. Really. Sorry for the extremely long and detailed entry but hey, just wanted to tell those who haven't been through this that it really isn't as bad as you think and don't listen to those horror stories ok (: Miss-I-cannot-stand-injections is telling you that it's fine. Really.


Goodbye wisdom (:

Labels: musings, photos