traumatic day

hi all! am feeling somewhat improved after rest and the ploughing of my body with le moste potente antibiotics and painkillers. :) haha... to be honest my mum was right. She commented that i was "very alive straight after the surgery" but after tuition it was like auditions for the main ghost role for the next sequel to The Eye series. :D oh well. Now I know 2 things about local anaesthetics:
1) They last approximately 5 hours, thereafter which the patient will begin to experience increasing pain till it precipitates into excruciating, "I can't sit still cos it hurts like hell" kind of pain. :)
2) They make the patient feel great. That is, if you're the kind of morbid, sadistic nut that I am, cos i was able for the 1st time to witness a surgeon cut into me. It was extremely surreal. :) Really! I mean, picture this. You're lying on the operating table, draped and cleaned, staring pointlessly up at the bright lights. One lamp is left off, so you can see the reflection of your sterilized body part in the glass clearly. In comes the surgeon. He mumblewumbles through the mask, spraying spittle onto the mask in a valiant attempt to calm you down whilst you see your life flash past your squinting eyes (haha). He produces a sedative, stuffs it in you, and you feel warm, sleepy and downright xing4fu2. :D then he jabs 2 syringes of local anesthetic in, and all 4 of us (1 surgeon 2 nurses and 1 me) start milling around chatting while we all wait for it to take effect. 10mins later the surgeon picks up a dangerously sharp scalpel and waves it in front of my eyes (ummm, perhaps to try to make me pass out in fear) :) and then he tests the blade on you. You, miraculously, feel nothing! Yes, the absolute wonderfulness of modern medicine. :D now that he's convinced I wasn't going to jump up and strangle him in pain when he makes the first cut, he proceeds. The blade was positioned at a slight angle to the skin and cut forcefully downwards until the whole blade is in (5cm or so), lifted, and a 2nd cut made until the incision measures 1 cm in length. meanwhile geysers of blood spewed like the sentosa fountain from the hole and i was beginning to lose sight of the hole in the whole mess of blood. haha!

The funny thing was, the clueless guy didn't know why I was so fixated with the operating lights (probably thought I was trying to distract myself haha) where i was in fact enjoying the entire process. When you don't feel the pain, watching the operation is fun! It's like a very up-close, hands-on lesson in general surgery. Most medical students don't get to see this till year 3. It's really very instructive to watch the process, though initially the spraying blood did obscure my view a bit. Plus my highly calmed, happy state made me want to break out in contented little giggles every once in a while, haha. Yup. So after he finished with the dressing he was like, see you didn't feel anything right? And i replied with a straight face: Yeah, I didn't feel anything, but i saw everything! and he just stared at me goggle-eyed like: then how come u haven't like died from the shock? haha. anyway it was good, cos i really didn't feel any pain. I used to be biased against LA and in favor of GA cos I've developed a very acute sense of pain since the 3rd operation onwards. Now I know LA works just fine, except that it wears off faster, so that's why I'm quite drugged now owing to the painkillers. And if we discuss this in education terms, LA definitely is more instructive. I learnt quite a lot today! Though i must admit, not many patients can take the stress of watching a mumbling madman slice them up ruthlessly and spilling gore all over the sterile field. haha!

well on the other hand, it is very very good to be liberated from the awful fever that i've been having since yesterday. Shivering like a south african airlifted to antartica is certainly not my idea of a joke :) even the classical argument of convincing yourself it's only the effect of endogenous pyrogens on the hypothalamus doesn't work past a critical point, which is when you start seriously considering plunging headfirst into a well-heated blast furnace just to take away some of the cold. :D

well! since this is, after all a minor surgery, i shall do as all minor surgees do: rest! haha! and hopefully the horrendous red abcessy patch goes off miraculously tml! :D

and most of all, take care everyone. the weather's downright horrendous.