Quite shocking as it was, I had an emergency surgery back in September. After 26 hours (typhoon. getting to the hospital was a bit difficult) of continuous vomiting and sharp, stabbing pain in my lower right back, two of my classmates took me on a doctor tour to try to rid the pain, at least to the level where i could sleep for more than 4 minutes. Unfortunately, at that time my Chinese vocabulary did not include medical terms beyond headache, diarrhea and "caught a cold," and my classmates' English did not include anything beyond "ouch" ... trying to explain my situation took some creativity. After a combined explanation in English, Chinese, Japanese and gestures, I was sent for a urine test, then a pain killer shot (which made the pain far worse). The test showed nothing wrong, but the doc kept on ranting about the wrong things. Turns out, he didn't catch that I had not been able to eat or drink due to the endless vomiting spree.
*repeat explanation*
*doc surprised*
"Oh, you need to go see a gynecologist. Go. NOW."
I'm thinking, gynecologist? For WHAT? This doc wasn't going to give me any more answers, so we go off to the recommended clinic ... closed for the day. By this time, I was ready to cry from the pain and dehydration. Somebody, just poke an IV into me, PLEASE! We give up on the recommended clinic and run (well, actually ... waddle) into the next gynecologist clinic in sight. A stack of paperwork to fill, and another urine test (let me remind you once again ... I've been throwing up any food or liquid for the past ... 27 hours. I've got nothing in me). My turn comes around, doc (who speaks English, hooray!) asks questions, frowns, asks more questions. Ultrasound. push. roll. push. push. push. (ouch! ow! ouch ouch ouch!)
"You have a tumor."
"WHAT?"
"... You have 2 tumors."
"Oh ... sh*t."
"And it's big."
"Oh."
"Probably ... 10cm by 8cm."
"That's ... uh ... not small."
"You need surgery. I can operate on you at 10 o'clock tonight."
*checks watch. 6PM*
Turns out that my right fallopian tube was twisted, thus causing the vomiting spree. The tumor was actually much larger, measuring in at 13cm x 11cm x 8cm, weighing 510 grams (that's only the right one. The left one was like a bean compared to this one.) I basically go straight into surgery prep, with small obstacles here and there (it took the nurses over half an hour to collect blood samples from me ... *reminder: dehydration?*) ... I had no time to actually realize that people are going to slice my belly open and wriggle stuff around inside me, because I was ecstatic when they finally poked an IV into me. FLUIDS! LIQUIDS! (By this time, I was going without liquids for over 30 hours.) Oh, and of course, finally escaping the torturous pain was also a great idea. Two hours later, I woke up to the feeling of the doc pulling my belly together and the "clank clank clank" of the staples. Anesthesia is great. No more lower back pain, no more lower abdominal pain, no pain so far from the slicing.
It was great .... until they make you WALK! Two days after surgery, the nurses make you walk. First to the bathroom (where I almost fainted) and then down the hallway (where I thought I was going to pass out from pain) everyday. It took a while for me to be able to stand in one place long enough to brush my teeth, and a whole week to shower. Ahh, the bare essentials of personal hygiene ... never thought that brushing my teeth involved so much ab work. (The sneezing and coughing hell came a week later ... I was afraid my belly was going to pop open)
Fortunately, my fist- sized tumors were not cancerous, and my belly is healing as it should be. I'm no longer waddling around like a penguin (though penguins waddle much more elegantly than I did) and the pain is minimal and sparse.
I'm human again! *twirls in joy*
However ... the evolution process from a caterpillar to human sort of took the whole semester ... aw, Sh*t! my Master's thesis!
