Those of you who have really been in pain will be able to sympathize with me. I don’t mean that sharp fleeting pain of hitting your finger with a hammer or that low throbbing pain of a headache, I mean the true pain of an injury that wants to make itself known in the worst way. As I lay alone in the dark on my hospital bed surrounded by men with a similar affliction and in a similar condition I contemplated all the different aspects of pain, how it affects your mind, your emotions, your body. There are so many different types of pain and I believe that night I experienced them all.
I cradled the iPod in my hand frantically hitting the forward button in search of a song that would bring me to better times. The Apple brand ear buds spat out tinny sounding music and did little to distract me. Album after album, artist after artist, nothing was taking my mind from the reality of the situation. I ripped the ear buds out and settled back into the rock hard pillow with a sigh.
Here I was, alone in Trat, Thailand having had surgery just a few hours ago.
Surgery? In Thailand? Yeah, that was exactly what I thought. Never in a million years… yet here I was in the recovery room doing my best to do just that, but failing miserably.
The relief that I had initially felt a few hours ago when feeling began to return to my numb legs was quickly replaced by the grim realization that pain was going to come along with that regained mobility. Sacrifice, one thing for another, I gritted my teeth.
‘God, what time is it’ I muttered checking my cell phone. ‘2:30am…only 2:30am…when will this pain end…’
…
Describing the first half of my day would be pretty boring. I’m sure most of you have been through or had a friend/family member go through the process. Register, wait, register, wait, preliminary test, wait, register, wait, test, wait, wait, wait…
Luckily for me the medication the previous day’s doctor had prescribed were working wonderfully and so things went along relatively painless, except for the hard molded plastic seats and stiff wooden benches in every room…
For those of you who missed the last post, let me explain my position. I had a pain in my ass and was compelled to get rid of it lest I go insane from pain. That pain in the ass was an anal abscess, a little pocket of puss filled goodness about a knuckles length inside of a hole you should not rightly be sticking fingers and it was not something you could ignore, thus the hospital and surgery.
The nurses and doctors around me seemed to be of a higher caliber than my previous visit (bloody influenza), or at least they were much nicer and more of them spoke English. None of them jabbed needles with harsh condescension…and lots of them were cute with really nice smiles, a great comfort to a lone traveler in a tough spot.
You might wonder what was going on in my head at this point. After all, I’m alone in a foreign country about to undergo a somewhat serious medical procedure, pretty scary stuff. Yet, to be straight, I wasn’t that worried. Or rather, I wouldn’t let myself be. Freaking out at this point and actually acknowledging the reality of what was going on would have been a bad idea so instead I just let things flow along. That was, until I was outside the operating theatre, but we’re not there yet.
As the sun arced its way across the sky I buried my nose in an ebook, ironically titled, The Red Badge of Courage, an excellent book and highly appropriate to my situation, courage under fire and all that.
I also have to mention the drugs they stuck into my ever present IV were really good. The normal fluids were supplemented with what they simply described as ‘antibiotics,’ which sent a chill feeling down my arm and made the lingering pain I had been feeling despite other drugs go away. I was actually in a pretty cheerful mood when some of my new friends arrived.
‘Friends visiting you at the hospital when you’re sick? I thought you said you were alone?’ is probably what you’re asking yourself. Well, let me tell you it’s amazing what a smile combined with a bit of luck will get you.
Boris and Piluka were on vacation and happened to be staying at the same guesthouse. A brace of horrible weather had swept through while I had been sick and deprived the nearby pleasure island of Koh Kong of its electricity pretty much screwing over every single tourist there and on their way there. Boris and Piluka had planned to stay and sample the beaches but after a single (and very expensive) night there they had argued their way back to the mainland and, poof, that night as they sat having a drink after all the crap they had been through we started up a conversation. ‘Hospital!?’ Piluka began, ‘oh no, we will come and visit you…’ Boris toasted to that but I stuck to my water. Drugs and alcohol…
‘Have you had your surgery yet?’ Piluka began. The clock read 6pm. ‘No, not yet. I think they said around 8pm tonight…’ ‘Wow, that’s a long time to wait… here is a little gift’ she said handing me a small plastic bag with a muffin in it. ‘Awesome, thanks. Can’t eat that until after though…surgery and all.’ The small talk continued for a while then it was time for them to go. With a wave and a smile they were gone. A friendly man from France, a effervescent woman from Spain, both living in London stopping in at a hospital to wish an almost complete stranger good health…
It really is the little things in life that can mean the most.
‘It’s time,’ the nurse said motioning me to a gurney that had just rolled up. The forest green color and thick blanket gave me an uneasy feeling. I had seen something like this many times before, usually on a TV show I used to watch, House M.D.
Alone. Thailand. Surgery. The thoughts began to resurface but this time I wasn’t able to bury them or ‘let things go by.’ Reality was knocking at my door and I had no choice but to answer.
I stared up at the ceiling as it scrolled by trying to memorize the twists and turns we took. I failed. My mind was too much in a jumble.
The man attending my gurney pushed through a double door that was labeled, nicely enough, ‘Surgery.’ It was a relatively short hallway with doors lining only the left side. A few other people lay waiting to be worked upon. My heart began to pound.
‘Deep breaths Michael,’ I chanted to myself, ‘it will be okay.’ Time trickled by.
People came and looked at me, read charts, took my blood pressure, and moved on. The waiting was unbearable but so was the idea of what was to come. Surgery! Not just any surgery but on a place you never really want to show anyone.
With a start I realized they were wheeling me into the room. ‘Deep breaths,’ I mumbled to myself.
More waiting. People hustled about doing this and that but I was left alone. That did not help my mindset at all.
Alone. Thailand. Surgery.
Then, finally, it began.
‘Good evening Michael. How are you?’ he started. I looked up at him, smiled and said, ‘not so well doctor…’ He laughed. A brief explanation (in English) of the procedure and then the, ‘let’s begin.’
My heart skipped a beat.
‘Okay Michael, on your side please, knees to your chest.’ ‘Knees to my chest?’ my mind searched its list of known (laugh) medical procedures. ‘Knees to my chest?’ my mind continued as he began to swab down my back with something that tingled. ‘Oh, knees to my chest…’ a memory stood out like a pinpoint of light on a dark night.
‘Into my spine something goes…’ as I stared into space trying not to think of what was going on. Desperately I tried not to think of what was going on, I hate needles to begin with and this one, I suppressed a shiver. ‘Don’t move Michael,’ the doctor called from behind me. I stopped moving.
‘Okay, finished. Now we wait until numb.’ I rolled onto my back. He looked at the clock, ‘about thirty minutes,’ and was gone.
The young man tending me, probably the anesthesiologist, checked my vitals. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. This guy looked younger then me, ‘no, my head doesn’t feel good.’ Actually, it felt like my brain was swimming in a fish tank too small for it. ‘Not feel good,’ I tried again.
He smiled, producing a syringe from a nearby tray. A minute later the world calmed down and I was able to think even though I didn’t want to.
Time trickled by. The soft sound of music from a nearby stereo, the whir of an air conditioner, the beep of my vitals, it was all very relaxing. Every once and a while the attendant would pinch me to check how the drugs were taking hold. How hard he pinched me I didn’t realize until the next day when I saw the black and blue mark.
Soon I couldn’t move a muscle from my waist down. Touching myself produced an odd sensation that just didn’t feel right, so I stopped.
With the help of the doctors in the room I moved to the surgery bed, face down and arse up.
Then the surgeon walked in. ‘Okay. Now we remove abscess.’
I looked at one of the doctors, giggled, and said, ‘welcome to Thailand.’ I don’t why it was so funny to me at the time and why it’s still funny to me now, that line I said, but it is. The whole situation was too comical for me to resist. Because, seriously, what I was going through…
For the next fifteen minutes I focused hard, real hard, real real hard, on the beaches I had visited in Cambodia and tried to ignore the fact my body was moving, being moved, being cut into, well, you get the idea.
And then it was over and I was being wheeled back to the recovery ward. My mind was jumbled and I enjoyed the haze. Clarity would come soon enough.
A cute nurse took the time to hand feed me, my first food in over 8 hours. Unfortunately the chicken I ate held a bit too much spice, but that little tidbit of knowledge came later.
Things were good over the next 4 or 5 hours. I lounged, time passed, I managed to sleep a bit.
Then came the dawn of the sixth hour… feeling had returned to my lower extremities and I became fully aware of what had been done to me. The only thing was that I couldn’t move for another hour because of the spinal block, not good for my heart they said.
From 1am when the block wore off until 2am when I could move again was tough. Each minute seemed to last an hour as I waited to use the bathroom. I listened to music, hummed to myself, tried to read, thought of things I would rather be doing, but the release of sleep wouldn’t come, or rather couldn’t come through my veil of pain.
Then the awaited hour was upon me and I was off like a shot. There was one thing, or rather a few I didn’t take into account and those became painfully aware to me as I worked to use the facilities.
Let me make a list of the words that came to mind during those 15, or maybe 20 minutes in which I made my valiant attempts. Hot sharp knives, poker fresh from the fire, barbed wire, razor wire, razor blade, 500lb bomb, hell, broken glass, acid, I hope you get the idea.
Oh, and that pain didn’t stop or let up at any point and by the time I returned to my bed I was sweating with the acuity of it.
I tossed and turned in my bed seeking some position that would be less painful than the others. The silence around me was deafening.
My mind focused like a sniper scope on the one thing that could not be ignored. Like a diamond edge it cut through everything and was as clear as a mountain stream. There was no way to get away from it.
I called for a nurse who stuck a syringe in my IV, 50mg of something or other that should take my mind off of reality. No effect. The sensation continued unabated.
Another hour passed, 3am, then another, 4am. I tossed. I turned. I stood and wandered about the open room. Nothing.
With a sigh I collapsed into my hard hospital bed. Face down into my antiseptic pillow I took deep breath after deep breath hoping and praying for release, any kind of release. My eyes squeezed shut. Sleep, if only I could sleep…
Then my eyes opened. The sun was beginning to peak over the horizon and shine blazingly into the room giving everything an off orange tint. My breaths still came in ragged gasps but the pain which had rocked my world the night before had dissipated.
A lingering throb with an occasional stab was all that remained of what had tortured me the night before. I closed my eyes again and breathed a long awaited sigh of relief. It wasn’t over but it was over.
The waiting was done. The surgery was done. Now it was time for recovery. ‘What a trip’ I chuckled to myself before falling into a much deserved sleep.
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