....it's all good....

continuance from Op DAY + 1.
Thursday, 17th May

that morning…i told the nurses that i will do my own cleaning. i got out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, wiped my body and changed to a new pair of hospital gown all by myself. it sounds easy but trusts me, it’s not easy when you are in pain and barely can move your right hand and the whole right torso. any kind of movement will send a sharp pain all over my body. i struggled a little but somehow, it felt good to be able to take care of my own personal needs.

i’m not sure whether it has anything to do with the chest tube being removed but i have difficulty breathing that morning. i felt my chests are so tight that it takes a lot of effort just to breath. i can hear that awful, awful hollow sounds when i’m breathing. it sounds like Darth Vader in Star Wars. there were phlegm built up in my right lung and i started to cough too.

when my physiotherapy came around and asked how am i doing, i confessed immediately. she then asked, “are you ready to walk? you need a little exercise to help expand the lung and reduce the tightness”.

sometime you will see scene in a movie where the ‘evil you’ show up tempting and tormenting you and then the ‘angelic you’ will try to pacify it by giving encouragement and assurance that everything is going to be alright. at that moment, I’m in doubt and exactly like a movie, the ‘me-devil’ spoke her spell “you can’t do this…so far, you only made it to the commode on your left and the couch on your right. If you walk out now…you will feel so breathless that your lung have to work so hard that it will collapse and you will fall dead on the floor”…that is one mean nasty ‘me’. i’m expecting the ‘me-angel’ to tell me what a crap ‘me-devil’ is and convince me otherwise. i waited…. but there is no sign of her.

so, it’s only me replying to my physiotherapy, “okay” and start removing the oxirecty and the blood pressure device. i followed her out of my room… feeling very insecure…very uncertain but the minute I walked out the room, something else caught my attention so entirely that i forgot about myself. I was looking in horror at very sick patients …babies…children…people of all ages so sick that many…no, let me correct myself…ALL of them look like either they are unconscious or just so ill to be in any sense of consciousness. It’s such a sad, sad sight and that bloody ‘me-devil’ of mine have to rub it in with “hey, that could be you…u know, maybe few months down the road if you don’t survive this.”

when I got back to my room, i felt so depressed over the thought that I may one day fall so sick…so sick that i will have to depend on drugs, machines and others to survive. finally, finally, the ‘me-angel’ emerged and whispered softly “you have looked around and yes, these people are really sick…most of them are not even awake. but look at you, you are the only one that can sit up in a couch reading a book. You should be thankful”.

yeah, she is right and she actually managed to convince me that i’m doing far better than others and i’m thankful. i latched on that for the rest of the day.

the walking actually eleviated the tightness and the hollowness in my chest. i enjoyed the feeling of ‘back on my feet’ so much that i kept walking that day. i walked to the washroom (which is about 20 feet away from room) and i walked all over ICU. some of the nurses will tease me when i walked past, “hey, we have our 1st walking ICU patient” and i always smiled back meekly at them.

it still depressed me to look around - so at times, I just walked with my head down or looking straight forward. i even asked the nurses whether they can let me walk outside ICU since technically i’m not an ICU patient but waiting for a room to be transferred out but of course, they can’t allow that. they have full responsibilities over me so long I’m still in ICU ward.

i was so eager to get out of ICU that day but unfortunately, they told me that the whole hospital is full and there is no room available at all. they already have few ICU patients in the waiting list to be transferred out of ICU since yesterday. i was told that i have to stay another day in ICU. (I found out later that the hospital is so full that it was closed and unable to receive any patients for 2 days).

when my surgeon visited that evening, the first thing he asked the nurse,
“why is she still here?”
the nurse replied “the hospital is full and we couldn’t get her a room”
he said, “you need to get her out…i want her to walk…to exercise a little”
she said, “oh yes, she is walking…she is walking to the toilet…she is walking all over ICU …she is the only ICU patient to walk around.”

i jumped right in and negotiated…or more precisely demanded, “if they are going to keep me here…let me walk out of ICU… there is no shower room here-so, at least let me go down to the salon to have my hair wash”. you must be wondering- what am I thinking? washing my hair at time like this? is that even a priority? well, I have not wash my hair for almost 3 days and what’s wrong of feeling good if I’m up to it, right? maybe it’s an excuse for me to get out of ICU but seriously, life goes on….if it makes me feel good to have clean hair, i don’t see why i should be deprived of it.

my surgeon stared at me for a while and told the nurse “let her walk outside…let her go down for her hair wash…better still, get the physiotherapy to take her to the gym tomorrow”.
you have no idea how much I like him at that time…he was so supportive that i felt anything i’m game for it, he will get me covered.

that’s the good bits of the day. the coughing gotten worst despite my respiratory doc put me on medication immediately. i have 2 docs overseeing me during my stay at the hospital. my primary doc is the surgeon and my secondary doc is the respiratory specialist.

now back to the coughing…yep, the coughing gotten worst. i was told that it’s natural for the body to produce phlegm after surgery and i need to cough it out to prevent infection. it’s so much easier said than done. THE PAIN…i can’t even describe it…every time i coughed, i felt i was being stabbed with knives all over my chest especially over the incision wound. they gave me this small little pillow to press against the incision wound whenever i cough to minimize the impact and pain. i was holding on to that little pillow like my dear life everywhere I go including the toilet. at time when I was walking and attacked by a coughing bout, i will stoop on the floor immediately with the pillow pressed hard against the incision wound to control the pain. a couple of times, i sent the nurses running over but soon, they got used to it. once the coughing stopped, i will stand up and continue walking.

it turned awfully bad at night...especially when I’m lying down. i think i coughed continuously non stop till 1-2am until i was totally exhausted. i got up... made a cup of herbal tea and sat down on the couch. i grabbed the healing scriptures given by my sister and recited it over and over again. i started to pray …I pray so hard that night... once I’m finished, the coughing miraculously stopped and it never comes back again.

yeah, you may say, the medicine has kicked in- that could be true…you may also say, my mind wanted it to stop so bad that finally the body is listening to it- that could be true too… you may claim, it’s pure coincidence- yeah, it’s a possibility .

however, I want to believe it’s HIM…it’s comforting to know that GOD has not forsaken me…surely it’s not that hard to believe...have faith.