Chapter 7: My First Surgery
My fistula surgery was scheduled just two days later. The actual surgery was to begin at 8 am, but I was to get admitted in day care at 6.30 am. The whole procedure would get over in less than half a day and I could go home after it. This was going to be my first admission in a hospital and my first visit to an operation theater ever. I had always wondered how scary it would be to go for an operation or what it would feel like while being wheeled into the operation theater.
The day before the surgery my team members in office had presented me with a PG Wodehouse book, as they knew that I really loved to read his books. His books have subtle humor that I really enjoy. They told me that I should read his book while on the way to the hospital and while waiting for the surgery so that I could keep my mind of worries. This proved to be an excellent idea.
On 13th April 2011, the day of my fistula surgery I woke up by 4 am to get ready, as I was supposed to reach the hospital by 6.30am and take admission in day care. It reminded of my earlier days in my first job when I frequently took early morning flights and had to get ready this early. Today my sister was to take me to the hospital. We left by 5.45am and since there was hardly any traffic on the roads this early we reached well before time by around 6.10am. I immediately took out the PG Wodehouse that had been gifted to me and started reading it. SoonI got so engrossed in it while waiting at the hospital reception waiting for the counter to open that when the counter finally opened they had to call my name out twice before I heard them. I cleared the formalities in the reception and went to the room in the day care center. The room was quite nice and I quickly made myself comfortable. The nurse came to take a blood sample for some tests and then asked me to change in the hospital uniform. They had no uniform in my size, as all sizes available were extra large. I had a tough time wearing the extra large pajamas and when I got the vest it had laces that had to be tied up instead of buttons and many of those laces were missing. So much for the condition of the patient uniforms in the most premier hospital of our country.
After changing into my uniform, I got onto the bed and the nurses came over once again to put a cannula in my arm. It was put in without any problem and I returned to my book, as it was too interesting to leave. Soon I remembered that this was my first ever visit to a hospital as a patient and I wanted to capture the moment. So I asked my sister to take a couple of pictures and I uploaded them to Facebook with a title of “my first tryst with a hospital”. The nurses thought I was crazy to make light of such a serious situation, but I felt otherwise. Since one has already reached such a situation, there is little to be gained by brooding over it. Its better to be cheerful and take it as it comes.
At around 7.45am a couple of attendants came from the Operation Theater with a separate patient bed on wheels. I was asked to shift to that and I removed my spectacles and left my book behind and shifted to that bed. I was then wheeled into the floor where the OT rooms were located. I was not taken directly to the OT room, but instead was wheeled into a room that was like a waiting room for patients. Here another patient was also waiting in a similar bed to move on for his operation. A nurse in the room put our respective medical files on our beds. She then asked me if I was to be operated by certain surgeon whose name was different from my surgeons. I replied in the negative and gave her the correct surgeons name. It seemed that she had mixed up my surgeons name with the other patient waiting in the room. However when she made the same error a second time, I was worried and quickly reached for my file to check if they had the details right. Since I was not wearing my spectacles I had to really peer into the file by bringing close to my face to read and check that they had all their data correct. Seeing this the other patient also reached out for his file to check. Thankfully all data was correct and the nurse quickly corrected herself too. She the asked me if I could walk from there to the OT since the attendants to wheel the bed had gone out somewhere. I said sure and was directed to take the first turn right and go the second OT room on the left.
That was simple enough and I went and knocked on the OT door to check if this was my surgeons OT room. The assistants inside replied in the affirmative so I went in and lay down on the OT table. The room was exactly like what one sees of operation theaters in movies. There were huge lights above the bed and the OT bed itself was very narrow that I almost felt that I would fall off any moment. There was a large grill on the ceiling above the bed which was an air-conditioning outlet and the chilled air coming in thru that at full force was making me really cold. The assistants were busy preparing for the OT and were arranging all equipment and loading all kinds of liquid drips and other things. While talking among themselves I overheard them mention about a graft operation. I again wondered if I was in the right OT room. I quickly asked them if this was the OT for my fistula operation. Thankfully they said yes. After that, every time someone entered the OT room I would strain my neck to check if my surgeon had come, as I still wanted to be sure that I be in the right place. Finally just around 5 minutes before 8am my surgeon entered and I heaved a sigh of relief. She was at her cheerful best and greeted me loudly right from the door.
The operation started soon after.My left arm was extended horizontally and put on another support table attached to the bed. A green cloth was put in in front of my eyes to block my view since the surgery was to happen under local anesthesia and I was going to be conscious throughout. However the surgeon also gave me some sedatives, which made me half asleep. She started taking to me about my work and so on while she created the fistula. I chatted with her and answered her questions while floating in and out of sleep. In fact when it finished, and I was wheeled back to my day care room I thought just half an hour had passed but it was actually close to three hours that had elapsed. Strangely I felt no pain. I just saw a bandage in my wrist and felt quite normal. This was partly the effect of local anesthesia and partly the effect of painkillersadministered. Soon the surgeon came to visit me and said that everything was fine and that my fistula was working fine. She told me to come back after a week to change the dressing and asked me to take the antibiotics and painkillers.
Since the Nephrologist in the hospital had also asked me to come and meet him after the surgery, I went to the OPD and waited in the reception area outside his room. In half hour my turn came and he immediately examined my fistula. In fact he pressed so hard on the bandage that I felt a sharp pain for the first time after the surgery. When I screamed in pain, he said that he had forgotten that I had just had my surgery. Anyway he said the fistula was excellent as the “thrill” or “flow” was very good. I was glad to hear a reaffirmation of what the surgeon had just said.
Soon after meeting the Nephrologist, my sister and I left for home. It was a hot day and the car parked in the open had become quite hot.It took some time to cool down after the AC was switched on. My sister drove and I sat in the passenger seat in front. After driving for a while, I suddenly felt extremely nauseous and felt like throwing up. I told my sister to immediately stop the car by the side of the road. I put my seat on full recline and put the AC on full blast. After 5 minutes of rest in that position I felt better. I then had some water, which felt quite bitter because of the effect of the medicines and then proceeded again on our way.
I was feeling quite hungry by now. One has to come on an empty stomach for an operation. One is not allowed to even drink water. Since midnight last I had had nothing to drink or eat. I was feeling quite hungry now. Moreover, I did not want to go home and eat some boring food so I told my sister to stop at the branch of a large restaurant food chain near our house and had full Indian meal of Rajma-Chawal. On reaching home I rested and went to sleep. I was woken up by my brother-in-law’s call wanting to know if all had gone fine with the surgery. While speaking with him I again felt a little bit of nausea but was able to suppress that feeling. For dinner my eldest sister had come over and got a lot of Idli’s for me as of late that was one dish that I was fond of eating, since I was finding it difficult to eat chapattis. However as soon as I had a couple of Idli’s I had such a strong sense of nausea that I could not stop myself from vomiting. I was quite worried as in the discharge summary it was mentioned that in case of any symptoms post surgery like vomiting, one should rush back to the hospital. We decided to first call the surgeon. However she did not take her call. So we called our local lady doctor, the south Indian lady whom had referred me to this hospital. She told me not to worry and said that normally one should avoid solid food for 24 hours after a surgery and vomiting in case you eat after a surgery is quite common due to the reaction of all the medication administered during the surgery. She also told me to take a tablet to prevent any further vomiting. Thankfully there was no repeat of this and I managed to go off to sleep for the night.
It was only after a few days after the fistula surgery that I started feeling pain in my wrist as by then my not only the effect of the local anesthesia had worn off, even the painkillers had been stopped. A week after the fistula surgery I went to meet the surgeon to get my wrist dressing changed. There was some relief from pain after the dressing was changed. I saw the scar of the surgery for the first time and it looked quite horrible.