My first surgery as a patient
One of my recent photos. Taken at Kamara in Thessaloniki, Greece - Kodak Gold 200
Context: Where do I begin? Well, I should probably provide some context as to what happened before I even found out I had two hernias.
Firstly, I want to state that this hasn’t been my first time being a patient this year. In my last blog where I wrote about “Insight and Tips for Medical Students Starting their Clinical Rotations Part 2” I talked about having gone through multiple Cardiologists because I started having persistent palpitations and chest pains. It began when I realized that I could persistently feel my heart beating at irregular intervals in a “Thump……THUMP THUMP THUMP” fashion. Having compared the sound of my heart to those of patients that we had begun to examine in our “Internal Medicine” department I realized something was a bit off with mine. After waiting 10 hours to be examined at the ER they told me I could have some problem with my Myocardium (“myo-” relating to muscle - muscle of the heart). After a few months of exams, an MRI included, and now having been on beta-blockers for the past 2+ months, my palpitations have for the most part disappeared. The diagnosis made was “Ectopic beats” which basically means that I sometimes just might skip a beat or two at random and inconsistent intervals. I also have a case of “Athlete’s heart” which means that the wall of my “Left ventricle” is thicker than normal, providing more power when pumping blood to the rest of my body. I initially got quite scared when I was diagnosed with this because I have heard of many cases of athletes suddenly dying due to this condition but I was reassured by the multiple doctors I went to that these are unique cases where these athlete’s hearts and multitudes of times bigger than the average. Much larger than mine to say the least.
I went to the Urologist for a general checkup since it had been a long time to do so, while the doctor was palpating my groin he asked me to cough, and with the first cough he tells me “You have a hernia”. This came as a complete surprise to me since I had actually palpated myself just a few weeks before that and didn’t feel anything. I asked him how he managed to come to such a conclusion to which he tells me “There is a slight “whooshing” every time you cough in a specific area, it is quite prominent”. At that moment I was like “You have to be kidding me”. A flurry of emotions began to swirl through my mind. “First my heart and now this??”.
Day before surgery:
The day before the surgery was a weird one, to say the least. It wasn’t that I was scared of the actual surgery or anything going wrong but that there would be people poking around inside me, moving my organs around in an attempt to “fix” me. I have a fear of being experimented on. I frequently have acute episodes in which I am vividly aware of “having a body”, yes I know this might seem a bit weird but the sheer fact that we have a body with stuff in it that is working continually to keep us alive is something that freaks me out. It is both wildly fascinating and revoltingly horrifying. During my trip to Auschwitz, the scariest part for me was seeing the building where female prisoners were being used as guinea pigs by SS scientists. I bought a book from the souvenir store called “Photographs of Auschwitz” which had images taken by SS members right at the moments when they were trying out new “innovative” methods on their subjects. These images stuck with me. Their motives were plenty, to say the least, but a few that I remember were how they were trying to produce a vaccine that would change anyone’s eye color to blue along with artificially inseminating women to bear the maximum amount of children possible so that the “Master race” could multiple as fast as possible and overtake the rest. These are just a few examples of things that scare me, things that by all accounts go against nature and what is meant to be in an attempt to reach some sadistic “utopic” idea. Anyway, the day was more about me mentally preparing myself for the next month that lay ahead. I couldn’t stand the idea that I wouldn’t be able to workout for at least a month after the surgery but I knew that I had to follow the Doctor’s commands such that I wouldn’t end up in the hospital again and waste even more time.
Surgery Day:
Time: 6:30 am
Me and my Mom pack our things to head to the Hospital. We meet up with my girlfriend who is waiting at a coffee store next to the hospital and head into the surgical ward where I leave my things on my allocated bed. The nurses handed me some paper-like clothes to change into including “Calvin Klein’s” latest pair of underwear made from the same thing “color catchers” are probably made from. I lay there on the bed, awaiting what was to come while occasionally glancing at the window to my right. Out the window presented itself a scene straight from a postcard. The road separating the hospital from a steep incline leading up to what is called “Ano Poli” meaning “Upper City”. At the peak of the scene, you could see the ancient wall of the city standing tall watching over Thessaloniki. The colors were saturated and bright with hues of green blending with the purplish tint that the beginning of any day brings along with it. There was only one problem with the view, the graveyard. Yes, looking out you could also see the city’s main graveyard like a stain on a windscreen. My mom jokingly said “I guess whoever dies here in the hospital is sent right there, low transport costs” which weirdly lightened the mood a bit. I was genuinely quite nervous though, not really of the surgery itself but of being put under anesthesia. As I lay there for what felt like an hour (it was more like 30 minutes) the nurse came to pick me up to take me into the ward. I remember feeling quite cold as I was being taken through the corridors and the nurse noticed it, she asked me in an almost motherly tone “Are you scared?” to which I explained myself and received this answer: “There is no reason for you to be scared, here I am on my feet working and I have had a total of 10 open surgeries most of them in this very hospital so you are going to be fine.” That did the trick for me. Another nurse hooked me up to an IV and a few minutes later I was taken into the OR. It still amazes me that Medicine is such a collaborative effort, it takes many to save one. I remembered the advertisement of MSF (Doctor’s without borders) with the multiple hands of everyone involved in the process of helping one person laying over each other, with the main hand being that of the surgeon. It brought some peace to my mind.
As I lay on the surgical table I kept thinking to myself that there was no possible way they would put me to sleep. How could they? I was wide awake and in a state of alertness. Did they actually think they could put me into a comatose state? One of the head surgeons came into the room and started asking me a few questions (probably in an attempt to calm me down), he gave me a “Fatherly Doctor” kind of vibe, at least that’s the feeling I got, not in the calming sort of way but more in the “I know everything because I am a Doctor” way, but I didn’t want to judge too harshly since I didn’t know him or what he is actually like as a person. The persistent thought of how it would be nearly impossible for them to put me out was the only thing dominating my current state. It was like being hooked up to an IV that was pumping Freddo Espresso (hold the sugar) directly into my system. But then, it happened. BAM! Like the window’s blue screen of death, I was out. No explanation, just blackness. The only thing that would cast over me would be the sad face emoji “:(“ indicating how my judgment and ignorance of anesthesia’s strength had taken its swing at me. The duration of the surgery lasted around 4 hours, to me it lasted about 2 seconds. After the “2 seconds” I began to wake up feeling like a bag of garbage left out in the hot summer heat. The nurse was taking me back to my bed where I would call home for the next 24 hours. As we approached the main exit of the surgical I noticed my Mom and Girlfriend standing outside happy to see that I was alive. I, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with anyone. My mom quickly began taking photos of me while I was being taken out of the surgical ward, this angered me beyond what I could even think was possible, but still being high off my ass because of the pain meds, the only way I could show off that anger was by waving my arms around and grunting. I said some pretty harsh things to them, I didn’t even notice what I was saying during the act of saying it, I took back what I said a few hours after some of the pain had subsided.
A few hours after the surgery
After having spent some time on my bed reflecting on what I had just experienced, it occurred to me how fast I was actually recovering. The doctors told me it was better I do the surgery now that I am younger since I will recover a lot faster but I didn’t actually think it would take this short amount of time. An hour after the surgery, I was able to lift myself higher to a more comfortable position. Some more time after that, I was able to lift my hips off the bed to put my pants back on. Eventually, with the help of my girlfriend and Mom, I stood up to go to the bathroom managing to get to it without them helping me almost at all. But again, my ignorance got to me and it all almost came crashing down. As I finished taking my first piss roughly 6 hours after the surgery, I began to feel something rushing up from inside my stomach to my throat. It was coming up with force, making itself known to me with every passing second. A faint buzzing noise entered the chat, growing louder accompanied by a harsh vignetting clouding my vision, slowly dragging me toward darkness. I was about to faint. I had let my body relax after hours of stress but that “letting go of tension” came all too sudden and now I was about to feel its wrath. I shouted for my Mom to come hold me as I knew I was imminently about to fall, she rushed into the bathroom and grabbed me. I repeated the phrase “It will all be ok, everything will be fine” as I lay in her arms with barely 20% of my vision still intact and a prominent ringing making itself very known to me still blasting through my ears. Repeating the phrase started to bring me out of the darkness and I soon regained control of myself. The ringing subsided and the vignetting went from -60 to about -10. But the force from my stomach itched itself closer to the back of my throat, eventually, I let go and threw up into the sink. The color shocked me as it was a bile-colored green, I was assured after by the nurses that this color was normal as I had only been taking in liquids through IV. I went back to the bed and regained my control, resting the tiredness away.
The next day
The next day I managed to get up a few more times in the morning completely on my own, again I was thrilled by how much progress I seemed to be making so quickly. Little thing after little thing, the pronounced power of the small made me feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude bigger than I had felt before. Like the butterfly effect happening in front of me, the small things turning my gratitude into something larger than life. I also realized that having gone through this experience made me more emotional than I had ever been. I wanted to cry at almost anything that made me feel any sense of “being alive”. It was more like this experience was a reality check, making me realize the power of the small and of the things I already have. After some time my doctor came by to check how I was doing and to replace my bandages. The most important thing he told me though was that I was now able to drink coffee, hehe. You bet I drank every bit of coffee I could possibly get my hands on after permission was granted. After a few more hours, I was given instructions on how to handle myself for the next coming weeks and discharged. I decided that I would walk back home since the hospital was only about 10 minutes away. I left the hospital looking like an absolute hobo with my hair down and baggy pants that gave my wounds space to breathe. My Mom accompanied me on the way back home, holding me with every step I took just to ensure I wouldn’t suddenly collapse like I almost did the previous day. We stopped by a bakery on our way, the smell of the bread bringing me to imagine myself one day owning a bakery/cafe, something I really look forward to doing. We got a few things and headed back home.
1 Month after the surgery
Now that I am finishing up with this blog, I feel confident to say that I have mostly recovered. But, I am still cautious with what it is I do. Now that I am able to workout I use very lightweight, but have not gone back to ab workouts yet, which will need a little more time. The first week was quite the challenge as it felt that at times I had long, sharp needles being inserted into me parallel to the anterior surface of my body right into my groin. I felt useless and found it very difficult to go down steps as the weight of my intestines and everything else in my abdomen would push against my skin with every step, going up though wasn’t that big of a problem. There was a time during the healing process when I offered to be a volunteer in an ambulance as a so-called “Medical assistant” for the “Alexander the Great Marathon”. On the day of the marathon, I mistook the exact location of where I was supposed to meet up with everyone else, so, to get there faster I took one of those e-scooters that are everywhere in Thessaloniki. I found a few of my friends who were walking to the meetup point and offered to take one of them just a few hundred meters away to the point, what a dumb idea that was. As we were riding I passed over a slippery surface and lost control of the scooter, in a state of panic I pressed on the gas even harder resulting in the both of us collapsing to the ground. With all my weight + the impact force from the speed I was going, I fell entirely on my right knee and arm. Thankfully, my friend didn’t suffer from any serious damage, she scraped her face a bit. I felt and still at times feel like absolute shit for what happened. I went to the doctor a few days later to get a full check-up to see if the impact had affected my past surgery, thankfully everything was fine. If there is one thing I learned from this experience it is this, NEVER ride a scooter with more than 1 person on at a time, and never ride without protection.
Ending
All in all, these experiences have given me a slightly different outlook on life and I feel that I am now able to face more challenges head-on with a different outlook. If there is one way to end this it would be by saying: When something is bothering you or you know something is coming to you, do not hide thinking it will turn the other way, face it, beat it, and move on.
I could’ve easily delayed this procedure and done it in my 30’s or 40’s but by then, who knows what will happen. Best to do the things you know you need to do when you MUST do them. Face life head-on.
Hope you enjoyed and gained something from it.
Until next time.
