中The anaesthetist was calling my name. I could vaguely feel that someone was tapping my shoulder too. Umm...... so the ninja has done a doron then?
Guess what I was thinking about at that moment: Plan A or B? Food? My whereabouts?
None of the above. Apparently my mind was busily looping the term “gene-transcript mapping”, which I almost uttered in response to the anaesthetist’s call.
What the hell? Of all the things I could have been thinking about, it was work that occupied my mind during the operation. Why?
Looks like the drug’s effect was waning and my mind wasn’t too clogged up, so much so that I knew my anaesthetist wouldn’t have a clue what “gene-transcript mapping” was, so I greeted him by name instead.
I was still rather drowsy, eyes half closed. My surgeon was the next person calling me.
“Was it plan A?” “Yes.”
“Benign?” “Yes.”
Phew! Well, in hindsight, I didn’t have to ask whether they went for plan A or B, since they wouldn’t have expected me to respond verbally if it’s the latter.
There’s no pain on my left side so far, thank goodness! I could move my arms and legs a little too......
These initial conversations didn’t take place in the operating theatre, but the recovery room. Before leaving me, I vaguely caught that Mr J said he'd contacted my parents, and that he would see me the following day. Taking care of me was an experienced nurse. The room was very peaceful, free from the unrelenting beeping sounds from machines, people’s noisy chatter or a flurry of footsteps in and out of the room.
The sleepy me didn't really have much energy to talk, but time seemed to be passing more quickly with some small talks. The nurse said he’s worked in this hospital for 16 years and Mr J is an excellent surgeon, so he’s pretty sure my recovery would be swift. He also explained why Mr J had to be there for my operation —— it's for the team to consult him at the spot if they had had any doubt on any decisions.
Ah, this was the first time I heard Mr J’s colleague speaking so highly of him!
The operation was quite a feat. Despite the mandatory COVID testing all patients had to undertake prior to the operations, the ear, nose and throat (ENT) were still considered anatomically high-risk regions with potentially high loads of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. A TV station got access to film one such operation in our local hospital, and I saw the footage after I was discharged. Wow, the ENT surgeons weren’t wearing the usual protective equipment, but looked more like cosmonauts ready for moonwalk (not the dance move)! Can you imagine doing something as delicate and precise as surgery while wearing something so bulky for hours? Do you remember the major cranial nerves near my incision? Accidental injury to any one of them could result in misery.
Scheduling was probably another logistic challenge for my operation. Scheduling of or for whom, you may wonder? I’m referring not only to the “buy-one-get-one-free” surgeons, but also other medical professionals as observers. Mr J asked me ages ago if I would consent to having observers or even documentary makers during my operation for educational purposes, and I said no problem at all. Since parapharyngeal space tumours are very hard to come by, it made sense to make the most of my case as a clinical specimen and share the knowledge, just like astronomers studying rare eclipses and comets. In the end I don’t think they filmed anything (perhaps there wasn’t space to fit the filming crew due to COVID?), but I’m pretty sure quite a few medics did come to observe.
I didn’t have much sense of the passing of time in the recovery room, but that was no bother. It’s rather cosy there. Also, I wasn’t in pain, that’s the key!
It was time to leave the recovery room for the ward. My mum arrived after 7pm. From her, I found out that Mr J gave them a call at 5:45pm about the operation’s success.
So my parents did benefit from the 30-minute buffer Mr J engineered!
Mr J did more than just bringing the long-awaited news to my parents, my mum added, “Mr J phoned back for a second time to confirm that he’s arranged with the ward for my visit tonight. He advised me not to arrive before 7pm as you would probably be in the recovery room still. I just noted down the ward’s name and set off when the time came.”
Ah, that’s why Mr J was jotting down my parents’ details!
Prior to the pandemic, all visitors were welcome to the ward during the designated visiting hours without having to book in advance. This of course was changed because of the pandemic, to space out the visits and enforce social distancing measures. It would have been okay if my parents were left to themselves to sort out the booking (language barrier is not an issue here), but it would have been quite a hassle. First of all, they would need to get hold of the ward’s phone number. And let’s say my parents were lucky and got through to someone straight away, they would inevitably face a series of questions on: the name of the patient, the patient’s hospital number if known, what operation the patient had had, when approximately the patient got to the ward, and, of course, the visitor’s name. All thanks to Mr J, my anxious next-of-kins were spared of this hassle.
I was kind of drifting in and out of sleep after mum went home for the night. Perhaps I was still under the effect of anaesthesia? That’s great, please keep the pain at bay......
The following morning, I woke up feeling stiff and numb on my left neck, chin and ear. There was a tiny hint of pain, but almost negligible when compared to arthritic or period pain that I am familiar with.
What irritated me most was in fact a surgical drain under the incision. It’s basically a plastic tube inserted into my neck for draining any fluid collected near the ninja’s hiding place into a plastic bag outside the body. The drain hole itself wasn’t painful, but given its position, the tube either got tugged a little or ended up poking my neck whenever I was moving. Getting out of bed required special attention as I mustn't forget to carry it with me like a precious handbag! The bag had to be at the right height for minimal interference with the tube. Dropping the fluid-filled bag would be a disaster as gravity dictates that it would be like Newton’s apple, yanking out the drainage tube in the process. A nurse had pity on me and attempted to pin the bag to my hospital gown, hoping to free my hands, but the bag was really too heavy to be secured on the flimsy fabric of the gown, so much that the gown kept slipping down my left shoulder due to the bag’s weight (decency forgone......) and the tube poking got worse. In the end we had to revert back to the manual solution.
By the afternoon, finally I got to meet my surgeon. He said they removed quite a dense, spherical, sheathed mass, roughly the size of a small orange, in the three-hour operation. It appeared benign and was sent for histological analyses. Yet, the membranous sheath was so wafer thin that it wasn’t strong enough to hold the tumour together as it was cupped in his hands, so the tumour burst. That resulted in some leakage of tumour cells, but he reassured me that the team flushed the tumour bed thoroughly so it should be all fine. I asked if he could tell the source of the tumour. “Possibly an ectopic salivary gland” was the answer. Oh, “ectopic” salivary gland —— is there such a thing? Well, yes, apparently. Another anatomy lesson!
I stayed in the hospital for three days. I was so convinced that pain from the surgical wound was a matter of “when”, not “if”, so I was adamant that I would ask for painkillers at the first sign of attack. Yet, miraculously, ever since waking up from the operation, except for one evening when I did take a low dose of painkiller to ease some irritation near the surgical drain for a better night’s sleep, the dreaded pain never came. How come? It’s nothing to do with being stoic —— I can be stoic about many things but not this. It couldn’t be the general anaesthesia either since the operation was carried out days ago. What’s the secret?