How I discovered what an OR looks like
from the patient perspective
It was Thursday, around February, 2010. About 3 pm my stomach pain was just too, well, painful, and I couldn’t concentrate anymore on my work, so I just called it a day and went home. Believing my gastritis was acting up again, I took the usual painkillers and went to bed. Around 8 pm the pain was still there, and I noticed another stinging pain somewhere in my lower abdomen (specifically the right side, from my perspective). ”That’s odd”, I thought to myself, and realizing that the pain just won’t go away, I just decided to rush to a hospital, where I was conducted to a bed. In a wheelchair. Unnerving as hell, but as they said it was standard procedure.
Medical statistics says that around 1 in 35 males will develop acute appendicitis at some point of his life, which is about 2.8% of the male population; in females it is around 1 in 50. After a blood screening showing that my leukocytes count were way up from the normal range and some incredibly painful examinations (e.g. poking around my abdomen until I curled up in pain in the exact spot) I discovered I was that 1 in 35. Fortunately I was in the initial stages of the sudden disease, but nevertheless I had to be operated fast (as in as fast as possible). It was already 1 am into Friday when all the medical examinations where completed, and 12 hours later I was entering the innards of the hospital. In a stretcher. Standard procedure, as usual.
Already inside, I’ve seen a lot of wires being glued onto myself, a pressure monitor on my right arm, another monitor attached to one of my fingers and a somewhat resembling a cross pipe in the IV needle, with two enormous syringes connected at the sides and a open space at the front. After some quick chat with the anesthesiologist, he came up with a syringe smaller than a pencil, told me to start counting to ten, and applied it in the remaining open pipe on my hand. I only remember counting until four, and then suddenly I was on the recovery room. Three hours had passed like an instant. I was discharged in Sunday, and in 15 days I was fully recovered.
Until that eventful Thursday, I was considering myself lucky for having never needed to pass a night at the hospital, not even a broken bone or anything; the most time I’ve ever spent was maybe one hour after taking some IV medication. But after that day, I considered myself lucky for having medical insurance, because only the surgery (an videolaparoscopy) would have cost me about 3500 dollars, not even counting the days I stayed or the IV medicines I took (I took a lot of them). Fortunately, I am fully healed, and the only things that remains from that day are four small scars (2~3 cm) on my abdomen. And a terrifying trip on a wheelchair on a badly illuminated hospital corridor. Maybe I shouln’t have played all those horror games before.
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