//Forever Imperfect

Saturday, October 9, 2021 @ 2:19 AM | 0 Comment [s]

How has it been forever since I wrote on this blog? I'll try to catch you up on all the things you've missed since my last post. A LOT has happened but that's not the main reason I'm writing this right now. I'm currently going through a really rough patch and I'm not sure if it's just another "episode" (not sure how many more I have to deal with) or I'm just genuinely unwell in my brain and just not bothered to get professional help. I recently went through my first-ever hospitalisation and surgical experience in my lifetime and it was/still is pretty traumatising. I don't know why, but as I kept on crying for the past week, I thought of writing down about the whole ordeal. Just so that I could remember/reminisce/try not to forget about the whole experience and this blog just came to mind.

Prior to the whole abscess thing, I had chronic itching on my nether regions but I thought nothing of it. It went for several months and I didn't think to see a doctor because I didn't think they would be able to do much for me. It got so bad to the point where I'd be woken up at night just to scratch myself like crazy and would often tear the sensitive areas. Because of that, I'd find myself struggling to pee because it just felt like someone was cutting up my skin. It burnt and it was so fucking painful. Still I did nothing. I knew that I was gonna infect myself with some type of pathogen sooner or later. And then it finally did happen.

29.09.2021

I don't know what came over me, but a few days prior, I booked an appointment with a female GP specifically who specialised in sexual health and gynecology (? maybe can't recall exactly) but my appointment was only available on the 6th of Oct. Who knew that it would all come rushing in sooner than that? I started to feel a lump between my butt cheeks and thought it was just another one of those small butt pimples that you get which eventually go away. It caused a little bit of discomfort but it wasn't severe enough to make me too concerned about it.

I had a little trouble falling asleep because it was uncomfortable and a little painful. I thought to myself, just bear with it for a little while. You've had these before, they're usually minor. Just focus on getting up early for the lab session tomorrow. At some point in time I fell asleep.

30.09.2021

I went to MICR lab that morning. I was in a bit of a mood and wasn't stoked at the idea of knowing that I don't have anyone familiar going into the lab with me. There were some familiar faces and acquaintances but we were nothing more than just "hi-bye" type of friendships. I sat next to a girl who had bright pink hair, knee-high doc martens (a bit jealous) and a frilly skirt. Her style was definitely grungey but when I spoke to her she was extremely friendly and was the one who actually initiated conversation.

The lab was lengthy, but great. It was my first time using a Bunsen burner to sterilise some of the lab tools because in poly we weren't allowed to use the burners and just used disposable inoculating loops etc. I was in a bit of pain and struggled to sit from standing. At some points I had to sit with my legs wide open, feet on the floor and my butt not actually touching the stool, just hovering. I knew I had to somehow rush the GP appointment. I made the decision to go to the clinic later after lunch. I came back to UniHall, grabbed lunch at the dining hall and met up with Michael, Ruth and Brian. I asked them if the clinic took walk-ins and they were unsure but were quite positive that they did allow them.

I was quite reluctant as I was walking to the clinic and my mood was extremely down at this point. I went up to the clinic and the receptionist told me that they wouldn't allow walk-ins because it was fully booked for the day. I then told them that I did have an appointment next week, but thought I'd come down earlier because I was in a bit of pain. When the lady heard that, she started to panic a little and very quietly asked me if the pain was really bad and where I was feeling it. At this point, I was getting a little choked up and was on the verge of tears. I vaguely circled my abdomen with my hand and she suggested that I see the nurse first to see if she could assess me first. I started to cry and grabbed some tissues off the counter.

When I met the nurse, she gave off the very indifferent vibes and she was more confused about why I was crying. I told her the whole itching and lump story to her but she couldn't do anything more than to advise me to put a cold compress and take some painkillers. She booked me in to see a female GP the next day because on that day there were only male doctors. I thought OK sure. Had I known it was more serious, I would've just seen the male doctor. Maybe, I don't know. This is a little more relevant to later.

So I left the clinic crying and having an anxiety attack. I didn't have the strength to study in the library like I planned to and instead walked all the way back to my room and had a good cry. I took a nap at some point and it was quite uncomfortable because of the pain and because I was still fully dressed at the edge of my bed. I woke up and got a text from Michael asking if I wanted to join them at a carnival. At first I was worried because I had a test in the morning and a quiz due in the afternoon the next day but I was also compelled to go out for a bit. So I did.

I bought the tickets, went down for a really early dinner and met up with them. Yan later decided to join and it gave us the added benefit of having a driver and free transport. I was in a bit of pain and discomfort here but still OK. I took some panadols but I wasn't sure if it's because they were out of date or because the pain was more localised and superficial that they didn't really do much of the painkilling. We drove to Clarement Showgrounds, went on a few rides, struggled to walk a bit, then went to MacDonalds before returning to UniHall. The pain was a little bit more pronounced at this point and I told Ruth about how I thought it might be hemorrhoids. We had a bit of girl-talk, talked about boys etc.

When we came back, I planned to study a bit more for the test but was in pain and was also mindlessly scrolling through my phone that it was midnight before I knew it. I decided to just go to bed, wake up a bit earlier and study before the test was available online. That night was excruciatingly painful. I could not sleep until 3am. Lying on my back didn't help, neither did sleeping on my sides. Everytime I tried to roll over or make very subtle lower-body movements, it stung like a bitch and the pain radiated down to my ankles. I decided this was getting even more serious.

01.10.2021

I don't think I slept very well. Maybe 4 hours maximum of some sort of shut-eye. I woke up, got dressed and did the quiz. I was so close to getting a distinction and I couldn't help but beat myself up for it. I texted Huien and asked her to study together. She got back to me at her usual waking hours because I was up a lot earlier for the test. We studied up until lunch time and then we broke off to do lunch. She suggested that we study a bit later after lunch but I told her I had an appointment. I made budae-jjigae with whatever little ingredients I had but even then it was excruciatingly painful. Everytime I tried to sit or stand it hurt. It was worse when I bent down at the waist. I found the least painful position was when I was sitting on my feet but that just made my feet go numb.

I went to the clinic again and met the GP. My Universe was playing on the radio and it plucked on my heartstrings a bit. It was a bittersweet moment. The doctor was extremely kind and let me tell my side of the story without interrupting. She examined the lump and told me it was an abscess. She told me that I might have to go to hospital to get it drained. I thought it would just be a simple, straightforward procedure like popping a pimple but with sterile equipments and it would just take less than 3 hours max. I was so wrong. She told me to get someone to drive me to the A&E at SCGH. I got a bit panicked.

I could feel myself starting to cry again but I held it in until I left the office. She was extremely kind and empathetic that I burst into tears in the waiting room. I gripped the referral letter in my hand and left the clinic solemnly. Did I go to the hospital straight? No. The workaholic and anxious me went to the library and finished the quiz that was due that evening. I was afraid of missing the deadline and not getting a valid excuse later on to get some leniency for it. I'm not proud of what I did. I knew I should have just dropped it and went to the hospital earlier. I was crying in the library and tried to gather my thoughts. What would I need? I'd probably need my passport, insurance details. What else?

I struggled to walk back to my room because the pain just seemed even more pronounced than ever. I was limping, it was raining, it took me twice as long to reach my room and I immediately called Ckg Ayu. I tried to hold it in but when I heard her voice starting to sound concerned, I burst into tears again. She sounded panicked, and assured me that she would come round and pick me up to bring me to hospital. She told me to gather my things, calm down, and pack some clothes just in case. I wasn't 100% confident that they would keep me more than a night (at worst) so I only packed an extra underwear and a pair of sweatpants.

She picked me up and we went to the A&E at SCGH. We waited for about 3 hours until I was properly assessed by a doctor. I think the abscess at some stage here, started to discharge itself because as I got up to walk to the assessment ward, I didn't feel much pain and my legs started to feel wet. They told me to collect a urine sample and that was when I discovered blood on my underwear. I quickly assumed it was my period but it was a little earlier than expected. I gave a mid-catch sample so as to not get the blood in the urine sample and walked over to the assigned bed.

I asked for some sanitary pads, put them on and went back to the bed again. They took some vitals, drew some blood. I felt quite comfortable here. I wasn't in much pain anymore. I just realised how comfortable the bed was, that's all. I then asked the doctor who took my blood if I could be assessed by a female doctor and she told me that while she couldn't guarantee it, they would try their best. I totally understood and was quite confident I'd be OK with a male doctor examining me. Later on a female doctor came and looked at the abscess, confirmed that it was starting to discharge itself and reported it to the male doctor that was supposed to be in charge of me.

He came over, told me that they'd put me on antibiotics overnight which meant they'd keep me in there. Ckg Ayu came in with my belongings, she assured me that it was fine. I finally called Ibu and told her the whole story. She immediately transferred me a large sum of money which just made me even more panicked. I was dreading the IV cannula but thankfully they inserted it on my lower arm and not at the back of my hands because I don't think I'd manage well with them there.

I got changed, got the antibiotics administered and was wheeled into a more quiet ward. I had a room all to myself and it was really quiet. Dead silent. All I could hear was a distant snoring from another patient or their relative in the next room. The nurses were really kind and told me that because they might need to perform surgery (! yes this made me so anxious) that I had to fast and couldn't eat after midnight. At this point, I realised I had skipped dinner entirely because we were waiting in the A&E to be served and it was already 11pm.

The nurse gave me a vegetarian sandwich with tomatoes that I reluctantly swallowed and a cup of watered down milo. I wasn't complaining. I just really wanted to stave off the hunger for fear that they wouldn't feed me in the morning. My arm hurt a little bit, it felt cold and like I was cramping up but it was just the antibiotics. Once they gave me some fluids it got better and I managed to fall asleep at some point. It was really relaxing and at some points I forgot that I was in a hospital. The nurse came in every 2 hours to check on my vitals and I wasn't too bothered by it.

02.10.2021

In the morning, a female doctor came in and assessed the abscess. She told me that they had to perform surgery to drain it and I was so devastated. My heart shattered and I was terrified. Everything else happened really quickly. An elderly HCW came in to perform a checklist with me and she told me off when I wouldn't stop texting other people about how I was literally about, to, enter, surgery. She instructed me to take a shower with some antiseptic soap, put on a fresh gown and remove my jewelry. I couldn't remove my bracelet and so she just taped it onto my wrist so it didn't move around.

When the porter came in to pick me up for surgery, I was thrown aback at how quickly I was going into it. I said my final goodbyes to Huien (yes I was terrified) and got told off again by that same lady about how I wouldn't live without my phone. They wheeled me to the recovery area outside of the operating theatres and did another checklist with me. There was another lady who was just coming out of surgery and the doctors were trying to rouse her. Another man came in after me and wished me luck as it came to my turn. The doctors there also wished me well as I was being wheeled into the operating room and that was when it really hit me.

I burst into tears and couldn't hold myself back here. I was so upset. So many thoughts went through my head but the main one was how did I get to this point? I was nervous and anxious. The anesthesiologist tried to calm me by asking me about what I'm studying and at what point of my studies I'm at. It relaxed me a bit but then another anesthesiologist came to my side and assured me that they knew what they were doing, that they'd take good care of me and that anesthesia nowadays is very safe. No one warned me about the emotional baggage I'd have to deal with afterwards though.

I was given some medications through my cannula, pushed into the OR, moved to the operating table and they gave me more medications. They gave me a gas mask and told me to take deep breaths. I took huge breaths, partly because I was on the verge of hyperventilating from anxiety, but I looked up at the lights above me and focused on breathing. It smelt a bit off, and then that was my last memory. I woke up in the recovery room later, it didn't feel long at all. I heard the doctors working around me and trying to talk to me. I was surprised to be able to move around more than I expected. I told the doctor that I had to wee really bad and she brought a bedpan over.

They brought my bed up to a sitting position so I could pull myself up. Yes, I had to pull myself up but I was surprised at my strength considering how weak I felt, overall. I pulled my mesh underwear that they'd put me in and squatted on the bedpan. It was quite hard to pee and I didn't have much control on releasing the pee. It came at very short intervals. Afterwards the doctors realised I had soiled the dressing and so they applied a new one. It was so exhausting being rolled over and they also placed an oxygen cannula on me just to make sure my oxygen saturation didn't decline. I remember shivering and hearing one of the doctors ask if I was cold. I nodded my head and they tucked me into warm blankets. Real warm, like the kind that just came out of a dryer. I fell back asleep at some point and then woke up again because they were transferring me to the general ward.

I was half awake when they wheeled me to my shared ward. I wasn't sure how many other patients were with me but I told the nurses that I had to pee again. I tried to pee once, but nothing much came out and then not long later I told them I had to pee again and they gave me the bedpan again. I think I peed more than expected because I managed to soil the bedsheet and they had to change it using the log-roll method. It was so tiring and I also soiled the dressing again. They eventually removed the oxygen cannula because my O2 sats were back to normal but they were quite worried about my low BP. They did a bladder scan with what looked like an ultrasound machine, to measure the amount of urine left in my bladder. It was about 300ml.

I fell back asleep after one of the french nurses questioned me if anyone was coming to see me. I told her I was fatigued and she laughed because she thought I was speaking to her in french. She was extremely nice and I miss her a lot. Too bad she was off her shift at 9.30pm that night. I woke up to her measuring my BP and Ckg Ayu was beside me. I burst into tears and my HR immediately shot up. They acknowledged that it was because I was a little upset and distressed so they tried to calm me down and my HR subsequently went back down. I was a bit groggy and sleepy but I managed to have full conversations with Ckg Ayu, albeit a bit slower than normal.

I had a few bites of dinner and then I had to pee again. The nurse suggested that I get up from bed to prevent bedsores and so I sat on the chair for a bit. I felt really lightheaded when I stood up and thought I might be a fall risk at this point. The nurse then brought me to the toilet so I could pee but she also placed a bedpan in the toilet so she could measure how much I was peeing. I nearly fell over in the toilet because I felt dizzy. She suggested I use the bedpan on my bed but I was adamant on using the toilet. I sat down and the urine came out in short intervals again. When I thought I was done, I wasn't. The pee started again. It was like it was partially out of my control. But I felt a lot better when I was truly sure that I'd emptied majority of the urine.

When I got back to my bed, walking slowly like a full term pregnant lady, they did another bladder scan and there was only 60ml of urine left in my bladder which was great news for them. I later learnt that anesthesia can cause urinary retention and I was glad that I could clear my bladder on my own without needing a catheter inserted or anything. I went back to bed and slept again. The nurses came to do my vitals throughout the night and I was feeling a lot better and conscious in the middle of the night. They stopped my antibiotics and IV fluids.

03.10.2021

I woke up to a lady drawing blood from the patient next to me and then she came over and took mine. I find that I tend to hold my breath when I get blood drawn. I know it's a bad habit that could cause me to faint but it felt like it couldn't be helped. I was in bed anyway. I had breakfast, met the surgeon who operated on me and he told me that it was a very superficial abscess. It was straightforward and that I could be released, considering my vitals were normal and no signs of further infection. I felt lost at this point.

The nurses took out my cannula, stopped coming to check on me and I just laid in bed waiting. I fell back asleep at some point and the nurse told me that they were just waiting for the doctor to sign some paperwork so they could release me. But that it was taking some time because he was in another surgery. I got really bored and was fully awake now. They served me lunch as well and then at that point I decided to just get up and hopefully they'd rush a bit to attend to me. I got changed but was a little scared to clean myself after peeing for fear of ruining the dressing. I asked the nurse to check on my wound but they told me that there was just some packing that they inserted post-surgery to soak up any residual blood and pus.

They told me to just keep the area clean and wear a sanitary pad to replace a normal dressing. It sounded so simple but I couldn't help overthink it. It almost sounded too simple, that's why. And I felt like staying a third night honestly. Being around a team of doctors and nurses felt more comforting, knowing that I can be cared for unlike living alone and needing to attend to my own needs, worrying if there might be something wrong with me and not knowing what to do. I was reluctant to leave basically. But I got the feeling that the nurses wanted me out ASAP and I knew I couldn't stay longer because there are probably other patients who need the care more than I do.

I got dressed, packed up and sat at the foot of my bed until another doctor gave me my documents and told me about my care plans. I was told to take sitz baths and I'd have to be resourceful on that because how is a uni student living in a college supposed to do that? I asked Michael to accompany me back and he walked to the hospital, called an uber and we rode back to UniHall. The weather was warm but cool at the same time. I felt strange and out of place. My room was a mess, just as it was before I left and I crashed into bed. I wasn't in pain anymore, well at least not physically.

I woke up sometime during dinner but didn't have the mental strength to fix myself anything. I also didn't want to see anyone. I burst into tears and had a full-blown panic attack when I saw the wound. It was worse than I'd thought. I thought that they would give me stitches and that my skin would look relatively normal but it was like a crater. It was a deep hole and it wasn't very well-circumscribed. The edges were jagged and this threw me off even further. I found myself wailing.

I didn't care if my neighbours could hear me wailing and screaming. I was in so much trauma and my emotions were completely unstable. Ckg Ayu called and I cried to her. She offered to come around but I refused to let her see me in this condition. I was so horribly devastated and upset and angry. The entirety of this week, up to the point of me writing this post, I was given medical leave and I didn't do much uni work at all. I tried to do some work, some paperwork and some chores but really I couldn't do much.

My laundry's been hanging out for more than a week now. My mind is just at an all time low. I woke up, ate breakfast, went back to bed, woke up, cried, washed myself, ate dinner, cried and went back to sleep. Everytime I showered and tried to wash the wound, I burst into tears. Touching it was so disgusting. I felt violated, upset that my body was just there for the surgeons to work on and I felt empty when they removed a small part of me, even though that part was causing harm to my health. They were merely doing their jobs, but it felt like my privacy was invaded, part of me was taken away, obviously consensually when I signed the agreement papers but I wasn't conscious during surgery, so I would never know about what happened during that time.

I don't feel whole and I feel like I'm grieving a loss. I'm scared that I might spiral deeper. I booked for an appointment with the same GP but I can only see her on the following Monday. I hate that she's only in for 2 days of the week and that she's always booked up. I hate that everything had to happen so quickly. That I was never really able to process everything until after I left the hospital. It all felt like a fever dream. Except that it's not because the scar's there to remind me every time I wash myself. I don't know how I'm going to get back into doing uni work again.

I took time off the entire week and really didn't touch much. But I can't continue like this because exam's in less than a month. I wish my mind would clear up just a little bit more. I feel hopeless, upset, angry. Angry that I let myself reach this point, that there's no way for me to turn back time. I have to live with this trauma not knowing if it'd ever heal and return to how it was before this entire ordeal. I'm confused, anxious, worried that this might happen again in the future, if the wound will ever heal nicely and I won't have to live with a mutilated body part for the rest of my life. It may seem small and insignificant to others, that it was just a minor surgery but I feel absolutely distressed for some reason.

I also think about how I really just want to be cared for, to be supervised and looked after. Living alone for the past 1.5 years has really taken a toll on my mental and physical health. Not even including the border restrictions. I'm just so exhausted. I wish I was in hospital just so that I'd have someone to check on me every so often. I don't know how I'm going to cope with the transition when I return back to Singapore. I know it's not going to be easy at all. I struggled when I came back from Japan and that was only after about 3 months and not during a global pandemic.

Life is so different here than back in Singapore and so much has changed within such a short period of time that I am genuinely terrified of how I'm going to deal with life back home later. Which then prompts me to think if maybe I should just stay here? But then I won't know when I can see my family again or what I'd be even doing here. I'm exhausted, and I really wish I could it end it all. Just end the pain.

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