kayobi, sangatsu '09
what an interesting week! i'm sure a lot of you want to know what happened to me and my "operation." let me share with you what happened the past seven days and i hope these seven days of my life will inspire you somehow to never stop believing in prayers and miracles.
MARCH 23, MONDAY:
on the morning of this day, i went to my office to fix my philhealth forms. i left the office around lunchtime. mama and i had lunch at red ribbon, then went home afterwards.
a few neighbors went to our house for a pray-over. tita mel led the prayer. it was very inspiring, very touching, most of them cried. then we loaded my tito kambal's CRV with our things.
it was a quiet ride to philippine heart center. i was nervous, very nervous. i am afraid of needles, what more an open-heart surgery wherein the surgeons would have to slice my skin open, saw (i'm not sure of the right term for this) my sternum (that flat bone right in the middle of our chests) apart, patch the hole, bind my cut sternum with a wire, and sew my skin back up again. geez!
when we arrived around 4:00 p.m., we unloaded our things. mamang, uncle weng, and i sat at a bench outside to look after our stuff while mama went to the admitting section and tito kambal parked the CRV somewhere.
soon after, tito kambal and uncle weng left. the three of us sat at the waiting area. the nurses were having a meeting at that time, so no one was available to assist us. at the waiting area, the woman sitting across from me asked mama, "sino ang pasyente?" mama pointed at me. the woman was shocked and said that i didn't look like a patient. now that was a compliment. thank you.
around 6:30 p.m., a nurse called my name and she led us to our room: petal 4D, room 443-C. we settled our things and ourselves and started our long wait for the unknown.
MARCH 24, TUESDAY:
early afternoon, i had my recovery room orientation. i was brought to the recovery room in a wheelchair. i met around six other patients who were also scheduled for operation the next day. our ages range from 13 years old to 70 plus. in the RR, we watched a video to orient us with pre- and post-op. a question-and-answer session with the OR and RR staff followed. i wasn't able to finish the orientation because someone with a wheelchair came to pick me up, saying that i was being called by the diagnostic lab staff already for my scheduled 2D echo.
we arrived at the lab around 4:30. the nurses and technicians informed me that the anesthesiologist took my chart, so they couldn't perform the procedure on me yet. we waited for the chart... and waited some more. i was feeling kind of nauseous already. still, i waited. the nurse with my chart arrived around 6:00, and they proceeded with the 2D echo. it's just exactly like an ultrasound except it shows a heart's interior, not a fetus. i finished around 7:05.
when i got back to my room, erika was there reading pugad baboy 7. she handed me a card and three pugad baboy books tied together with a red ribbon. she put together my hangups (messages, cards, prayer books, letters from several friends and families -- thank you!) on the siderails of my bed. a short while later, tin and mai came. they insisted i should eat. i couldn't. i felt very sick, like i know that when i eat something, i'd just vomit. a few minutes later, i rushed to the bathroom and did vomit. i trudged back to my cubicle, feeling a lot better. then the three of them said their goodbyes and left.
my surgeon, dr. purino, also dropped by and informed us that a procedure called TEE, or transesophageal echocardiography, would be done the next day before the surgery for them to know further how my heart was doing.
"a transesophageal echocardiography examination generally lasts 30 to 60 minutes. the patient is given a mild sedative and the back of the throat is sprayed with a local anesthetic, in order to suppress the gag reflex. next, a special viewing tube called an endoscope, containing a tiny transducer, is passed through the mouth and into the esophagus. it is carefully moved until it is positioned directly next to the heart. essentially, a modified microphone, the transducer directs ultrasound waves into the heart, some of which get reflected (or "echoed") back to the transducer. different tissues and blood all reflect ultrasound waves differently. these sound waves can be translated into a meaningful image of the heart, which is displayed on a monitor or recorded on paper or tape. the transducer may be moved several times during the test to help doctors get a better view of the heart." read more...
MARCH 25, WEDNESDAY, SUPPOSEDLY THE BIG DAY:
the nurse woke me up at 5:00 a.m. and gave me instructions. she informed me that my operation would start around 2:00 in the afternoon, what they called "to follow first case." they didn't call it second case. she also told me that my light breakfast would arrive soon.
a little past 6:00, my light breakfast was given to me. it consisted of two slices of toasted bread, one hard-boiled egg, and a sachet of pineapple jelly. after eating, my nurse wrote on the information board that i wasn't allowed to drink or eat anything anymore. go fasting!
around 11:00, i was brought back to the diagnostic center for my TEE. one of the technicians there was already explaining to me what would happen, the anesthesia they would spray into my throat, the gagging feeling, the discomfort. for some reason, that didn't scare me anymore. but instead of a TEE, they did another 2D echo. three technicians were there and two doctors. my cardiologist, dr. gagalang, was also there. i could hear one of the doctors saying that she was so confused with my heart's anatomy. they ended up asking each other and guessing the things they saw on the monitor.
after my 2D echo, i heard one of them say that they would cancel my operation that afternoon and that they needed to do another procedure: the hemodynamic studies, commonly known as the cardiac catheter.
they wheelchaired me back to my room. i was relieved, of course.
MARCH 26, THURSDAY:
"cardiac catheterization (also called heart catheterization) is a diagnostic procedure which does a comprehensive examination of how the heart and its blood vessels function. One or more catheters is inserted through a peripheral blood vessel in the arm (antecubital artery or vein) or leg (femoral artery or vein) with x-ray guidance. this procedure gathers information such as adequacy of blood supply through the coronary arteries, blood pressures, blood flow throughout chambers of the heart, collection of blood samples, and x rays of the heart's ventricles or arteries.
"a test that can be performed on either side of the heart, cardiac catheterization checks for different functions in both the left and right sides. when testing the heart's right side, tricuspid and pulmonary valve function are evaluated, in addition to measuring pressures of and collecting blood samples from the right atrium, ventricle, and pulmonary artery. left-sided heart catheterization is performed by way of a catheter through an artery which tests the blood flow of the coronary arteries, function of the mitral and aortic valves, and left ventricle." read more...
my cardiac cath was scheduled at 3:00 p.m. 2:30 p.m., two cute (hihi!) male nurses transferred me to a stretcher and injected a drug into my IV. supposedly, the drug would make me sleepy. but i didn't feel sleepy one bit. they brought me to the ground floor (i can't remember the name of that section). scheduling conflicts arose. another patient was scheduled also for cardiac cath at exactly the same time, 3:00. after a long discussion and a few phone calls made by the nurses, i was the one who ended up waiting. while waiting, the nurses injected another drug into my IV. it was terribly painful. i was moving my wrist up and down to ease the pain caused by the drug. that drug was supposed to make me feel groggy.
after 30 minutes, the first patient was brought out of the room. finally, it was my turn. they wheeled me into the room. i was already feeling sleepy at that point, but i kind of still knew what was going on. i saw six large TV monitors to my left and the doctors were all gathered to my right. they unbuttoned the lower part of my hospital gown, covered what they had to cover, and injected an anesthesia into my right thigh. a few minutes later, the doctor, dr. flores, was poking my anesthesia-injected thigh area with a sharp thing, probably the needle part of an injection, and asked me if what she was doing was painful and if i could still feel it. i answered yes. i was also asked to put both my hands above my head. it was very uncomfortable and i was quite scared because i thought that position would dislocate the IV needle inserted into my left hand. i wasn't sure what happened afterwards. i just felt something wet spilling into my lower thigh. i quietly guessed that it was blood and it made me relieved since that thought gave me the assurance that i wouldn't be able to feel any pain anymore.
i could feel something moving inside me, first my pelvic area, my torso, then a short while later, my chest, then my heart. it was the most uncomfortable feeling i have ever felt. i heard dr. flores saying, "there's the RV," meaning right ventricle, and i was relieved to know that a foreign object moving inside my heart was that tolerable. it wasn't at all painful. but still, it was very uncomfortable. there was even a point where i heard her say, "bakit ayaw pumasok?" i could see her pushing the catheter into my thigh with all her might. i was glad i couldn't feel anything, what with all the effort she was exerting just to push the catheter inside me.
sometimes i dozed off. one time i was awake, i noticed that i had trouble breathing. i waved my right arm lazily to catch their attention. one lady assistant approached me and i told her i couldn't breathe. she told me to inhale deeply through my nose and exhale through my mouth. i did what i was told. i was kind of panicking because i felt that i was already quite awake and that i couldn't breathe. she later on asked me if i was feeling okay and i gave her a positive answer. i dozed off again.
one other point i was awake, i was able to hear them count to three and i felt kind of a hot liquid spill into the insides of my heart. i guess that was the dye they needed for them to know certain measurements. i'm not really sure up until now. i am not a nurse or a doctor. all i know is that it was a dye. that was another thing that made the procedure uncomfortable, because the heart is near the throat, i could almost taste the dye. it tasted poisonous. i don't know what poison tastes like but it sure tasted that way.
after what feels like a short time, both my hands were feeling numb already, maybe because of the position, and i kept asking one of the nurses, "patapos na po? matagal pa ba?" i put my right arm down and did some stretching and kept asking the same questions. finally, i felt some movement down my torso then my pelvic area. a nurse pulled my hands to my sides and told me that the procedure was over. a nurse pressed my thigh area down so hard i felt like my pelvic bones were going to break. then they wrapped that area VERY TIGHTLY with a bandage and placed a sandbag the size of the breaking dawn book on top of it. i was instructed to keep the sandbag there until 12:00 a.m., and i wasn't allowed to bend my leg in any way.
outside, my mom approaced my bedside with a huge smile on her face and planted a kiss on my forehead. i saw my tito mars beside her. he held my hand for a long time, probably said a few things i forgot already, surprisingly kissed my forehead as well, then left. i was brought back to my room.
i was told not to eat dinner until i was very much awake because i could choke on my food if i ate anything during my drugged state, so i went back to sleep. when i woke up again, i was feeling much, much better and very awake. so i ate dinner. that was when my mom told me that my cardiac cath lasted for two whole hours. wow.
i slept again and woke up around 11:00 p.m., feeling a numbing sensation that made it almost excruciatingly painful down my right leg. the heavy sandbag was still there. what made it worse was that i wasn't allowed to move either the sandbag or my leg. i woke mama up and asked her to give me a leg massage. i wanted to cry. i couldn't wait for midnight to come. i was looking forward to the time where my nurse would remove the sandbag. the seconds ticked by oh so slowly. finally, to my greatest relief, my nurse came and removed the sandbag. she gave me a painkiller and reminded me not to bend my leg still. despite the painkiller and the absence of the sandbag, my leg still felt the same. i had trouble sleeping. i started to text mai and tin after my mom went to sleep, looking for a conversation with anybody so that i could somehow divert my attention from the pain. mai was my textmate that very early morning (thanks so much, mai). and finally, i dozed off for the last time that day.
MARCH 27, FRIDAY:
nothing much happened this day. i just found out that my operation was moved to march 30, monday. i had a lot of visitors on this day: tito kambal, tita ela, kiarra, uncle ed, auntie edna, and uncle weng.
that night, my surgeon also informed my mom that because my case is rare, he seeked the help of a senior surgeon, dr. gamponia. he told us that dr. gamponia might drop by anytime that coming weekend.
MARCH 28, SATURDAY:
another ordinary day. just sulked, walked around, missing the heat, the sunlight, the noises, the traffic, everything outside.
erika arrived around 4:00 in the afternoon. she brought three more books for me to read. she also bought mama and i a snack: jamaican pies! she also bought me a purple toothbrush. i dropped my toothbrush accidently and it landed on the floor. eww. we ate and had a long chat it lasted until a little past 8:00.
a short while after she left, i went to the building's perimeter window and tried to take a shot of the darkness outside caused by the earth hour event. my shot of the outside world didn't turn out well, so i deleted it.
no dr. gamponia.
MARCH 29, SUNDAY:
we went up to the fifth floor to hear mass at 8:00 a.m. the rest of the day was a blur, a restless blur. i tried not to think of the upcoming operation. i tried to busy myself by reading chicken soup for the traveller's soul, one of erika's books (it's a good book, by the way), sleeping, and playing a crossword puzzle game through my psp. i couldn't use my left hand since i still had my IV.
night came and still, we haven't heard anything from my surgeon. dr. gamponia also didn't drop by. mama was getting worried. we all couldn't sleep.
finally, around 10:00, my surgeon texted mama. he told her that it was possible that my operation would again be deferred and that he would probably send me home the next day. he informed my bedside nurse that he would drop by early the next morning and he would be the one to explain the situation. still, i couldn't help but worry about the possible operation.
MARCH 30, MONDAY:
around 9:00 in the morning, dr. gamponia came. he checked on me physically, looking at my complexion, the tips of my fingers. he listened also to my heartbeat. he explained that rescheduling the operation would be hard for all of us because the OR schedules were all taken, so he told us that he would study the results of all of my examinations that morning before my supposedly scheduled operation that afternoon. my mom told him that dr. purino informed her that he's cancelled the operation and that a discharge was ordered. dr. gamponia assured us that he still respects dr. purino's decision.
tito kambal, tita ela, and kiarra arrived hours later. mama asked them to come so that they could also hear what my surgeon was planning to do. dr. purino arrived and talked to them, the adults.
according to him, yes, i have a ventricular septal defect, or what we call "butas." but even if that's the case, the results of the cardiac catheter showed that my heart's functioning normally. the pressures inside my lungs and my heart are normal, the sizes are normal. EVERYTHING is normal. because there's that hole, they're expecting that the oxygenated blood and the non-oxygenated blood are mixing inside. i forgot the term. but they're not. again, my heart's functioning normally, like yours does. the only abnormal things (i should say things since they found another hole, so i have two holes) are the holes. also, my heart did some adjustments on its own for it to function normally. it self-corrected, adjusted to my body's needs. it isn't time for me to have the operation. wootwoo!
on the downside, i am susceptible to a heart infection called endocarditis. "the endocardium is the inner lining of the heart muscle, which also covers the heart valves. when the endocardium becomes damaged, bacteria from the blood stream can become lodged on the heart valves or heart lining. the resulting infection is known as endocarditis." read more... so i really, really have to take good care of my heart. i also have to have a heart checkup with dr. gagalang, my cardiologist, every six months for constant monitoring.
as for dr. purino, he wanted to meet ALL the doctors of the hospital to discuss my case with them. he wanted their comments and suggestions. he even wanted to publish a journal internationally about my case and let surgeons and cardiologists from all over the world read and comment on my rare condition. of course, i'll go anonymously. it really is rare because almost all kids with the same condition actually DIE at an early age (Lord, thank you!). see, i'm 24 already! my surgeon even told us that this was the first time for him to handle a case such as mine. wow.
anyway, all throughout the day, my mom settled the bills and all the clearances. my nurse removed my IV and my cardiologist also gave me a vaccine for pneumonia. then we stashed all our things back into our bags, went downstairs into the lobby (me still sitting on the wheelchair), and waited for a taxi. around 6:30, kuya mark, the tall man who pushed my wheelchair, opened the taxi's door, and i slid myself into the seat to start on my happy journey back towards home sweet home.
so there, my one-week miracle. i still have a lot of questions inside my head. do i still have to have an operation in the future? what now? then i remember a couple of prayers mama and i found on the book tita ela gave me entitled "rest assured."
"Heavenly Father, thank You that You can use every decision I make to accomplish Your purposes in my life. Give me wisdom to choose well and faith to trust You with the outcome. Thank You that everything that comes into my life has been filtered through Your loving hands -- even the difficult times of life. Amen."
thank You, Lord, for this enlightening experience. thank You for blessing me with families and friends who i came to realize care so much about me. thank You for blessing me with such a miraculous heart. i will take care good care of it.
thanks, mama, for the unconditional love. i never realized you care for me THAT much. i love you so much.
thanks, mamang, for keeping us company, for washing and ironing our clothes. i love you too.
thanks, erika, for letting me borrow your things and also your frequent visits. you know me so well. i'm sure you knew how bored i was. thank you! thank you! thank you!
tito kambal and family, thanks for everything. you know what those are. tita ela, for all the inspiring things you kept on reminding me, a huge thanks.
a huge thanks to all of the doctors who studied my case thoroughly. ang gagaling niyong lahat! saludo ako sa inyo!
thank you to all of my bedside nurses for looking after me. i know you all were only doing your jobs, but still. saludo rin ako sa inyo!
si mang severino, ang aking kapitbahay na pasyente (he had a bypass surgery), he gave me courage and assurance that the operation and the other procedures would be a breeze. my father figure at the hospital, get well soon po. miss ko na kayo! 
everyone who helped us financially, THANK YOU. you know who you are.
for all those who prayed, who were concerned, THANK YOU. i guess we caused a stir up on the heavens with our prayers that the Lord gave us this miracle.
Lord, as always, bahala po Kayo sa buhay ko. i offer everything to You.
more pictures here.
