this post was a long time coming
Hey all. Been a good long while since I last posted here, huh? XD Gotta apologize for that since I'm just on Plurk these days, but I think this needs to be here, at least for myself if not for anybody else, to remind myself of the chance that's been given to me. For those who weren't in the know: basically, back in April I sort of literally escaped death from its face and came back from a near-death experience involving a ruptured appendix during a family vacation to Phuket, Thailand. Basically this post is to document what happened, in a way or another. WARNING FOR A LOT OF MEDICAL SQUICK.
THE DAY BEFORE, PART ONE
So my flight was pretty early in the morning, and as most of you will know I hardly slept at all since I just sort of… kept up. And of course, my stomach was still being a bitch then, but you all know I’ll get to that later. ANYWAY so we went to the airport early to eat breakfast and stuff and my stomach was still being difficult, but it was a tolerable sort of pain so I endured it anyway. Told my mom about it though, so that at least she’d know why I was wincing half the time in the airport. Everything went petty smoothly and all that, and I texted the SenBasa cast as I was about to board the plane since I wouldn’t have roaming at all (btw this is very late but I appreciated your responses, Jas and Geoff).
The flight itself… well. Let’s just say I’ve had no issues with the flight rather than the passengers themselves. My brother and I had the misfortune of sitting nearby a bunch of Aussies (no offence to my Australian friends here) who were, quite bluntly put, a bunch of assholes and asshats. They were noisy, obnoxious and kept making fun of the air stewardess and wouldn’t stop even after they were warned. With me being tired out by lack of sleep and my stomach as it were, I decided to plug in my earphones and just sleep through the two-hour flight, which I did - when I woke up, the plane was nearly at the airport.
Glad to be away from those jerks, I left the plane quickly and all that. Stomach was, of course, still being difficult, and I was never gladder than to finally be able to sit down in the bus again after a lot of searching around and navigating through guides who wanted nothing more than eat our limited money. |:
Yeah so, eventually we reached the hotel we were staying at, and after a bit of rest went out with the tour guide who would later quite literally save my life later. He was a bit of a nosy guy, but he really had his heart in the right place - he was also called Charlie, which sort of amused me for no reason. But yeah so Charlie took us around some of the famous shops in Phuket like a cashew nut factory, a tourist shop with trinkets and free computers to use (this was where I got onto Plurk again from Thailand, as most of you remember) and a shop selling natural honey. By dinnertime though (after a run around one of the place’s more well-known shopping malls), my stomach was starting to get very very difficult and I eventually had to tell mom that I needed to return to the hotel and lie down. I was brought back to the hotel, and lie down was what I did (and dozed off in the process).
Later in the night mom and the others returned from their trip, and things were starting to get worse with me. Mom’s friend suggested bringing me to the hospital tomorrow, since it was kind of strange that I would have such a bad stomach for the whole day already. Mom agreed to it, and gave me a tablet for gastric so that I’d get better at least. Unfortunately the opposite happened, and I ended up hurling into the toilet bowl; at least I did feel better after a bit, but not for long. Suffice to say, that whole night was me without sleep and more of me sitting by the toilet bowl and feeling like puking every hour or so. Worse night of my life, I will say.
HOSPITAL ADMISSION (BETTER KNOWN AS THE DAY BEFORE, PART TWO)
Yes so, morning. I did not get better at all, and so mom and her friend decided to debate on if I should go to the hospital or not over breakfast downstairs since hospital bills here were not going to be cheap. Of course, while I was upstairs trying to ignore how terrible I felt my body decided to make the choice and the next thing I knew was nothing but pain.
Fucking.
Godamned.
Pain.
It hurt like nothing I ever known, bad enough that I was sweating despite being in an air-conditioned room and was tearing out from my eyes. Fortunately my brother had decided to come up (in order to take a smoke at the balcony), and he saw me and after helping me get a glass of water, went back down to call my mom. After that the decision to send me to the hospital was made, and this is where my first wayticket to not-dying happened: originally mom and friend wanted to send me to a nearby government hospital, but then after they called to inform Charlie the tour guide that they had to cancel their plans for today because of me, Charlie instead said that he would send me to the hospital, rather than some unreliable taxi driver. Mom thought this was a good idea, and so agreed.
The journey was long and unbearable because I literally could not move at all and groaned in pain, and my brother actually had to carry me downstairs (the one good thing he did after all these years) to the car when Charlie arrived. Eventually though, we managed to reach Phuket International Hospital and after a few hours of checkups and a gynecologist, I was said to have an infected uterus (…yeah IDK man) and had to be hospitalized for the day. I was given antibiotics and IV drips and all that fun stuff, and thus my (not-known then) lengthy stay at the hospital began.
DAY OF RECKONING (AKA OPERATION DAY)
Needless to say, I did not get better once more and had to keep calling for morphine every six hours because the pain was unbearable by now. I felt better in some areas, yes, but for the most part everything still hurt like a bitch. The doctor, now concerned, arranged for me to go through another ultrasound plus a CT scan-and here I will just say that the CT scan was horrible because they needed to jam something up my ass. NEVER AGAIN, I TELL YOU.
Anyway so yeah, my mom was over in the hospital by the time I was done with my scans, and later on (about an hour later or so) the doctor came and gave the news that would sort of change my life: my appendix had ruptured since yesterday, and my life was in literal critical condition now-that said, I needed and operation, and I needed it immediately. There was no time at all, since it had been far too long since my appendix ruptured; it was only the antibiotics being given to me since yesterday which was preventing me from going into shock or stroke or whatever it was that would make me die. The operation obviously would cost a ton, and my mom had forgotten to bring her credit card-but the doctor just waved it off and said that saving my life was more important now. I have never been gladder for a doctor like that, just saying.
Thus sometime around… noon or so (I really forgot the timing), I was brought to the operating theatre, and I will just say how surreal it was because it only reminded of them drama serials. Maybe a part of me thought I was going to die, despite my mom saying otherwise. Hilariously, one of the thoughts that came to my head while in the operating theatre then was ‘think happy gay samurai thoughts’.
…yeah, I have a bad sense of humor in the worst situations.
So obviously, I don’t know jack about the operation since they knocked me out with the gas (heck, I don’t even remember when I was knocked out), and by the time I came to I was in the ICU and wondering why my left arm had so many tubes (four of them to be precise) attached to it. The operation was a success, though yeah my wound was sort of left open (but of course covered with stuff) to make sure that it wouldn’t get infected since you know, ruptured appendix. Very dirty and all that.
And yes, the first thing I did when I woke up was to ‘tag’; using my mom’s iPhone to speak since there was a tube from my nose down to my stomach and I couldn’t speak at all. Most of the day there is a blue though, since I was on constant morphine and kind of just returned from death’s grip. Stuff like that.
Still, my head was still half-swimming with - ahem - happy gay samurai thoughts for the times I was conscious and not knocked out. I needed something to remind myself that I was still who I am and didn’t lose something in the process of returning to life. On my birthday, no less. My nineteenth birthday will now be my most memorable one (and will hopefully stay that way-seriously, what could top this?)
POST-OPERATIVE / RECOVERY DAYS
The following week was pretty much for me to recover. The first few days were the worst of course, and the monthly bleeding thing also decided to happen which just made me want to cry. BODY, YOU HAVE THE WORST TIMING EVER. I grouched a lot and whined a lot and eternally made unhappy noises about my injury, but mom’s friend talked to me about it eventually and after that I calmed down and started to concentrate on recovering. I also needed a physiotherapy session or two because I lay down in bed too long and needed my legs to start working again. It was a painful process, but in a few days I could manage to walk (first with help, and then eventually on my own).
Some tubes were left on me even when I transferred out of the ICU, and they were only taken out in the days later. First was the tube in my nose and down my throat, and removing that actually caused a wound to form on my nostril-it’s healed up since then, but it wasn’t pretty while it was there. Next would be the tube inserted where my appendix once was, to draw out the last of the stuff still there; removing that was a bitch and a half and hurt, and I needed a few hours after that to recover properly. The last one was the IV drip I had been on since Sunday, and I was only taken out of it on Thursday-that meant I went five days without food at all, and so I had to take it slow to get my stomach used to digesting and all that again.
So yeah, food… the food wasn’t that all bad really, although the large bowl of soup given to me in the first few days would be something I never want to drink again. The one morning with the porridge, butter cookies and Milo were the best though, and I was happy to eat that. Also after five days without water? It would be the best thing you’ve ever drank. I took a while before I ever switched to drinking other things again after that. I was recovering pretty swiftly after the first few days, and the doctor was glad for that-she visited me every day, in order to check my wound and see my progress in recovering since she knew that mom wanted to returned to Singapore as soon as possible. She also helped in giving her words in order to ensure that mom would get her insurance claim from the company in the financial department, which was another nice thing.
I also attempted to play Dissidia on the PSP I brought with me, and needless to say that was not the best decision I’ve done. I sucked horribly at the game and still have not touched it.
On uh… Wednesday, I think-or Tuesday once I was out of ICU-I had attempted to contact somebody (Kae at first) with my mom’s phone to inform what had happened to me, and eventually as most of you are aware I called Michele since Kae wasn’t able to pick up her phone. So yeah I told Michele what had happened to me and told her to inform you guys via Plurk since she was covering for me at the time, and you guys know what happened next.
That all settled, things were pretty much okay after that and I just rested a lot and went to the toilet a lot and had fevers constantly and during one night, watched the TV a lot. I was amused that they had anime there, and watched Reborn and Hikaru no Go dubbed in Thai. I also watched Hellboy 2 in Japanese, The Secretariat and At World’s End in English. Strange what flipping through channels can give you. I also got my mom’s phone at some nights and texted Michele with it since the beds were hard as hell and I couldn’t sleep properly at all. I had never been gladder for my own bed when I did return home at last.
I was allowed to return on Sunday, after the doctor stitched my wound up on Saturday (and confirming that my wound was not infected) and after I was done shaking in fear because the doctor stitched me up while I was conscious. The stitching itself didn’t hurt, but injecting the anesthetic did since it was right into my wound… yeah. Never again man, never again. Recalling that gives me the shivers even until now. That really took me a bit to recover from, although mom never knew I was shaking since I tried not to show it. She went though enough, and I really didn’t want her to worry more because of something which was already over.
AFTERMATH OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT
On Sunday the tenth of April I was allowed to be discharged and returned home, and my mom had already managed to get tickets from Silkair rather than Jetstar so it was a rather smooth ride home. Ignoring the fact that I was kind of scared for the whole flight home because I had morbid thoughts of my stitches popping from the air pressure. Luckily that didn’t happen, and I arrived safely back in Singapore and could happily text all the SenBasa people about my arrival back on my country. I don’t think I’ve been ever happier to see the familiar sights of Changi airport after everything that’s happened to me, and my home ever more so and I don’t think I’ve been gladder to see my laptop and get back online again.
I got my official notice from school to say I was kicked out of my Engineering course when I got home, something which mom took well-which is not too surprising, since I had almost died a week ago. She did start hounding me about school after a week though, but as you know I managed to get into a new school and now am studying the course I have always wanted to pursue, which is game design \o/. My stitches were okay and did not get infected despite my OCD worries about it, and were taken out on the nineteenth without much incident so now I have a healing thirteen centimeter scar down my stomach with fifteen points at the side where my stitches were. They’ve turned into keloid scars since then, but it’s nothing to worry about so everything’s pretty much okay! As for the expenses in Thailand from my operation and all that, mom managed to claim hundred percent of the expenses after hounding them for days while I was in the hospital so that went fine too.
Nearly two months now ever since then, and sometimes its hard to believe that I’ve almost died-almost lost all of this, lost all my futures and chances and what-have-yous. Surreal, really, to just imagine that two months ago, I would have not been able to type this out now and say how thankful I am to be alive; it does change you, this nearly-dying thing. Since then I’ve decided to step out of my box and let myself go to a new school to restart my schooling, something not many people here do. I’ve grown more open in some ways, no longer isolated and enclosed in school like before and despite the annoyance the boys in my class are now, I’d like to think I’m on amiable terms with them. I’m still laid-back and lackluster at times, but when its needed I am striving to reach out and pursue my goals and what I want to do, because this is my second chance in life and I want to make what I desire out of it.
Yeah, so… its been quite a ride, but I think I got something out of it, or I hope I have anyway. I’m still alive, I’m still living-and even if my life is still imperfect and full of flaws everywhere, I like to believe that in my own way, I’m making what I can out of it all.
ETA: This was also my four hundredth post. Yay?
THE DAY BEFORE, PART ONE
So my flight was pretty early in the morning, and as most of you will know I hardly slept at all since I just sort of… kept up. And of course, my stomach was still being a bitch then, but you all know I’ll get to that later. ANYWAY so we went to the airport early to eat breakfast and stuff and my stomach was still being difficult, but it was a tolerable sort of pain so I endured it anyway. Told my mom about it though, so that at least she’d know why I was wincing half the time in the airport. Everything went petty smoothly and all that, and I texted the SenBasa cast as I was about to board the plane since I wouldn’t have roaming at all (btw this is very late but I appreciated your responses, Jas and Geoff).
The flight itself… well. Let’s just say I’ve had no issues with the flight rather than the passengers themselves. My brother and I had the misfortune of sitting nearby a bunch of Aussies (no offence to my Australian friends here) who were, quite bluntly put, a bunch of assholes and asshats. They were noisy, obnoxious and kept making fun of the air stewardess and wouldn’t stop even after they were warned. With me being tired out by lack of sleep and my stomach as it were, I decided to plug in my earphones and just sleep through the two-hour flight, which I did - when I woke up, the plane was nearly at the airport.
Glad to be away from those jerks, I left the plane quickly and all that. Stomach was, of course, still being difficult, and I was never gladder than to finally be able to sit down in the bus again after a lot of searching around and navigating through guides who wanted nothing more than eat our limited money. |:
Yeah so, eventually we reached the hotel we were staying at, and after a bit of rest went out with the tour guide who would later quite literally save my life later. He was a bit of a nosy guy, but he really had his heart in the right place - he was also called Charlie, which sort of amused me for no reason. But yeah so Charlie took us around some of the famous shops in Phuket like a cashew nut factory, a tourist shop with trinkets and free computers to use (this was where I got onto Plurk again from Thailand, as most of you remember) and a shop selling natural honey. By dinnertime though (after a run around one of the place’s more well-known shopping malls), my stomach was starting to get very very difficult and I eventually had to tell mom that I needed to return to the hotel and lie down. I was brought back to the hotel, and lie down was what I did (and dozed off in the process).
Later in the night mom and the others returned from their trip, and things were starting to get worse with me. Mom’s friend suggested bringing me to the hospital tomorrow, since it was kind of strange that I would have such a bad stomach for the whole day already. Mom agreed to it, and gave me a tablet for gastric so that I’d get better at least. Unfortunately the opposite happened, and I ended up hurling into the toilet bowl; at least I did feel better after a bit, but not for long. Suffice to say, that whole night was me without sleep and more of me sitting by the toilet bowl and feeling like puking every hour or so. Worse night of my life, I will say.
HOSPITAL ADMISSION (BETTER KNOWN AS THE DAY BEFORE, PART TWO)
Yes so, morning. I did not get better at all, and so mom and her friend decided to debate on if I should go to the hospital or not over breakfast downstairs since hospital bills here were not going to be cheap. Of course, while I was upstairs trying to ignore how terrible I felt my body decided to make the choice and the next thing I knew was nothing but pain.
Fucking.
Godamned.
Pain.
It hurt like nothing I ever known, bad enough that I was sweating despite being in an air-conditioned room and was tearing out from my eyes. Fortunately my brother had decided to come up (in order to take a smoke at the balcony), and he saw me and after helping me get a glass of water, went back down to call my mom. After that the decision to send me to the hospital was made, and this is where my first wayticket to not-dying happened: originally mom and friend wanted to send me to a nearby government hospital, but then after they called to inform Charlie the tour guide that they had to cancel their plans for today because of me, Charlie instead said that he would send me to the hospital, rather than some unreliable taxi driver. Mom thought this was a good idea, and so agreed.
The journey was long and unbearable because I literally could not move at all and groaned in pain, and my brother actually had to carry me downstairs (the one good thing he did after all these years) to the car when Charlie arrived. Eventually though, we managed to reach Phuket International Hospital and after a few hours of checkups and a gynecologist, I was said to have an infected uterus (…yeah IDK man) and had to be hospitalized for the day. I was given antibiotics and IV drips and all that fun stuff, and thus my (not-known then) lengthy stay at the hospital began.
DAY OF RECKONING (AKA OPERATION DAY)
Needless to say, I did not get better once more and had to keep calling for morphine every six hours because the pain was unbearable by now. I felt better in some areas, yes, but for the most part everything still hurt like a bitch. The doctor, now concerned, arranged for me to go through another ultrasound plus a CT scan-and here I will just say that the CT scan was horrible because they needed to jam something up my ass. NEVER AGAIN, I TELL YOU.
Anyway so yeah, my mom was over in the hospital by the time I was done with my scans, and later on (about an hour later or so) the doctor came and gave the news that would sort of change my life: my appendix had ruptured since yesterday, and my life was in literal critical condition now-that said, I needed and operation, and I needed it immediately. There was no time at all, since it had been far too long since my appendix ruptured; it was only the antibiotics being given to me since yesterday which was preventing me from going into shock or stroke or whatever it was that would make me die. The operation obviously would cost a ton, and my mom had forgotten to bring her credit card-but the doctor just waved it off and said that saving my life was more important now. I have never been gladder for a doctor like that, just saying.
Thus sometime around… noon or so (I really forgot the timing), I was brought to the operating theatre, and I will just say how surreal it was because it only reminded of them drama serials. Maybe a part of me thought I was going to die, despite my mom saying otherwise. Hilariously, one of the thoughts that came to my head while in the operating theatre then was ‘think happy gay samurai thoughts’.
…yeah, I have a bad sense of humor in the worst situations.
So obviously, I don’t know jack about the operation since they knocked me out with the gas (heck, I don’t even remember when I was knocked out), and by the time I came to I was in the ICU and wondering why my left arm had so many tubes (four of them to be precise) attached to it. The operation was a success, though yeah my wound was sort of left open (but of course covered with stuff) to make sure that it wouldn’t get infected since you know, ruptured appendix. Very dirty and all that.
And yes, the first thing I did when I woke up was to ‘tag’; using my mom’s iPhone to speak since there was a tube from my nose down to my stomach and I couldn’t speak at all. Most of the day there is a blue though, since I was on constant morphine and kind of just returned from death’s grip. Stuff like that.
Still, my head was still half-swimming with - ahem - happy gay samurai thoughts for the times I was conscious and not knocked out. I needed something to remind myself that I was still who I am and didn’t lose something in the process of returning to life. On my birthday, no less. My nineteenth birthday will now be my most memorable one (and will hopefully stay that way-seriously, what could top this?)
POST-OPERATIVE / RECOVERY DAYS
The following week was pretty much for me to recover. The first few days were the worst of course, and the monthly bleeding thing also decided to happen which just made me want to cry. BODY, YOU HAVE THE WORST TIMING EVER. I grouched a lot and whined a lot and eternally made unhappy noises about my injury, but mom’s friend talked to me about it eventually and after that I calmed down and started to concentrate on recovering. I also needed a physiotherapy session or two because I lay down in bed too long and needed my legs to start working again. It was a painful process, but in a few days I could manage to walk (first with help, and then eventually on my own).
Some tubes were left on me even when I transferred out of the ICU, and they were only taken out in the days later. First was the tube in my nose and down my throat, and removing that actually caused a wound to form on my nostril-it’s healed up since then, but it wasn’t pretty while it was there. Next would be the tube inserted where my appendix once was, to draw out the last of the stuff still there; removing that was a bitch and a half and hurt, and I needed a few hours after that to recover properly. The last one was the IV drip I had been on since Sunday, and I was only taken out of it on Thursday-that meant I went five days without food at all, and so I had to take it slow to get my stomach used to digesting and all that again.
So yeah, food… the food wasn’t that all bad really, although the large bowl of soup given to me in the first few days would be something I never want to drink again. The one morning with the porridge, butter cookies and Milo were the best though, and I was happy to eat that. Also after five days without water? It would be the best thing you’ve ever drank. I took a while before I ever switched to drinking other things again after that. I was recovering pretty swiftly after the first few days, and the doctor was glad for that-she visited me every day, in order to check my wound and see my progress in recovering since she knew that mom wanted to returned to Singapore as soon as possible. She also helped in giving her words in order to ensure that mom would get her insurance claim from the company in the financial department, which was another nice thing.
I also attempted to play Dissidia on the PSP I brought with me, and needless to say that was not the best decision I’ve done. I sucked horribly at the game and still have not touched it.
On uh… Wednesday, I think-or Tuesday once I was out of ICU-I had attempted to contact somebody (Kae at first) with my mom’s phone to inform what had happened to me, and eventually as most of you are aware I called Michele since Kae wasn’t able to pick up her phone. So yeah I told Michele what had happened to me and told her to inform you guys via Plurk since she was covering for me at the time, and you guys know what happened next.
That all settled, things were pretty much okay after that and I just rested a lot and went to the toilet a lot and had fevers constantly and during one night, watched the TV a lot. I was amused that they had anime there, and watched Reborn and Hikaru no Go dubbed in Thai. I also watched Hellboy 2 in Japanese, The Secretariat and At World’s End in English. Strange what flipping through channels can give you. I also got my mom’s phone at some nights and texted Michele with it since the beds were hard as hell and I couldn’t sleep properly at all. I had never been gladder for my own bed when I did return home at last.
I was allowed to return on Sunday, after the doctor stitched my wound up on Saturday (and confirming that my wound was not infected) and after I was done shaking in fear because the doctor stitched me up while I was conscious. The stitching itself didn’t hurt, but injecting the anesthetic did since it was right into my wound… yeah. Never again man, never again. Recalling that gives me the shivers even until now. That really took me a bit to recover from, although mom never knew I was shaking since I tried not to show it. She went though enough, and I really didn’t want her to worry more because of something which was already over.
AFTERMATH OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT
On Sunday the tenth of April I was allowed to be discharged and returned home, and my mom had already managed to get tickets from Silkair rather than Jetstar so it was a rather smooth ride home. Ignoring the fact that I was kind of scared for the whole flight home because I had morbid thoughts of my stitches popping from the air pressure. Luckily that didn’t happen, and I arrived safely back in Singapore and could happily text all the SenBasa people about my arrival back on my country. I don’t think I’ve been ever happier to see the familiar sights of Changi airport after everything that’s happened to me, and my home ever more so and I don’t think I’ve been gladder to see my laptop and get back online again.
I got my official notice from school to say I was kicked out of my Engineering course when I got home, something which mom took well-which is not too surprising, since I had almost died a week ago. She did start hounding me about school after a week though, but as you know I managed to get into a new school and now am studying the course I have always wanted to pursue, which is game design \o/. My stitches were okay and did not get infected despite my OCD worries about it, and were taken out on the nineteenth without much incident so now I have a healing thirteen centimeter scar down my stomach with fifteen points at the side where my stitches were. They’ve turned into keloid scars since then, but it’s nothing to worry about so everything’s pretty much okay! As for the expenses in Thailand from my operation and all that, mom managed to claim hundred percent of the expenses after hounding them for days while I was in the hospital so that went fine too.
Nearly two months now ever since then, and sometimes its hard to believe that I’ve almost died-almost lost all of this, lost all my futures and chances and what-have-yous. Surreal, really, to just imagine that two months ago, I would have not been able to type this out now and say how thankful I am to be alive; it does change you, this nearly-dying thing. Since then I’ve decided to step out of my box and let myself go to a new school to restart my schooling, something not many people here do. I’ve grown more open in some ways, no longer isolated and enclosed in school like before and despite the annoyance the boys in my class are now, I’d like to think I’m on amiable terms with them. I’m still laid-back and lackluster at times, but when its needed I am striving to reach out and pursue my goals and what I want to do, because this is my second chance in life and I want to make what I desire out of it.
Yeah, so… its been quite a ride, but I think I got something out of it, or I hope I have anyway. I’m still alive, I’m still living-and even if my life is still imperfect and full of flaws everywhere, I like to believe that in my own way, I’m making what I can out of it all.
ETA: This was also my four hundredth post. Yay?