thank god everything is allright ,
normy , is it still painless till now?
and did someone accompany you on this operation?
and im curious about the removal of catether , how to go to toilet after that?
I haven't had the catheter removal yet. They placed a valve on it, so that it can open and closed, allowing my bladder to fill again and get it readjusted to the sensation of fullness. They will likely remove it tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to having to contort by body just to pee. It is still mostly painless. The epidural has been out for about 12 hours now and i still have very little pain. Thao comes by to the hospital multiple times per day to check on me and we talk about a wide range of subjects. The Institute (where I will do the majority of lengthening) is about 500 meters down the road from the hospital I am currently in.
Though most wouldn't know this, I've said in a previous post that the Vietnam hospital I had visited during the summer was the quality of central Europe, which i was comfortable with. Recently, they've started doing the surgeries in this hospital, which is closer to The Institute. I can say with confidence this exceeds central European quality. Though it may not show in the photographs, the equipment is all made in either Europe or North America. The medicine I've been receiving has been either GlaxoSmithKlein or Novartis. I pay attention to this because I'm studying to be a doctor and have spent a lot of time studying in hospitals around the world. The staff is attentive. However, none of this matters without a good doctor.
There were multiple doctors in the Operating Room. It was modern, and I pay attention to details like this, with LED surgical lamps. I remember being impressed with that as well as the other equipment in the room. There was an anesthesiologist, I'm guessing assistant surgeon that spoke English and asked me to verify that I want this surgery prior to going in the OR, Dr.Quynh (the lead orthopedic surgeon), and about a half dozen nurses. They all went to work quickly and efficiently. There was no standing around like they didn't know what to do. They all had a task and did it well until I passed out, thinking to myself "what am I doing?! What am I doing?!" That was about 1PM on 28 November.
I woke up oddly optimistic in the ICU. Maybe it was the drugs, or excitement that I went through something so major. It was maybe around 9 pm. Since my knees were bent when they lost sensation due to the epidural, I guess my brain thought they were still bent. It wasn't until the epidural was taken out today that I fully regained sensation of my leg placement. In the ICU, wheneve I asked for pain medication, they gave me pain medication. It was relatively simple to communicate because the nurses used Google Translate on their phone, and conveniently, one of the patients under watch spoke English fluently. About 12 hours later I was brought from the ICU to my "normal" hospital room. That night wasn't that bad, though occasionally I would wake up from pain. However, the second night, even with an epidural and IV and painkiller shot, I was in terrible pain. I was regretting the day I was born and everything. The nurses and my helper Mrs. Linh tried to help me through it. It may sound odd, but there was so much pain I couldn't even cry. I couldn't distract myself with Netflix. All I could do is lay down and writhe. I didn't sleep that night, and it was the most pain I've ever been in.
By the daytime, it was okay. Thao visited me again, which he does often. My helper is by my side 24 hours per day. That night I slept just fine, with almost no pain, and relatively little pain medication. I woke up to zero pain, and the staff doctor checking on my progress. I thought it was due to the epidural that I had no pain, so I was almost begging for them not to remove it, but the doctor said that it can lead to infection, and wanted to avoid dependency. I was concerned that my pain level was about to increase greatly. A few hours later, feeling to my legs started to come back, but oddly, not a ton of pain. Dr.Quynh has visited me daily, but I'm guessing that I'm not his only patient he visits, and he spends a lot of time in the OR. I guess that brings me up to now. My surgery was about 80 hours ago. I haven't posted any photos of my legs because I am afraid to look at them. Everyone says they look great, but I'm not yet fully comfortable with the thought of metal rods sticking out of my bones. I havent looked at them, and I haven't taken photos. I asked Thao to take some photos, and I'll look at them at somr later time. Even the sensation of the blanket moving against the frame is odd. Not painful, just odd. So, it will take me awhile to post photos of my frames.
Side note: Dr.Quynh performs multiple surgeries per day, on many limb discrepancies, as well as various other orthopedic procedures, so this isn't his main source of income. At least I don't think so. I haven't asked him about his finances. He is not a fly-by-night operation working out of a dingy garage, but rather in a modern hospital that probably doesn't hire quacks. He corrects everything orthopedic from congenital defects in children, to hip replacements in the elderly. He is Vietnamese, so it is not like he is an exiled Chinese doctor operating without license in Vietnam. I don't know what more to say, my experience so far has been good. However, that doesn't mean the outcome will be good, because there is the whole element of luck, but so far I'm confident that, excluding luck, I've backed the right horse.
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Topic: LON in Vietnam (Read 38432 times)