Skip to main content

My friend, Sarah - Part One

By

I am featuring a series of a brave ordeal a friend of mine, Sarah Na'matovu, whom I went to medical school with, went through a few years ago. Her writing touched my heart. This story is about her heart. Heart surgery to be exact. 


April 1 2011

After eight hours of surgery, I wake up and am like, "Oh, I am alive, I made it through!" So I'm almost smiling but I have this thing in my throat and am asking the nurse to take it out, she says, "Don't talk." I motion for her to give me pen and paper to write. I don't know what I write because I am drowsy but the next thing I know the airway tube is out as well as the NG-tube. I have tubes going in all orifices of my body! 

Meanwhile I am thinking to myself that surgery is not so bad or that scary after all. 30 minutes later the anesthesia is wearing off fast. Suddenly I can feel every incision. Every nip and tuck. Every suture they had made on my heart and sternum. I start moaning in pain. Guess what they give me? Tylenol with morphine. I lay there for some hours soaking in my pain. There is no greater pain than that. I have to ask for pethidine but they will not give it to me. So I lay on my back and waited to die from the pain. And in that moment a nurse brings the miracle shot. Ooh within seconds I go numb. The greatest feeling in the world. Am still in pain but things have to get worse before they get better, right?!

I wrote this the day I was moved back to my room from the ICU, two days after an open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve and repair an aortic root aneurysm. The grammatical errors must have been a result of excitement or pain or perhaps, both. I wont edit it because it is a beautiful reminder of what resilience means.

Sarah, a beautiful reminder of what resilience means

May 7 2011

A month after my first surgery, I yet again woke up from a state of unconsciousness to find myself in the ICU. Yet again, I realised I could not speak because I had the freaking endotracheal tube down my throat. Like before, I motioned to the nurse for pen and paper. She obliged. I asked for the tube to be removed because it was causing me a great deal of discomfort. This is where this story takes a different twist from the first one. This is a story about fighting for my life.

"The doctor said you have alot of secretion in your lungs and you cannot breathe on your own", the nurse told me. The tube was connected to a respirator that kept pumping air into my lungs. What these people didnot know then, was that the secretions had formed a plug that had partially occluded the tube. So where as I could breathe in the air I could not exhale! I motioned for paper and once again asked for the tube to be removed. I got a similar answer to the first one.

They say, sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands and that is what I did. I reached out and tried to pull the tube out of my mouth. This is when the fight began. One nurse tried to stay my hands, but I fought on. I tried to get up, (which is probably the dumbest thing one can do after waking up from surgery, especially when the operation involved chest opening!!). I could have ripped the incisions right open! They applied arm restraints to my hands and tied me to the bedsise railings on either side. Thinking back, they probably thought that the anaesthesia had driven me nuts!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's your 'Real Age'?

By
RealAge, Inc. is an American media corporation that provides health information to consumers. The company’s stated mission is to encourage consumers to maximize their health and wellness by making their "RealAge" younger. It was founded by media medic, Michael Roizen , currently the chief wellness officer at The Cleveland Clinic . log on to realage.com So basically its a website which asks you a bunch of questions then it tells you what age you really are. It will ask you things like from 'how much do you drink' to 'how many orgasms do you have a week' and so on. It is a long quiz. Apparently since it started in 1999, 27 million people have taken the test. Guess everyone wants to live life to the youngest! So of course I took the test..and I am not revealing my real age. I was appalled to say the least! And now they are sending me all sorts of suggestions about how I can 'regain my youth' e.g:   Burn More Fat with These...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saving Mandy

By
When you have influence, it is your duty to stand up for others and help others up too We had so much in common.  We were both born and grew up in the same sleepy hometown of Bulawayo, almost same neighborhood. We attended the same high school, some years apart, but both proud and loud Convent girls. At some point, we must have taken the same Parklands surburb bus from City Hall to home. Our siblings almost same age-groups; our families and friends intertwined all the way back to roots in Dombodema rural home. We both went on to study medicine, she did dentistry, I did MBChB. But eventually we both did a masters in Public Health in the same programme at the University of Zimbabwe. We both got married and set up home in Harare. Bulawayo girls stick together when they arrive in the big bad city. When I had Anashe, she had Siyabonga. We were both pregnant in 2018. Being senior medical professionals we both had access to the “best” medical care. We both had Cesarian Sections...
60 comments
Read more

Is Everyday One Word or Two? English Test Woes

By
IELTS (pronounced alternatively by people as EYE-Elts and EYE-Lets) is the standardized international English test from the UK and Australia, equivalent to Toefl for the US. I had to do it for a myriad of reasons but mainly to prove to the aforesaid 'Commonwealthers' that I can indeed communicate in English. Disgruntled but excited I booked my test for this past Saturday and pictured myself getting 98% because ‘I even have a blog-o!’ How good must my English be? Woke up at the crack of dawn!   I had received warnings of non-refundable expulsion for late-comers so my senses were acutely aware of my alarm clock. Thinking I was too early, I arrived to find a horde (word I used in my speaking test) of anxious-looking people already waiting outside the British Council building. I immediately befriended the most cheerful face sitting at the end of the line who was to become my friend for the whole day. Payal had carried 5 pens, 5 pencils, several rubbers and a sparkling sharpener...
Post a Comment
Read more