Thursday, November 17, 2011

The Return to CF...and a dysmenorrhoea-induced vasovagal attack...

I went to the USM’s CF yesterday…after a long long long time…since I left USM and started working in Sabah, I’ve never visited KB again till I came back here for Masters…and I’ve been wanting to check out the CF for the last 5 months plus...of course the first 4 months were quite impossible coz I was in HUSM…then I started my rotation in HKB and I’ve been meaning to go but somehow everytime Wednesdays 730pm come I’ll forget that I was supposed to go to CF…so yesterday I reminded myself the whole day that I had a date with God that evening…

And horrible me actually didn’t feel like going when the time has almost arrived…but I went anyway…and I’m glad I did…the CF is held at the Murni hall now…and we just sat on the floor on mats…we had praise and worship session like old times…and most of the songs we used to sing back then…and being in the Murni hall…brought back so much nostalgia…I was so moved during the worship session that tears were free-flowing…after all these years, I’m back where it all started…the place where I really found God…and how our hide-and-seek relationship really started…one where I kept hiding and He kept seeking and have always found me and brought me back to Him…

It’s been 5 years since I graduated…and I’ve stray away from Him uncountable times…just like Israel…and yet He has always brought me back to Him…and I’m just so amazed at how far He has brought me through…just like the line from the song “Through It All” that goes: “You’ll never let me go, through it all”…then we had a speaker from FES who gave us guides for bible study…sitting on the floor for almost an hour gave me such a butt ache and back ache that I realized I’m no longer as young as I used to be…

So I woke up this morning feeling a lot better…I’ve been down with a flu since Monday…went to work ready for my 4 consecutive calls in a row…we had clinic in the morning…my boss admitted 2 patients…one for I & D, another for T & S…was planning to do them after lunch…and thank God the flap case was postponed…coz then it would have been a longer day for me…anyway, just about half an hour before clinic ended, I had a bad attack of menstrual cramps…today was my 4th day of menses…it has been happening on and off lately but the pain usually is self-resolving after about 10-15 minutes…

But after clinic, the pain was still there and seemed to be worsening…I thought I’d take a quick drive to get lunch and come back to the hospital to continue my work…walking to the car park was a challenge…but I managed…then halfway driving to Chinatown, I felt a vasovagal attack coming…I guess the severe dysmenorrhoea must have induced the vasovagal attack…and I have had history of vasovagal attacks during recovery from flu…short of total blackout, I had all the symptoms of turning cold and clammy, lips as pale as sheet, nauseous, hands trembling with tingling sensation, upper and lower limbs turning into jelly…I was praying that I would make it to some roadside where I could park before I totally blackout and crash into something….

Thank God I managed to find somewhere to park by the roadside…I thought resting a while until the wave has passed would help…but the pain and all the symptoms only got worse…the pain was so bad that I felt like defecating…so I had to go to a budget hotel which was just opposite the road where I parked to use the toilet…I was in the toilet for a good while…of course with defecation the pain was still there…so in the end I had to ask for help from the hotel people to send me back to the hospital…I didn’t think I could drive back there on my own without risking an accident which would only made matters worse…

So the nice couple drove me to the hospital…dropped me at the casualty, went to park my car and returned my car keys…I wanted to offer them cab money since they drove my car but the guy said he’ll get his friends to pick them up…really thank God for kind strangers…so I went into the triage, telling the staff there that I was a doctor who works in the hospital and I’m sick…they didn’t even bother to take my blood pressure at the triage…they sent me to the yellow zone and left me there to die…ok, so I’m being dramatic…I’m sure no one ever dies of pain-induced vasovagal attack…but from previous history, whenever I had vasovagal attacks, my blood pressure drops to as low as 60/30mmHg…and I need IV drips to go in fast to bring my BP back to normal…

Of course since they left me lying there for so long, by the time I called a student nurse to check my BP, it was 100/62 mmHg…I supposed my body has compensated…but the pain was still unbearable…I think I can imagine 1/10th of a contraction pain now…and I’m definitely going for epidural childbirth…my menstrual cramps lasted probably an hour plus and I really thought I would die…while in pain, I called Kean Khang to see if he was in the hospital…coz I didn’t know how long more till the casualty MO would come to help me…and I needed pain relief real bad…thank God he was PM shift and he was free…

By the time he came to casualty, the casualty MO had just attended to me…so I told her I need drips and pain killers…and I’ll be fine…so Kean Khang tried to set an IV line on my right hand but failed…thank God the nursing coordinator managed to set a line on my left hand…coz all my veins were constricted and collapsed…usually, my veins are very prominent…then Kean Khang smuggled a dose of dynastat from OT for me…after that, my pain was gone and so were the other symptoms…of course the 2 pints drip helped too…in the end, I had to ask my colleague to take my call today…I really felt drained after the ordeal…I think I need to rest today so I can continue to be on call the next 3 days…very kind of my colleague to agree to help…

I felt really alone in my pain earlier…I cried out to the Lord to take the pain away but the pain only became worse…at that time I really wished I had someone beside me to hold my hand and tell me that everything was going to be alright…but I don’t have that someone…and I couldn’t hear God telling me that…but I was very grateful for Kean Khang…his presence made me felt less alone…and I felt that I still have friends who will come to my rescue when I need help…God bless him…and the kind couple who helped send me to the hospital…

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