Wound

31122011
15.50

As the young doctor removed the bandage I saw her wound. Under normal circumstances, I would have turned away, felt disgusted or even closed my eyes. But I looked with fascination, I looked with an eagerness to piece together the bits and pieces of information I can gather about mum's surgery.

The wound resembled a zipper some fifty centimetres long leading from the bottom of her neck down to her lower back. It looked like the skin was held together tightly. "Are those staples?" I asked. The doctor confirmed it. Skin staples, better and more advanced than stitches, which leave ugly marks behind. They will be removed in a week or two, when the skin completely heals and seals together.

That was the first incision down the back. On her neck, diagonally as if something slit mum's throat, is another incision ten centimetres long. Mum cringed as the doctor pulled a long thin tube from under the skin. The tubing was sown under the skin after the procedure to lead excess blood into reservoir pouches. Regularly the  doctors and nurses inspect the colour and quantity of refuse blood and plasma to determine whether the internal bleeding has stopped, which can tell them whether the wound is healing or has become infected. And today the collected liquid has become significantly paler compared to the first day.

I stroked mum's thin, frail arm, held onto her hand as the doctor removed the pouches of blood that have been attached to her for the past three days. She was literally tied down because of the sacs of blood and tubing attached to her, and so their removal this morning was a liberation. One tiny little step toward recovery.

My aunt revealed more details of the day of the surgery. My uncle  (mum's youngest brother) rushed to the hospital as soon as he heard the news of mum's impending surgery on Tuesday. He sat with my aunt and my mum prior to the surgery and was briefed by the surgeons (there were three, four including the more senior and renowned neurosurgeon) about the procedure and what they intended to do. Mum was pushed into the operating room around half past eight in the morning, and came out around 17.40hrs later in te afternoon.

"They placed three lumps of matter into little plastic bags," my aunt recalled, "They were of pale skin colour, mixed with the colour of blood." She was the one who waited outside the operating room for some ten hours straight. She was extremely anxious, worried and paced up and down. Her daughter, my cousin came to join her and calm her down a bit.

"I was so relieved when they pushed her [mum] out again. She was still unconscious, but at least the "evil insect" was completely removed". "Evil insect" being a taiwanese euphemism for anything that causes your body ill, and in this case the tumour which previously compressed the spine. "Those three little plastic bags contained the lumps that caused her so much pain, and it's so fortunate that they have been removed..." A bit more delay, and mum perhaps would not be able to move any of her limbs...

 The hair on the back of her head has been shaven, giving it a strange, punk-like look. Mum's body looks and feels much thinner compared to when I saw her last. The chemo sessions, and now the surgery together will make her lose even more weight. I stroke mum's arms an legs, massage her so that she won't get bedsores. And her muscles feel so soft, so weak, as if they have been eroded or wasted away...

It pains me a lot to touch her at times, to feel how weakened mum has become over the span of eight weeks since I last saw her in October. But I brave a smile and look at her with love and reassurance when I massage her. "Be strong and determined, and tell me if there is anything I can do for you..." I tell her, again and again. She would often smile back, obviously touched.