28 April 2024 : The Sanctity of Life

Homerton University Hospital
A wise man once said: “Life is fleeting, like a passing mist!” Don’t miss the opportunity to live life fully! In February this year, I was visiting my son in the United Kingdom who had recently graduated from college, and my purpose of my visit was to lend him support and offer any advice he could use to write the next chapter of his life. I was staying at the Hyatt Stratford London during my visit as it was a convenient train ride away to visit my son. On the second night after I landed in London, I started having nausea and initially felt a dull pain in my lower right abdomen which soon became a persistent pain that insisted on interrupting my sleep. My thoughts at that time was that I could possibly have symptoms that were associated with food poisoning. By 4am in the morning, sleep had evaded me, and with the continuing nauseas feeling and persistent pain in my right lower abdomen, I started googling to find out what could possibly cause nausea and such persistent pain. Google results showed that a likely cause of such persistent pain in the lower right abdomen could potentially be Appendicitis. Appendicitis? Not in my middle age I thought! I was hoping that it would simply be some form of food poisoning. Could I wait till day break to go to the nearest hospital? And which hospital could I possibly go to? I had no idea at all being all alone in an unknown place? At 4.15am the pain decided for me that I should not wait any longer, and hence I started calling up several Hospitals around the Stratford city area. The “largest” hospital in the region advised me that their Accident & Emergency (A&E) had a waiting time of at least 8 – 10 hours as many patients from the previous day had not been attended to yet. Another said their clinic would only be open at 9am; whilst a smaller hospital said that their A&E had a waiting time of around 3 – 4 hours. I ordered an Uber to take me to the “smaller” hospital (Homerton University Hospital). The reception and the paramedics attended to me within 30 minutes instead of the 3 – 4 hours. My nausea was by now getting worse, and of course the pain was still persistent. I had blood tests done and they also ordered a CT scan, and so after I was under observation by an actual attending Physician, the CT Scan confirmed that I had appendicitis. A surgery was scheduled to take place in the next 4 – 6 hours. I have never had any surgery which required me to be under General anesthesia my whole life! I was briefed on ALL the various worst case scenarios before being asked to sign a Consent form. Death was a possibility if anything were to go wrong! Stoma bags were mentioned! I always imagined that when one is being wheeled into the Operating Theatre, one would see the square fluorescent lighting above go by, and then one would have their lives flashed before them, and here I was being wheeled into the Operating Theatre at 11am, having that same vision. The attending anesthesiologist ordered an electrocardiogram (ECG), a standard procedure to ensure that one’s heart could withstand the surgery. She came back with bad news that the Operation had to be delayed as the ECG showed a potential blip that could indicate a “heart attack”. Great! Additional anxiousness! At that time, we all knew that if the appendix were to burst, it could potentially be life threatening! The attending anesthesiologist assured me they were trying their best to ensure the Operation could go as planned, and so as an alternative, they took another Blood test to ensure I was not experiencing a heart attack. That required another 2 hours of waiting for the blood test results to be made available. At 2pm, the attending anesthesiologist finally got the blood test results back, and she gave the thumbs up to proceed with the Operation, which was initially supposed to be a key hole surgery that was expected to last around an hour or so. At close to 5pm, I was awakened by the nurse, and I was Alive! The Operation had been a success! However, it had taken a longer 2 and a half hours. No stoma bags needed, no need to open my belly up fully to perform the operation, no need to remove any parts of my colon with only the appendix removed. Wow! The surgeon however came to see me an hour later and expressed concern that my pain symptom of a day or so did not match with what he observed, i.e., the appendix was severely inflamed and the distended appendix had an almost gangrenous wall filled with fluid and containing fecolith, meaning it would have been something that had festered for a quite a long time. The surgeon mentioned that he had sent my appendix to the laboratory for testing, and would like to follow up with me in a few weeks’ time when the lab results were out. I was simple happy to be alive and well! In fact, on the next day, I was told that the surgeon who had operated on me was indeed the “best” and most experienced, and that he was unable to do the follow up rounds as he had fallen sick himself. It was a blessing that timing favoured me. A month later, the Histology report came out and it was discovered that there was a “well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumour (NET), grade 1” that was discovered at the tip of the appendix. Basically Cancer! No one wants to hear about Cancer! Most people associate it with a Death sentence! So many more things to do, and so little time …. I began thinking. Homerton University Hospital reached out to me through several channels (the surgeon, a liason physician, and an administrator) all emailed me seperately to ask me to have my findings followed up by my “home” hospital. We all know that specialist appointments with top Medical Specialists are chock-a-blocked, but fortunately, I had an upcoming regular follow-up appointment with my Internal Medicine specialist Physician within a week, and hence I brought the histology report to his attention. My Physician made some phone calls and they managed to schedule a combined Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan and a Computed Tomography (CT) (PET/CT) with Gallium Dotatate Scan within a month. During this whole month of waiting, time “slows down”. Is the cancer primary or secondary? Has the cancer spread? How much time is left? So many responsibilities, so many more things to finish up, can it be done? The pain to Loved Ones? It is only when one confronts Death, that one really realizes what living life is all about. We suddenly realize we could have been taking people and things in our life for granted. The world does not matter, it’s the loved ones that do! At the end of April, my appointment with the Surgical Oncologist brought me good news that the cancer found at the end of the Appendix was contained and removed, and no trace of any other tumours have been found by the PET/CT scan. No Death Sentence! I know that Death is inevitable and that it will come one day, but no one wants to know the anticipated time of one’s death even if someone can foretell it! And no one wants Cancer or any sickness that foretells the time of death. When my father passed away suddenly from a fall more than a decade ago, he died not bringing any material things along with him! I was glad that whilst he was alive, I did have the opportunity to spend time and resources with him, so I had almost no regrets then! The only regret I’ve always had was that the suddenness of his death meant that we all never had the time to properly say our goodbyes and hence there was no closure to his departure! I am glad over the years that the things of this world have never really been important to me, and given this new lease of life, I want to continue to use my life to be a blessing to my love ones, and bring joy and happiness to them and to be able to touch lives of some of the people I come into contact with, so that at the end of this journey, I will have lived my life meaningfully. And I hope that when I finally close my eyes for good, I will have been grateful for all the blessings in the lives of my family and I, and that there will be closure!