Mother of all Pain!

What a way to start off the year 2008!! I was having a bout of diarrhea and suspected a bad flu was coming onto me, too. This happened a day into the year 2008. I could feel my neck and shoulders getting tight and my eyes getting itchy, sore and uncomfortable. I clearly recalled, then, I wrote an email from Kunming, China, to my dear wife in Malaysia that I might be coming down with a nasty attack of flu. My condition got worse despite having taken some medication prescribed by a local medical clinic. My eyes began to turn more red, and eye sight becoming blurry. I could feel the swelling and pain around the neck and a throbbing headache too. With the assistance from fellow colleagues and friends, I was admitted into a nearby private hospital

On that cold Sunday evening, in Kunming , China, the world suddenly became dark and I could not see and not knowing what was wrong with me. It was really frightening and I was scared stiff. I could feel injection needles poking into both my arms, for the intravenous drips and antibiotics throughout the night. The next morning and a daily routine after that, I had to have antibiotic via injections administered into my lower eyelids which became acutely painful and swollen after a couple of days. Further tests were carried out over the next few days, ultrasound, MRI and CT scan to pin point the source of the problem. Hong, my dear wife came over to Kunming and she was in constant discussion with the doctors about my health condition. Communication was a problem as she could hardly speak nor write Mandarin. The test results showed that my lungs and liver were infected but the doctors could not determine the bacteria or virus at the point in time. We decided to return to Malaysia for further treatment We returned to Malaysia after obtaining the green light to travel as the pressure in my eye balls were very high.

The mother of all Pain! ………..

“There will be a little bit of discomfort” the eye specialist said as he administered some drops of the local anesthesia into both my eyes. He explained that he was going to extract the ‘pus’ from the eyes and inject some medication to treat the infection and relieve the eye pressure which was still high. Suddenly, I felt a very sharp, intense and excruciating pain as the needle poked right into my right eyeball. The pain was so intense that I stayed ‘frozen’ and all I could do was taking very deep breaths in and out. Every second seemed like ages. The process was repeated with the other eye. It’s incredible that I did not pass out from such traumatizing pain. I had gone through so much pain since I was admitted into the hospital in Kunming, China. But this pain I was going through beat all the rest…..it was the MOTHER OF ALL PAINS!!!

Further tests showed that my liver had an abscess and so did my lungs. It was imperative that the liver abscess was drained via an operation before the eyes could undergo operations to clear the pus which were affecting the retina. Within a week I went into operating theatre twice – one for the liver abscess drained and the other to both eyes – vitrectomy to try and save my eyes and perhaps give me back some sight.

Two days post-op checkup with the eye doctor it was found that the pus was still forming and had filled up the pupil of the right eye. The specialist had to extract the pus from the right eye. “There will be a little bit of discomfort” said the doctor. My Gosh! I heard that before! The doctor inserted a needle through the incision of the eye operation and extracted 1cc of pus. The PAIN this time round was the GRANDMOTHER OF ALL PAIN! It was indescribable.

Painfully, more challenging times ahead!