I haven’t taken down the Christmas curtains because I was too lazy today.

Come to think of it, I haven’t had a good rest this Christmas break. I spent 9 days in the hospital, barely sleeping because my mom needed all the help she can get.

When I rushed her to the ER on Dec 23, her intestines were already dying as they got more and more entangled. CT scan showed that there was severe adhesion and there was definite obstruction.

We transfered to PGH because the surgeon who was a consultant at TMC who operated on a friend’s dad (colon cancer) was still at PGH. From ER, my mom went straight to the OR. At that time I was already more than 24 hrs without sleep.

After 4 hrs of surgery, our surgeon called me to explain what happened. My mom’s hysterectomy scar (from way back 2017) adhered to her intestines. As her scar healed, the more it got stuck to her intestine. The duodenum then adhered to the large intestine and everything got twisted. The mind-numbing pain that my mom experienced was the sign that her duodenum was gasping for the last oxygen/blood before dying. So when my mom’s pain subsided at the ER before she entered the OR, that meant the duodenum already died and it was not because the pain killers were working.

The surgeon said if the surgery got delayed, my mom would have died because gangrene would have taken hold.

She showed me the 34 cm they cut and she told me the intestine was supposed to be pink but here she was, showing me a blackened intestine that clearly already died. There was too much blockage as well, hence, my mom’s vomiting and difficulty passing gas.

They reattched my mom’s healthy intestines and it took us 8 days before her bowels were working properly.

I could no longer describe the difficulties both of us experienced during her recovery.

I just thank God that 1) we were already in Metro Manila when my mom started vomiting as we were only a few mins from TMC, which made it possible for us to have a CT scan within a few hrs we were in the ER. If this happened in our hometown, it would  have taken forever to have a CT scan and I doubt if there would be a consultant available in minutes given that it was already almost Christmas. 2) Thankful that we were able to transfer quickly to where the very good colorectal surgeon was and the emergency surgery was made possible, just right in time. 3) That we were in the hands of very good UP doctors. They made sure that my mom, being a professor emeritus from the same university, was given the best care and respect. 4) That everything wasn’t expensive since PGH is a national hospital.

My mom is 76 years old and she is recovering well, considering that she just had a major bowel surgery. It’s not easy for anyone at any age to recover from such.

I just realized that Twin A’s hospitalizations in the past two years trained me to become unemotional, unflustered, efficient, and practical when taking care of patients in the hospital. Messy green diarrhea every 10 mins and all.