We checked you into KK on the afternoon of Valentine's day. It was the only other day besides new year and Xmas that single bed wards are not 100% occupied. Ah yes we enquired about the hospital ward occupancy rate. Haha
Mummy overpacked everything needed for the 3 day stay as usual. One bagful for you (and many bagfuls for ourselves!! Oops) - Books were essential just in case daddy and mummy feel bored enough to actually read. Lee Kuan Yew Hard Truths to keep Singapore Going for daddy and The Far Side Gallery 3 for mummy. (yes, mummy is more shallow, cant read auto bio on serious pple who take themselves too seriously) Blue SQ cotton booties for daddy and Maroon AC booties for mummy plus many many twisters/ cheezels/ MnMs/ fruit juice/ chocolate milk to stock the minibar. Daddy said its embarrassing to display all the chips on the console table as if we are here to holiday... errr... ok...
Surgery will last for 2 hours and we were encourage not to wait but head out for breakfast. I dragged daddy for a 40min foot reflex massage to release his tension. He was limping like an old man and I was sure, like mummy, he felt like one as well. Daddy being daddy as you know him was so worried that he will miss fetching you from the theatre that he kept saying no no no. In the end, it did not matter if the foot reflex is good or bad, my objective was achieved when daddy fell asleep halfway through the session.... How tired he must be.
Back outside OT, we waited for the nurse to call us in. Since only one family member could enter, mummy waited outside with other anxious parents while daddy fetched you out. Alone and not knowing what to do, I people watch and weep when other parents weep as their own child were being wheeled out.... It was very quiet at the waiting area and I tot I could hear my own heartbeat... It was not a very nice feeling..
Mummy always believe I am the cool cucumber while daddy is the worried wart but when I saw your face as you came out, I could not stop crying. I had zero idea what I was crying for. Mummy is never particular about looks, hence when I knew you had cleft before you were born, it is not an important concern... I could not imagine that others may see you differently or that you may be in anyway disadvantaged in future... When you were born, you looked wonderfully adorable. The cleft was such a small small thing, hardly need fixing.
But I have never imagine the sharp pain I would come to feel when I heard innocent comments of young children who pointed at your lips and go "why is her lip like that?". You are now still so young, such words may mean nothing but once you begin to understand that your friends around you see you differently, such words will leave an emotional scar that may not be easily forgotten. This operation is important to you thus it is important to mummy and daddy. From this moment onwards, Megan, you become normal.
The sight of your numerous stitches and dried blood around your mouth and gown shreded my heart into pieces... It was a pain I had never felt before I became a mother. It really hurts. I was quite taken aback when I see stitches on your nose. I did not anticipate a surgery on your pretty ordinary nose. And to fix a tiny cleft lip on your right, they actually cut and stitch all the way up from the affected lip to the right nostril. I simply could not stop tearing as me and daddy followed behind your bed as you were being wheeled back to the ward.
Sister Joan, the staff nurse from Cleft and Craniofacial Center (CCRC) told me to bottle feed you before she returned to teach me how to clean your wound. "Won't it hurt for her to drink from a bottle with a fresh lip wound?"... Her reply was the same as Vincent. When you are hungry, you will drink. And it was true, you took to the bottle like fish to water, sucking away, smearing blood all over the rubber tit.
Me and your grandpa were in the ward when sister Joan returned to give me a scary lesson on wound cleaning, executed after every 3hrly feed. Joan demonstrated to me once on how to roll the saline dipped cotton stick into your nostril and wipe the internal stitches clean of blood and mucus. Then your philtrum and your outer lip into your inner lip.
"Hold the head, steady your hands.... no no no too gentle, I show you. Look at the edge of the cut, you have to press the cotton bud down.. like this, and roll in a zig zag manner... press hard and even out the two flesh so they can join properly.. see, press and roll and even the flesh, squeeze out the blood and discharges... darling how well the philtrum wound heals depend on how well you even out the stitches ok... the nose stitches need to be clean properly too because if there are clots, the fresh will tear when stitches are removed... press harder yes...try again, press harder"
To clean your wound required two person. One to hold you down and steady your head and body and one to do the cleaning and bandaging. All this time while I were practising cleaning, doing it wrongly and repeating the action, you were screaming and shaking vigorously. I knew in an instant I am no nurse material but I had to do it. My mind was a total blank trying to block out your cries but this was no leg wound where I could visually ignore your painful expression ... I saw your face turning from red to maroon to purplish... deep breathe YY... suck it in YY, finish it quickly YY, I told myself... I could do it..I could do it (like I had a choice)... The crying, blood and gauze were too much for grandpa so he went away for a breather. Mummy was by myself, inflicting this pain onto you with nurses telling me to press harder harder...
Daddy took the night shift again for the second time. He told me the nurses could not stop your cries and he had to cuddle you to sleep..
16 Feb 2011
The day of your discharge... Hurray Megan..
Walked over to CCRC where sister Joan wanted to see how competent mummy was at cleaning your wound before we head home. Daddy and mummy chated with a grandma who was waiting to see Joan as well. Her 10 month old grand daughter just had her palette operation a week before and they were back to clean the wound. She told us that not only did the plastic surgeons at CCRC fix the infant's palette, they also reconstructed her eustachian tube which was beyond what they anticipated the operation will achieve. In fact, they did not even know there was something wrong with the child's Eustachian tube. Same for you my darling, we thought the operation was for your lips only but Vincent took the initiative to enlarge and reshape your right nostrail so that both nostrails now look exactly the same as well. Vincent and his team really went the extra mile.
Mummy wanted you to know that you had been a very brave gal Megan. Much much braver than mummy. Mummy has recording down every detail of this ordeal with photographs so that one day when you are older, you can read about how very very fortunate and courageous you were...
Love you from daddy and mummy.
