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Published: September 29th 2007
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Back in hospital
In my new room in Bangkok International Hospital sporting a lovely loosed fitted, sky blue trouser/shirt combo, complete with IV drip (not available in stores). Arrival...
After 10 days on Koh Toa, my Wolverine-like healing powers meant that I was ready for my skin graft (see Wound Watch 3;
Koh Toa for Now from my previous blog for the state of my knee), so I got the boat/bus up to Bangkok International Hospital, which is the sister hospital to the one I had been in on Koh Samui.
I was eager to get back to hospital so I could get in, get my skin graft done, get out and start travelling again. However, I was soon to learn that this wasn't going to be the case. The doctor who had been treating my on Ko Sumui, mainly due to the language barrier, had led me to believe that a skin graft was a relatively minor operation. I was under the impression that it would be a case of me getting to hospital having the operation, staying in hospital a couple of days to confirm it was ok and then being allowed to get on my way with a week of 'taking it easy' before being fully recovered.
Unfortunately, I was grossly mistaken and a skin graft is actually a very involved procedure and I was going to be at least a week
Wound Watch 4
This was the state of my wound when I arrived at Bangkok International Airport. Notice the nice bandage marked tan line around the knee. (looks a bit like there's a small beef stake laid on my knee) in hospital before being allowed to leave and 'take it easy' for another week. After the doctor examined me I was taken for X-rays, taken to my new room, put on a drip and prevented from eating with my operation scheduled for that evening. Fast and efficient service. Nice.
My new room was as nice as the room I'd had back on Koh Sumui, a bit bigger and with a massive widescreen TV, however, it lacked a DVD player, which I was not happy about.
...The Op....
After settling into my room and sporting my knew Bangkok Hospital Threads they came to collect me for my operation. Knowing full well I hadn't eaten for the past 8 hours, I was still wheeled past what felt like every counter selling food within the hospital en-route to the operating theatre, this must be some kind of sick joke they like to play with the hungry foreign patients. Anyway, once in the operating theatre there were a pack of nurses all around coming and going from the room doing various things in preperation for my operation. I was placed onto the operating table and two attachments were added sticking out at right angles..........these were what
After Operation
This was what I found on my leg when I woke up after the operation. my arms were strapped to! The nurses then proceeded in attaching various things to me; A strap for blood pressure, a clip on my finger to measure oxygen in my blood, little pads with wires on my chest for what reason I do not know, etc etc..................and then, all of a sudden, everyone was gone. All the nurses had left the room and I was left on my own strapped to this table in the crucifix position, surrounded by operating equipment, feeling very vonerable. Then after a while one of the guy nurses from earlier comes in and starts checking a few things, checking the wires on my chest, looking at things on the side counter and walking around me. It was at this point that I began to panic slightly, I started to think that maybe this guy wasn't actually a nurse at all, maybe he was just the caretaker, yeah, maybe he'd just gotten a bit bored of cleaning the floors of the hospital, found himself a nurses outfit and is going to try his hand at some surgery......
But fortunately before any kind of serious panic had a chance to set in and to my relief, all the
After Operation
This was what was underneath. The blood is from the spot where the skin was taken. nurses started returning along with the doctor from earlier. He proceeded to shave my leg (but refused to shave my face upon request), I was then put under general anisthetic and woke up some time later a bit dazed in the recovery room. As a result of the operation I had a cast on my leg from ankle to thigh in order to prevent me bending it and a sore throat from the tube they put down there whilst knocked out.
...And Afterwards/
My job for the next week was to stay in bed 24 hours a day while the skin attached itself and grew over. The next day the doctor came to take off the bandages and inspect the graft a which point I got to see what he'd done (see photo).
Greg's Arrival
After exactly a week in hospital, just as the bordom was really getting to me, my good friend and house mate from uni Greg arrived. The plan had been for us to travel to North Thailand, Laos and Vietnam together before going our seperate ways and then meeting up agan in New Zealand. Obviously under the current circumstances that wasn't going to be possible, so Greg planned to
Wound Watch 5
The skin graft stitched around the edges. This was the result of the operation. go and visit the south of Thailand where I had just come from and then we'd carry on with our plan when I was discharged.
Greg stayed a couple of days in the hospital so he could explore Bangkok in the day, it was good to have a mate around and meant I could get out of my room a bit.
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