Yvonne Foong: Fighting NF

After my surgery last month, I realized how much my doctors mean to me. Dr. Lekovic and Dr. Schwartz successfully removed my brain’s Trigone Meningioma. But it took me 24 hours to wake up in the ICU. Even then, I experienced seizures during the five days I spent in the ICU. When I say seizure, it was not epileptic seizures and I wasn’t convulsing. But I did experience hallucinations and I was delusional.

I was confused. When they did not let me get down from bed, cuffed each of my hands to the bed, and did not let me drink or eat, I forgot that I had surgery and thought the nurses were plotting against me. I knew that I was somewhere in the hospital but the place looked unfamiliar, I thought I heard the nurses speak to me and behind me, trying to console me (which can’t be true since I am profoundly deaf). Thinking that I was in captivity, I tried to escape by tugging against my hand restraints, pulling out the IV needle from the back of my hand several times till my gown was drenched with blood, removing the strap which took my blood pressure automatically, and wanting to remove my catheter too so that I could run for safety. One time, I managed to get down when the nurse was unaware but as if I forgot to use my legs, I fell headfirst against some machenical device. I quickly climbed back into bed before anyone noticed. That’s when I understood why they did not let me get down.

In a state of confusion throughout that five days, I did not know if the things I heard, felt or saw were in reality. I have fractions of memories from my ICU stay but which were real and which were hallucinations?

In one of those recollections, I remember Dr. Lekovic standing by my ICU bed. He held my left hand and brushed the back of my hand against his cheek, turning it this way and that. I remember the look I thought I saw on his face. Dr. Lekovic was filled with emotions.

Did that happen when I first regained consciousness in the ICU and was Dr. Lekovic expressing his gladness? A week later when Dr. Warfern visited, she said that they were all very worried when I didn’t wake up.

Although I wasn’t fully conscious when Dr. Lekovic visited, but I felt his touch, the emotions he conveyed and I remembered him throughout my stay in the ICU.

In my confusion during the seizure, I felt victimized and afraid for my safety. At one point, I remembered my doctors and thought that if they knew I was in trouble they wouldn’t leave me alone. Then I cried.

So happened mom was visiting at that instant and seeing me cry, she thought I wanted to go back to Seton Hall with her. Actually, I just missed my doctors.

I believe the impressions Dr. Lekovic left when he visited helped me pull through. Although I did not understand what was happening to me, but I knew that I was in trouble and needed to get out of it. But the thought of my doctors comforted me and I would stop tugging at my restraints or trying to remove them, to be a ’good patient’.

Over the past two days, I considered removing my brachial plexus tumors somewhere else where it can be done at a lower cost. When Tiam Loong visited and we packed some t-shirts together, I remembered all the people who sacrificed and went out of their ways so that I can get treated at HEI. But we need to raise between RM100k to RM200k for every surgery. Many of the people who helped do not have much themselves but they sacrificed for my sake and this makes me feel bad.

This morning as I laid thinking about the pros and cons of switching dctors, I suddenly remember the ICU experience I described above. Tears formed.

If I go somewhere else, I would be departing from the people who strengthens me.

But still, do I want those around me to keep working so hard for my sake? Someday, we’ll find a solution which allows me to remain under the care of my surgeons without troubling people so much.