READ PART 1 HERE
READ PART 2 HERE

POST SURGERY DAY 5

Another death and 25 new cases were registered that day.

That morning, I woke up to numb and swollen hands. I couldn’t take the pain of my injectables anymore.

One of the kind nurses suggested I purchase a SOLUSET. It’s an additional cylinder that lessens the concentration of medicine that enters your veins. And just like that, I said goodbye to the awful stinging pain of my IV antibiotics.

I wished someone suggested this on my first day. It would have saved me from so much pain for the past 4 days. This is a life-saver, everyone.

My catheter was removed that morning and I was advised to drink excessive amounts of water. Thus began the story of my toilet pilgrimage.

Starting at 10AM that day, the uncontrollable burning feeling in my bladder would force me to go to the toilet every 7 minutes or so. More tears than urine came out of my body in the next 24 hours…

By 2AM my body was too tired to process what was happening. This went on until the next day.

This was me the whole night…

And this was my personal “nurse”:P

I let him sleep because he assisted me the whole day and was complaining of a backache. Before dawn, I had to wake him up so that he shared in my misery too. Haha.

The past days, my nurses had been really kind to me. But at this point, I was getting frustrated at the weekend shift. I sent my cousin to let them know I was exhausted. It fell on deaf ears. I had to go myself, twice, to appeal for any kind of relief. They kept asking me the same questions over and over, I wanted to pass out and not come back to life.

At one point, I remembered the ER doctor coming to check up on me. But I was so exhausted to even know what I was saying or doing.

The Lord knows I prayed fervently that night but I felt like a huge veil was blocking my prayers.

POST SURGERY DAY 6

19 new Covid patients today…

By morning, my aching knees refused to bend in the toilet seat. I now had to wear diapers because I was scared to break my fragile knees. Sitting or lying down made the pain worst so I had to remain standing for more than 24 hours.

Results of my additional tests came out and everything was clear. There was nothing wrong with my blood, my kidneys and my bladder. My doctors had to refer me to another specialist. I wasn’t allowed to be discharged just yet.

What was wrong with me?! Was this a mental-psychological problem? A spiritual problem?

The next hours I spent talking to my brain in between urination. “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re ok. You can go home.” Over and over, I cried, convincing my brain that it’s time to go home.

Then I woke my cousin up again and asked him, “Are you hiding any sins? Please repent and pray for me.” We both laughed. But we also took this seriously and spent the next hour in prayer, asking God for a miracle.

After that, there was nothing else to do but to eat lunch and continue pee-ing.

After lunch, I was standing up waiting for my next horrible pain, when I felt a rush of water involuntarily come out of me. NO PAIN. I stood there for a full minute, thinking if what just happened was real or was it my imagination.

I quickly drank one bottle of water, hoping to test if it was real. Then it happened again! My pee came out and it was like a faucet that turned on and off at the right time. AGAIN PAINLESS.

I wasn’t fully convinced. “What is happening?!”

On the third time, a stream of urine happily exited by body and it flowed so smoothly until my bladder was empty. SWEET RELIEF! My soggy diaper was shouting for joy!

At that moment, I was convinced, without any doubt, that I was healed. I felt God’s presence so strongly as bondages of pain all over my body fell away and disappeared into thin air.

“Go tell the nurses, I’m ready to be discharged!” I confidently told my cousin. Before I even finished my sentence, he was out the door. I guess he was more excited to go home than me.

All my other nurses knew that we were just waiting for my urine flow to be normal, then I can be discharged. I felt the weekend nurses weren’t that enthusiastic for me to go home. I had to personally go to the station and, in all my good manners and controlled emotions, requested to talk to my doctor myself.

“Doc, pasensya na, but me staying one more night in the hospital can make me more psychologically sick.” I respectfully explained that I was OK now. Thankfully, my doctor was understanding enough to say YES.

At 2PM my doctor agreed that I be discharged. After some drama with my hospital bills, I was happily rolled out of my room at 6PM.

With the lockdown imposed and my family in high-risk status, we had no way to go home. I was so thankful that the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) of my hometown, Bayombong, responded to our call. Their team was amazing and very professional!

I arrived home at 6:30PM and was carried straight to my bed. That night my pillow was drenched in tears, not of pain anymore but of joy. Again, in the most difficult times, God has proven himself to be faithful.

I am thankful that it was my appendix that I lost and not any other part of my body.