The pain started about a year ago thinking that it was a re-occurrence of an old injury. I chose to ignore it first though few months later I found a bone or so I thought it was, “popping” out of my wrist. As time goes by I realize the lump was getting bigger and the sharp pain on my wrist was getting more excruciating. In the end I decided to seek medical help and called the nearest hospital to my office (Prince Court Hospital) for an appointment with the specialist. The hospital recommended Dr Palani, a hand micro-surgeon (later I realized that he is the famed surgeon who attached back the severed hand of an insurance agent who was attacked and robbed in Ampang few months ago). Well, my diagnosis was - a “ganglion” cyst! Usually these types of cyst are harmless though unfortunately mine was found pressing on my veins and nerves, which causes the immense pain from wrist to the arm and sometime numbness at my fingers. The pain comes and goes but for the most part it was uncomfortable. So, I thought let’s get this taken care of…
Since it’s not the standard type of surgery for ganglion cyst (which is performed normally under outpatient procedure), I was scheduled for a surgery that requires admission; under a General Anesthesia (GA). The plan was to go in, remove the cyst, clean up the bone, and fuse some nerves together. It was not my first surgery though I must admit that I was quite afraid to go under the knife again. I was more nervous about how bad it would hurt after the surgery because the doctor has warned that my ganglion cyst is buried at lunate bone and he may have to dig in to remove the cyst completely.
Anyway, the surgery lasted about 2 hours, longer than what I’ve anticipated though thankfully everything went well. When I woke up, I was at the observation area. All I know is I couldn’t move my body and was just there laying flat. But I managed to take a peek at my hand which was all wrapped up heavily with bandages. The funny thing is that I also realized that I was actually crying a bit when I woke up. I think my body must have felt the pain and just cried like that. Anyway, since the pain was pretty excruciating I decided to bring my self back to sleep mode to avoid the un-comfortableness… somehow the nurse wanted me to stay awake, apparently, my body oxygen level drops whenever I dozed off. Post op recovering process is pretty damn rough especially for first few hours with the usual side-effects of the GA, scratchy and painful throat caused by the breathing tube that was inserted during the surgery, effects of the anesthesia gases inhaled and of course the nausea and vomiting. And, finally when my breathing and everything else stabilized, they pushed me back to my room/ward. The thing is with all those pain and unpleasant moment, all that I had in my head was WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO SERVE MY FOOD?!
Luckily the nausea and vomiting didn’t last long as how it was in last two occasions. I was able to sip my soup slowly as soon as they deliver the food. About an hour later (after the surgeon’s visit) I felt much better and the pain subsides partly due to the local anesthesia/numbing agent that was injected in the area. The surgeon mentioned that when he open-up, the cyst looked really bad and they had to dig in deeply to clean it and had to fuse some nerves (& tendon) together. And because of this, the pain and swelling will probably last little longer than the usual recovery time-line for ganglion cyst surgeries.
Well, as far as progress since the surgery, I’ve gotten a lot of range of motion back in my left hand though my wrist flexion still sucks.
As per today, I’m still struggling to
1) tie my hair
2) typing
3) getting dress up (especially hooking the bra)
4) driving
5) Etc.
