Urgent surgery for M.
M., our eldest son (6), was relieved this Friday afternoon when I told him that the stitches of his wounds (he suffered a hernia (liesbreuk) a week ago) didn't have to be removed after all, but that they would fall out all by themselves in a couple of weeks. The little man even gave me two hard hugs straight from the heart, which I found moving, but then again, I have been easily moved these days.
That was one hell of a scare. Wednesday 28 september 12.45 A. dashed into my office with M., telling me that M. had been diagnosed at a local clinic just aa moment before with a torsion of a testicle which he had to be operated on right away, within the next few hours or so, or he might lose the thing. After a second opinion from a French Embassy doctor (the arsehole had to be begged to do his Hippocratic duty, as we're not French citizens working in the Embassy. He had to be begged and cajoled into giving a simple second opinion), we rushed the boy back to the clinic. Mind you, this is probably the best clinic in town and in the country for that matter, but sanitary conditions and the professional level of the nursing staff are not up to European standards. I know, this is what we signed for when we came here, but gosh it feels different when it hits you. The local surgeon, who has an excellent reputation here (...well, OK, I know, for what it's worth) seemed competent and decisive, and so did the anesthesist we met before the operation. We were a bit troubled though when towards the end of the operation someone came over to ask us what M.'s weight actually was: he was knocked out solidly on the drugs dosis he had been given until several hours after the operation....
The most difficult was the stress of the decision that we had to make on the spot: normally for such surgery, under general anasthesia, the child would have been evacuated by plane to Libreville, Gabon. But the delay would have meant, with the knowledge we had at that moment, that he would have lost his testicle. So the choice was to have him operated under less than perfect medical and sanitary circumstances, or to live with the knowledge that his fertility later in life could have been compromised. We chose for the former, and have been proven right it seems as M. was up and (literally) running again in a few days. It proved not be a torsion of the testicle that caused the pain and the swelling, but something involving a hernia and a cyst. His offspring - and ours for that matter- seems to be safe...
M. thinks the scar in his groin is really 'cool' and wants to show it off to all, proudly dropping his pants without prior notice. .. A. and I on the other hand felt quite down the week after, a bit of a post-traumatic dip I guess.
In a way the experience motivated me as well. This private clinic is the best the privileged in this country can get (unless they travel abroad for treatment of course). State health care here, which we try to improve, is just terrible, to the point where people prefer to go back to traditional medicine or to just, well, nothing, for lack of means.
Life expectancy at birth for men in this country has now dropped to 40,0 years, 45,7 for women. Downright nauseating is mortality among children: 220 in 1000 children here don't make it until their fifth birthday, that's almost 1 in 4. I had heard of these figures before coming, but they have been taking on a new and much more vivid meaning these days...
That was one hell of a scare. Wednesday 28 september 12.45 A. dashed into my office with M., telling me that M. had been diagnosed at a local clinic just aa moment before with a torsion of a testicle which he had to be operated on right away, within the next few hours or so, or he might lose the thing. After a second opinion from a French Embassy doctor (the arsehole had to be begged to do his Hippocratic duty, as we're not French citizens working in the Embassy. He had to be begged and cajoled into giving a simple second opinion), we rushed the boy back to the clinic. Mind you, this is probably the best clinic in town and in the country for that matter, but sanitary conditions and the professional level of the nursing staff are not up to European standards. I know, this is what we signed for when we came here, but gosh it feels different when it hits you. The local surgeon, who has an excellent reputation here (...well, OK, I know, for what it's worth) seemed competent and decisive, and so did the anesthesist we met before the operation. We were a bit troubled though when towards the end of the operation someone came over to ask us what M.'s weight actually was: he was knocked out solidly on the drugs dosis he had been given until several hours after the operation....
The most difficult was the stress of the decision that we had to make on the spot: normally for such surgery, under general anasthesia, the child would have been evacuated by plane to Libreville, Gabon. But the delay would have meant, with the knowledge we had at that moment, that he would have lost his testicle. So the choice was to have him operated under less than perfect medical and sanitary circumstances, or to live with the knowledge that his fertility later in life could have been compromised. We chose for the former, and have been proven right it seems as M. was up and (literally) running again in a few days. It proved not be a torsion of the testicle that caused the pain and the swelling, but something involving a hernia and a cyst. His offspring - and ours for that matter- seems to be safe...
M. thinks the scar in his groin is really 'cool' and wants to show it off to all, proudly dropping his pants without prior notice. .. A. and I on the other hand felt quite down the week after, a bit of a post-traumatic dip I guess.
In a way the experience motivated me as well. This private clinic is the best the privileged in this country can get (unless they travel abroad for treatment of course). State health care here, which we try to improve, is just terrible, to the point where people prefer to go back to traditional medicine or to just, well, nothing, for lack of means.
Life expectancy at birth for men in this country has now dropped to 40,0 years, 45,7 for women. Downright nauseating is mortality among children: 220 in 1000 children here don't make it until their fifth birthday, that's almost 1 in 4. I had heard of these figures before coming, but they have been taking on a new and much more vivid meaning these days...
posted by Emilian at Tuesday, October 11, 2005
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