I finally decided to have my damaged
left foot fixed by a surgeon in Melbourne.
Soon after a reckless cab driver
mowed me down while my wife and I were having our usual morning walk around
Singapore’s Scotts-Cairnhill area on a Sunday about two-and-a-half years ago,
an ambulance rushed me to a public hospital in Singapore, since we did not
carry any identification at all. The injured part was promptly dressed up, but
I was not wheeled into the operating theatre until very late that evening. When
the doctors opened it up again a couple of days later, infection had already
set in. Part of the heel pad had to be scrapped off. I had to undergo a flab
replacement surgery. But to my great disappointment, the graft failed, and it
appeared that my left leg might have to be amputated.
Earlier a caring friend rushed me
some Chinese medicine to take after the surgery. But the instruction was so
mickey-mousy that we decided to put it aside, in order not to jeopardize the
surgery. What’s there to lose anymore? I
promptly took it.
Believe it or not, the medicine
worked! It is Zhangzhou’s Pientzehuang.
The injured part began to granulate and soon a membrane was formed. I could
walk, even though the half of the heel pad that was supposed to cushion my foot
when walking was already gone.
On the suggestion of some surgeons in
Singapore, I consulted Prof Wayne Morrison of St Vincent Melbourne. He thought
I should undergo another flab surgery, lest there would be ulcerations from
time to time at the affected area.
I was also given the opportunity to
consult several senior hand surgeons in Melbourne and Singapore. Some thought I
could do without one; others said it might be good.
But ulceration became more frequent;
this gave my wife a great deal of unhappiness. I dread another one, since the
first was quite a harrowing experience in the first place. Notwithstanding, I
decided to go through another one under Prof Morrison.
Prof Morrison is perhaps 75. He looks
like actor Peter O’Toole.
He works like a clock – I had only to
check in at the hospital at seen; by eight I was already at the operating
theatre. I was awakened at noon. The operation was already over! Exactly one
week later, I was discharged.
Being a student of management, I love
to observe how organisations go about their work.
First the good surgeon. He is a man
of few words; but he is cool and exact. The stitches on the grafted flab look
the work of a Gucci expert. I noticed that there were not too many people in
the operating theatre. When there was a small hiccup four days after the
surgery; he knew exactly what to correct. I see that his medical technique is
not very different from what I experienced in Singapore, but his skill level is
certainly many notches higher. And the post-surgery attention was also quite
different – no lamp needed to warm up the affected part; all the nurses had to
do was to make sure that could continue to hear pulses from the grated flab.
They came in waves; which was music to me and the nurses.
The standard of hospital care between
my Singapore stay and St Vincent Private were more or less the same. The older
nurses in Melbourne are more sure-footed, though. Passing motion in bed was the
most nightmarish chore in both stays!
It will take a couple more weeks
before I can go back to my routines. I am glad it is over.
And thank you, Prof Wayne Morrison!
