Look inside operating theatre

 Oct 15 2024, 1839 hrs

Let me describe the most solemn place in hospital, just in case i run thru my writing again someday, i will remember this place all.over again. 

Operating theatre, i guess this is the place where the wall witness more prayers than any other section in the hospital. Whether it is a 20 minutes surgery or 10 hours, surgery always mixes the same feeling of hope and fear. 

So, before entering operating theatre we changed our outside clothes with operating scrub. They differ scrub for surgeons, residents, nurses. I think because we are obliged to use mask. Maybe the shape of my eyes resembles someone elses. But the scrub emerge a sense of pride to me. I used to be in that color of residents, and now im in different color. The color of the surgeons who appears to be snob and narcisstic, for some.

But operating theatre is also a sacred places for us. Surgeons adjust their operating room to match their level of tranquility. Some wants their room extremely quite, the anesthesiologist needs to turn off their machine alarm as requested. Some will listen to al quran murattal. Some, like me, would go with air supply (its an old band, in case you are a youngster who never heard of air supply), i like mumbling the song, IF the surgery is not a complicated one. If its complicated, i would go with hasbunallah wa nikmal wakiil, or laa illaha illallah wahdahu laa syarikalak.

Today, my 1st period of surgery started at 08.30. i assissted an oncologist to take out tumor which highly suspicious to be a cancer. Its a 4-hour surgery of standing, no water, high workload on concentrating. Because the tinniest bleeding could came from an artery of less than 0.5 mm in diameter, let alone if its a big artery lets say the biggest is the aorta of diameter 3 cm. Or maybe the worst, when so much bleeding, a patient could loss 8600 liter of blood, she actually living from someone elses blood donor. We took out 30 cm ish mass from ovary. 

I love blood. But i dont like a bloody surgery. But my excitement and fear and anxiety increases with the amount of blood i saw in my operating field. Despite of anything i like a successful surgery. How do i define sucessful, when the patient feel like they are getting better after the surgery. Do u think its an obvious indicator?

Some didnt get better with surgery, because the disease was way too advance or the patient is too cranky with post operative pain, as if the surgery only cause more pain to time. Like what?? For real? What i really love is patients who embrace their surgery as a part of their fighting and they are also supporting me with prayers as if i am their ally to the same combat. 

And not only the surgeon, in my op theatre, we have DJ. The superhero who push buttons: phonecall button (most of us are trained to take phonecall even in the middle of shower or pooping and ofcourse we answer call during surgery), and most importantly next button in song playlist. S/he runs around between op room making sure all needle, equipments, knife, scissors allll the things. I really appreciate their presence. 

And instrumentator, a nurse who helps us handling instrument. We would go like,"gunting" terus nyodorin tangan doang. Dia yg ngasi. "Jarum" terus dia ngasih. Kadang kita ga pake ngomong cuma nyodorin tangan spt meminta2, tapi dia udah tau apa yg kita mau. Ah. Best feeling. Althought its harder done than said.

On my 2nd period of surgery, another 2.5 half hour, taking out bilateral messy 20cm ish lengket cyst, this instrumentator said that i pretty much helped his day, because he didnt get yelled so much like he used to when i didnt join the first period surgery. I liked it. Who doesnt like pujian2 dunia yang menyiksa? Thank for him and her too. 

The best part after surgery are: go to the toilet and long rukuk (stretched alllll the muscles from waist down and spine too) and sujud (relaxed the shoulder and cool down the head too). 

But for me to be here as a surgeon is because unlimited support by my husband. Mama papa juga, but mas irsyad was like also helping me ngerjain PR when i was a resident. Droppped me off at hospital at 02.30 am everyday when i was the most junior resident. I left him so many days alone taking care of my kid. He had a way to cool my head while i was having tantrum, yelling, slamming the door when im pressured or depressed or had this passice suicidql thought back then. Scary phase. But he said, we cannot be only like a diamond. We need to be diamond yg loncat2 (thus we can survive in the society). Happy birthday ayah for always being the shoulder i can lean on.