For the next 2 hours, mum and I sat idly in the clinic, reading, talking and just wishing for the time to pass quickly. Finally, at around 5:15pm, a nurse came to inform us that the surgery was coming to an end, it was going well and they were preparing to stitch up my boy. :) We were asked to head off for dinner and come back at 6:30pm to see Ricky.
When Mum and I hit Orchard Road (the clinic is just along Stevens Road), she said we should have done this 2.5 hours ago and not stayed foolishly at the clinic. How could we have done that? What if something unfortunate happened midway into the surgery and we were too far away to get to him in time? Regardless, it was with much relief and quiet joy as we took our dinner.
We finally got to see Ricky at 7:00pm. His first greeting was to attempt to snap our hands off. "He's in a lot of pain," the nurse offered an explanation hurriedly but really, I took it as a sign of his usual crappy affection. :) But the poor baby was in a very weak state. He was shivering and whining softly from the pain and it was obvious why. The incision was easily 20cm and I couldn't begin to count the number of stitches at the incision site.
This large mass, which easily weighed 3-4 kg, was extracted from Ricky in the 2.5 hours surgery. It is basically of fatty tissues that grew and grew and literally sucked the life out of my Ricky.
Yes, we could have had it removed 2 years ago. But we had chosen what we believed to be "quality of life" over "quantity of life" for him and opted not to put him through the pain of surgery and instead, let him live his life as best as possible, as indulgently as we could.
Today, faced with the options of life and death, we chose life.
:)
A few more days in hospital and Ricky should be ready to come home.
now you have to delete "down with a huge tumour" in your About Ricky section. :)
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