You know, sometimes 24 hours could look so small that you begin to wonder if the clock ran a full cycle of 60mins makes an hour or that it skipped few hours and the whole world didn't notice, lol.
Well, that was the very situation I found myself in on July 4, 2025. How can I forget the date? It was my birthday, for crying out loud!
I was doing my urology postings then, a department in surgery. It was on a Friday which normally isn't a busy day for the unit and I was very happy I could have time for myself to celebrate my birthday with my friends just over a table or two, order something nice, and banter about how being a doctor isn't exactly the "financial breakthrough" we once imagined it would be in medicine school, **what we ordered becoming a doctor Vs what we are actually getting as Doctors kinda thing ( you know the thoughts that once you successfully graduate and earn the title DR. behind your name that your account balance would suddenly start behaving? That kind of thing with no knowledge that but it was even the beginning especially in this country, lol but it is what it is though)
It was going all smoothly until...
we got a consult
It was about a patient been referred from a private hospital with what we call acute abdomen... A surgical emergency.
We went to see the man and was shocked as to what we saw... The private hospital from where he was referred from could not even close the surgical site incision they made! Wow! That's new!!! You could easily see the intestines just with minimal effort... That's very bad! The abdomen was very big and was very tender ( painful when you touch it)
We started asking questions and we discovered that the man had a herniorrhaphy done and the surgeon at the private hospital did a nasty job even to the extent of accidentally cutting the bladder, that is the organ houses the urine.
This subsequently led to urine leaking into his abdominal cavity from the torn bladder.
So in the man's abdomen was urine and because there was no place it could exit from kept on accumulating in abdomen.
The surgeon at the private hospital went in again with the hope of solving the problem but could not identify where the problem was and this was the point he referred him to our hospital...The man was having very high temperature and all because it has been for seven days since it happened.
My consultant gently whispered to me,
"If we don't get this man in the theatre in the next two hours, this man will die."
At that point, I knew we were in for a longer day... All preparations were made and the man got to the theatre.
Thinking I'll atleast get to observe quietly from afar, surprisingly, the next I heard was,
"Dr. Samuel, scrub in, you're assisting me in the surgery"
Huh! From where to where? Today of all days? When there were two registrars on ground and you're saying I should be the one to assist you?
Maybe it was his own birthday gift to me, who knows but I already had plans😂
But of course, even before I could finish my mental protest, I was already gowning up oo, did I really have a choice?
The Surgery started and we drained 750mls of urine from the man's abdomen, the initially pregnant abdomen became flat immediately, we identified the torn bladder and repaired It.
The surgery lasted for about ninety minutes.
As the assistant, I was meant to monitor the patient for the next two hours after the Post-operation to see how he's recovering especially from complications of anaesthesia.
Just as if 4pm and 5pm never saw the light of the day, I checked the clock and it was already 6:43pm, huh! I was shocked, surprised and confused. The last time I checked time was around 11am and ever since then, I was on my toes making sure all the necessary arrangements for the surgery was in place before eventually the surgery started and never was 6:43pm.
That means I was not going to leave the hospital till around 9pm at the very best which wouldn't have been a problem if I was in South east, in fact, it would have been a perfect time but I was in the South west where their 8pm feels like 2am.
By the time I was heading home around 9:10pm, everywhere was so dry that I could hear my footsteps.
What a day! What a splendid birthday celebration 😂
I can't say it was a bad day, I can't say it was a good day either owing to my birthday celebration that I missed but would have been a perfect day if it was just an ordinary day that wasn't my birthday but it's worth remembering that I was part of the team that saved a man's life the day I literally came on earth 😂
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Thanks for reading and have a nice day ahead 👍