MY SURGERY

   My maternal grandma told me many times about the story of how I got burned accidentally when I was a baby.

   She took care of me from the time I was born until I was four years old. My family was poor so we couldn't pay for electricity. We usually used oil lamps at night. She always put the oil lamp on the head of my bed while I was sleeping. That night, my parents worked overtime and everyone went out except me and my grandma. After she had fed me and let me fall asleep on my bed, she put the oil lamp the same place she always did, then she went to take a shower. Suddenly, I turned around and my left hand touched the oil lamp. It fell and burned my left hand. I cried so hard. My grandma heard me crying, she knew something was wrong, so she put her clothes on quickly and ran toward me. She was frightened when she saw my hand on fire. Then she took the blanket off the bed to cover me and brought me to the hospital immediately.

I was burned by this oil lamp.

   I was lucky because my face and body weren't burned except my finger shrunk and the skin of my left hand was wrinkled like an old women's skin. At that time, the doctor said I was too young to do surgery, so I had to grow up with that scar.

   When I was a child, I didn't mind or feel bad whenever the teasers who were my classmates laughed and annoyed me. However, my feeling was changed when I became a teenager. I felt bad, got mad at people who teased me, and I was afraid to answer the same question " What happened to your left hand ?", so I became quiet, shy and wasn't confident in public. I tried to hide my left hand whenever I saw strangers.

   Afetr my father passed away, I lived with my Aunt who is my Mom's oldest sister in Vietnam before I came here. She paid attention to me and knew my feeling, so she told my Grandma and Mom who had been in the U.S. about that. Then my Grandma decided to give me money to get surgery for my hand and my Aunt took me to the hospital to have it done.

The hospital which I did surgery

   I remember I had to stay in the hospital five days. I was operated on Sunday morning, but I needed to go to the hospital the day before for the nurse to check everything about my health. They suggested  that I stopped eating and drinking about ten hours before the operation.

   Next morning, I put on the hospital gown and laid on the bed. Then the nurse came to give me an injection in my underarm on the left side. After ten minutes, my left arm started to get numb and I couldn't control it. About 30 minutes later, my surgeon came in with two nurses. The nurse prepared me with an IV in my forearm and asked me some questions, then I was asleep a few minutes after by the anesthetic.

   When I woke up, everything was done. I felt frozen because I was laying in the room with the air- conditioner. I was scared and cried because I hadn't seen anyone, including my aunt. Then the nurse came and helped me to move to the other room where my Aunt was waiting for me.

   I was still under the anesthetic so I didn't feel pain. After many hours, I started feeling the pain, but the nurse gave me some medicines to help me calm down. My index finger was bandaged and the nurse cleaned it everyday. They let me go home when my wound was better, and I went back after two weeks for them to check it.

  After the surgery, my finger is a little straighter, but it still isn't straight like other fingers. The doctor said my bone was dead, so they couldn't make it to look natural.

   Although my hand still doesn't look beautiful, it is the perfect hand for me and I am satisfied with it.