A lot of pain. She's in a whole lot of pain.

Aparna just went through her surgery yesterday, and she came out with flying colors. Sorta. It was a success, yadda yadda, and the cyst they were removing from the parotid gland (side of the cheek bone) is gone. Now she's supposed to have a small tube that drains any excess blood from the area, and of course, pain.

Maybe it's the medical system here or whatever, but I could swear they're doing it wrong. Or something. At least the nurses. These people have no idea how to insert needles/IVs, etc. It's ri-fuckin-diculous. When a nurse inserted an IV into her hand the first day, Apsi was crying bc it felt like it was touching the bone, not to mention a shitload of nerves. And yet, no response from the nurse. Take it from me, an expert in the field of getting stuck with needles- if a patient screams out, you STOP. Not here; keep on going. Today another nurse decided to inject some antibiotic into her arm. She's zipping along at a good 3-4 cc's per second. Ridiculous. You're supposed to do .25 a second (max) so that it doesn't feel like the patient's veins are going to burst. I had to actually yell at the nurse to STOP. Idiots. Then she slowed down, etc. But still, for a person like Aps who's never been in a hospital, this is very hard. I can understand that. Me? I might be able to deal with this a little better. But her? Not so much. It's very real and very painful for her. And hell, with these damn nurses not even I might be able to handle it.

Good news is- everything went as expected, and she's expected to make a full recovery. There's a pretty nasty scar right now, but as the sutures are taken out and such, it'll heal. Poor thing- I wish there was something I could do to make her feel better, but all I can do is stay by her side, talk to her, and hold her hand.

Just as she's done for me oh-so-many times...