My mini-cholecystectomy

Two weeks ago, upon reading the results of my executive check-up last month at St. Luke’s Medical Center, my cardiologist, Dr. Vincent Valencia, advised me to have a cholecystectomy or gall bladder removal.

The word “cholecystectomy” rendered me catatonic. My wife, Remedios “Medy” Cruz underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy on May 18, 2008, and she spent the next seven months in and out of three hospitals because of it. When we toured Central Europe in May 2009, we spent most of our time nursing her fever caused by an infection traceable to that cholecystectomy. Even now, she has biliary cirrhosis, yet another result of that botched operation.

I blurted out that I did not want to undergo a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. I was willing to undergo an old-fashioned open cholecystectomy. Fortunately, there was a third type – mini-cholecystectomy – locally pioneered and popularized by Dr. Bienvenido Gaddi of St. Luke’s; in fact, the procedure is known informally as “the Gaddi technique.” Dr. Gaddi said that, since he would be attending a meeting of the American College of Surgeons in October (he is a governor of that organization), I should have the operation within the next two weeks.

Putting on my best denial mode, I went through the next few days not thinking about the operation. Ordinarily, I would have surfed the Web, found out what exactly a mini-open cholecystectomy was, and checked the mortality rate. I did nothing of those things.

I did not have to. The operation last Friday morning took all of 40 minutes, I was up on my feet Friday afternoon, and I was discharged from the hospital Sunday morning.

Forced to stay home, I had time to find out from the Web what exactly I underwent.

What is a mini-cholecystectomy? It is a kind of surgery where the surgeon does a small incision, reaches in through the muscles, and takes out the gall bladder.

From a 2008 European textbook in Short Stay Surgery, I learned that “the indications for undertaking mini-cholecystectomy are identical to those for laparoscopic cholecystectomy.” This means, in non-medical language, that one is as good as the other.

I had general anaesthesia, but in some cases, as reported in the October 2007 issue of the Asian Journal of Surgery, a mini-cholecystectomy can be done even with local anaesthesia. That seems to indicate that it is not such a big deal, although it is classified as a major operation. In the July 2002 issue of the Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, in fact, a mini-cholecystectomy is described as a day operation (one for out-patients).

There is one aspect in which laparoscopic cholecystectomy is better than mini-cholecystectomy. According to a 2002 article in Chirurgia Italiana, confirmed by a 2005 article in the British Journal of Surgery, the average time off work of laparoscopic patients is 10 days, compared to 20 days for mini-cholecystectomy patients. For workaholics like me, 20 days is a lifetime, but for other people, I suppose that the medical excuse to stay longer away from work is a benefit. Since I work using the Web, anyway, the 20 days are not really 20 days, though I had to miss face-to-face meetings this week.

I want to thank the many doctors and nurses that looked in on me during my weekend in St. Luke’s. I did not get the names of everyone, but here are some of the very kind and competent ones, aside of course from Dr. Gaddi, Dr. Valencia, and anaesthesiologist Dr. Lourdes Sinamban: Drs. Baola, Chacon, Chua, Lao, Umandap; Nurses Sonia Acoba, Alexandra, Ana, Apple, Den, Gela, Jayzen, Jena, Julie, Kat, Krys, Lorie Ann, Jabez, Pao, Tel, Zen; Medicard rep Girlie. Special thanks go to friend Dr. Annabelle Borromeo, who alerted the nurses to keep an eye on me.

LOURDES SCHOOL: Class 1960 of Lourdes School (Quezon City) will have its Golden Jubilee next February. Will my classmates please contact me at [email protected]? Five of us alumni are tracking down everyone else to prepare for our reunion. Don’t forget that we were the first, perhaps the only, Lourdes School graduating class to land in the top ten of the national high school exams!

“WORDS OF THE DAY” (English/Filipino) for next week’s elementary school classes: Sept. 28 Monday: 1. see/ilong, 2. cactus/ ina, 3. butterfly/ init, 4. nangka/iyak, 5. avocado/ isip, 6. business/itik; Sept. 29 Tuesday: 1. dog/ekstra, 2. horse/ehem, 3. insect/eksperto, 4. sheep/edukasyon, 5. buffalo/eksklusibo, 6. fowl/embahador; Sept. 30 Wednesday: 1. sky/inat, 2. place/inang, 3. match/itlog, 4. because/inggit, 5. foolish/inot-inot, 6. unit/ipot; Oct. 1 Thursday: 1. page/mumo (meal particles), 2. night/may, 3. such/malbas, 4. trousers/mam-in, 5. pleasure/mayana, 6. physical/minunga; Oct. 2 Friday: 1. give/Nene, 2. rule/nunal, 3. square/nana, 4. under/nila (indigo plant), 5. pocket/nito (vine), 6. suggestion/ningning. The numbers after the dates indicate grade level. The dates refer to the official calendar for public elementary schools. For definitions of the words in Filipino, consult UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino.