Just Live

Chapter 13

Note: Hello! Before anything else, here's a disclaimer for any medicine-related information from this point onward. If there's anything inconsistent with the literature, it's all on me! 😅 To readers who are in the medical field, sorry po kung may mali. ✌🏻😅 Complicated case pa more, self. Toinks, haha! 😄

Anyway, thank you again for your time and I really enjoy all my interactions with all of you. Thank you for reading, for voting for the chapters, and for taking the time to comment, and sometimes reply to my replies too. Maraming maraming salamat!

- 150rewind ❤️

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Maine remembers being wheeled down the hallway through the double doors of the operating room. Her mind was going ballistic on her that she feared waking up in the middle of the surgery and be completely aware of everything, although some patients do undergo brain surgery wide awake.

Maine remembers getting up and walking over to the operating table where she met with her surgical team. She lost count of all of them but there were more than ten people there with her, each with an important role to play to make sure she has all she needs to make it through the surgery in the best condition possible, given the circumstances.

Maine remembers the surgical team trying to make her as comfortable as possible, explaining each step to her and telling her what the medications are for. She remembers being told she was getting the medication to help her sleep.

Maine remembers being told that once she's asleep, they're going to be doing a couple of procedures before the actual brain surgery. Intubation, another IV insertion, venous catheter insertion, arterial line insertions and catheter insertion among others.

She was nervous and she was scared to death, but she decided to take a deep breath and trust God.

The last thing she remembered was that the anaesthesiologist gave her a mask before she felt her eyes droopy. The world became a blur once more, with only one thing visible: her goal to live. It felt as though she was in the pool, unaware of everything else but the ripples of the water and the goal to victory. She didn't know that the struggle to live and wake up began the moment she closed her eyes.

It has been three days since Maine's surgery and her doctors had to make a quick decision to put her in a medically induced coma due to the extensive swelling in her brain. When, and if, she would wake up, they could only hope for the best.

"Seventy percent of the tumor was removed. Once Maine wakes up from the coma, we will assist with her recovery then proceed with radiation and chemotherapy."

"Only seventy percent and she ends up in a coma?" Teddy voiced out his frustration. "Is she even going to have the chance to fight through her illness or is she going to lose right after taking her first step?"

"Mr. Mendoza, we made a collaborative decision to put Maine in an induced coma because we would like her to have that chance," the surgeon calmly replied. "Our goal was to remove as much of the tumor as we could, as safely as possible, while trying to prevent neurological deficits because of the complex location of the tumor."

"What kind of neurological deficits?" RJ couldn't help but ask.

RJ felt a ball stuck in his throat as he listened to the neurosurgeon. He watched as Mary Ann tightened her grip on Teddy's hand, and Maine's father held his wife tightly.

The surgeon nodded and proceeded to explain more about Maine's condition.

Neurological deficits. Sensory and perception problems. Motor problems in high correlation with those.