In fairness to the good doctors of Ospital ng Muntinlupa who operated on my mom, upon further research it turns out that it wasn't at all medieval (like I referred to in a previous post). The doctors performed what is called a Laparoscopic Exploratory Surgery. According to the Surgical Specialists of Hazelton web site, Exploratory laparoscopy has often been used for diagnostic purposes to view the abdomen after abdominal trauma and in cases of abdominal illness.
Laparoscopy is a term given to a group of operations that are performed with the aid of a camera placed in the abdomen. Originally, the laparoscope was used during surgical removal of the gallbladder (laparoscopic cholecystectomy) and appendix (laparoscopic appendectomy). You could read more about it here.
Given the condition my mom was in when she got to the hospital, I guess It would've taken too long to run tests and bloodwork and MRIs and CT scans when all the symptoms pointed to a ruptured appendix. I guess my dad knew better, being a veterinarian and knowledgable in these matters and he was there to discuss it with the doctors. Please excuse me if you're eating while reading this but what happened was that my mom's appendix did already rupture when she was brought to the hospital and the pus was all over her insides, so the doctors had to make a bigger incision than what the surgery called for since they had to take out her intestines and clean them up to prevent further infection before putting them all back in. Ugh.
Anyway, my mom's ok now. I'll have another post script to this post script later. About my sister's harrowing experience with the Ospital ng Muntinlupa. I just need to run off somewhere for now. Later!
