113 – Slowing the Slide
Towards Death Part 3: 6 December 2024
In Blog 112 I
recounted how I meditated on Tuesday 18 February 2020 asking the universe to
get me an ENT appointment earlier than my scheduled appointment on 29 April 2020. The next day I forced the locum GP to make a
phone call seeking an earlier appointment and to his shock I was granted an
appointment at 9.30 am the next day with Dr Harshita Pant. The phone call which I forced the locum GP to
make on 19 February saved my life because it meant I was able to see Dr Pant on
Thursday 20 February.
****
****
Margaret came with me
when I saw Dr Pant on 20 February.
Dr Pant looked at the cat scan of my sinuses and put a camera up my nostrils. She said I needed surgery to clean all of the
rubbish out of my system. As well as the
polyps, I had a great deal of fungi and my septum (the part of the nose that separates
the nostrils) was badly deformed. She
thought it was unlikely that I had ever been able to breathe properly in the
whole of my life.
Dr Pant said she could
do my operation on 25 March. I replied “How about yesterday? Can you do
it yesterday”. Dr Pant then asked if I was available for her to do the
operation on Tuesday 25 February. Her ability to operate
on the following Tuesday was subject to her normal anaesthetist being available
and it was also subject to me being approved by the anaesthetist as physically
fit enough to undertake the operation given my open heart surgery in November 2018.
I Immediately said “Yes
please” to Dr Pant.
****
By yet another miracle
in this series of continuous miracles, the anaesthetist was able to see me the
very next day - Friday 21 February. When I told him about the proposed
surgery to be performed by Dr Pant on the coming Tuesday, he told me that he (the
anaesthetist) was normally NEVER available on Tuesdays and that for this
particular Tuesday 25 February he had to be away by 6.00 pm at the latest. He
and his family had a scheduled family trip.
Dr Pant had rung him
about my proposed surgery and immediately before the call from Dr Pant, his
normal Tuesday surgery session had been unexpectedly cancelled, meaning that he would be available
to assist in the operation. He would be able to assist in my surgery only
because Dr Pant had assured him that I would be the sole patient on the surgery
list on the coming Tuesday.
****
So, the way was made
clear for me to have my life saving sinus operation on Tuesday 25 February because
the universe arranged a special operation in record time just for me in answer
to the plea I had made while meditating for the grant of the gift of being able to breathe again.
****
My operation started
at 3 pm and did not finish until 7:15 pm.
I spent the night of the operation in the hospital High Dependency Unit before
going home the next day (Wednesday 26 February). Dr Pant instructed me
not to do any exercise for 21 days. This was a nuisance, but a minor one.
****
I spent the next 7
days recuperating and saw Dr Pant again on Tuesday 3 March. She said the
healing in my system was unbelievable and that it normally took 4 weeks for
patients to heal to the extent I had reached that day.
Dr Pant took the
splints out of my nostrils, cleaned out the built up blood and sent me home.
She made a video of my sinuses so she would have visible proof of how well I had
healed.
Dr Pant took a photo
of the 2 tiny holes to the left and right of the top of my nose where she had inserted
her equipment to clean the rubbish out of my system. One week after the
operation, the holes had nearly disappeared and she wanted a photo to show this to the
anaesthetist.
I was able to breathe without restriction from both nostrils immediately after the splints were removed from my nasal system. Being able to breathe is a truly wonderful thing to be able to do! It was as if I suddenly had a marvellous freeway inserted into my sinuses that allowed me to breathe in and out easily in the manner my body had always been meant to do.
I saw Dr Pant again in
late March 2020 and I was given a complete medical clearance in relation to the
sinus operation. By the date of that
appointment, the multiple restrictions arising out of the Covid 19 epidemic had
been imposed in South Australia and Dr Pant was dressed in a “space suit”,
I asked her what would
have happened if I had been placed on her normal surgery list for 25 March
2020. She told me that on 25 March, she
had been in the operating theatre preparing to start her normal surgical list
of operations. She had her first patient
under anaesthetic in the operating theatre and was about to commence her first
operation of the day when instructions arrived saying the government of South
Australia had completely banned the performance of ALL “elective surgery” effective
immediately.
If I had been able to survive until 25 March, I would not have received my life saving operation. It would have been postponed for months until the government order was withdrawn.
****
If I had not received
my life saving operation from Dr Pant on 25 February 2020, I would have
certainly died.
I have copied this information from Dr Pant's online biography that I copied in February 2020. God bless you and thank you Dr Pant.
ReplyDeleteDr Pant graduated from the Flinders University of South Australia with her medical degree and undertook specialist surgical training in Otolaryngology and Head and Neck surgery (ENT surgery) with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. During this time, Dr Pant was also awarded a PhD in Rhinology and Immunology from the University of Adelaide. Dr Pant then spent a year at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre in the USA as a fellow and clinical instructor in minimally invasive skull base surgery, rhinology and allergy.
Dr Pant has an interest in managing patients with nose, sinus and allergic diseases and children with ENT problems. She has a unique understanding of the influence of microbes (bacteria, fungi and viruses) and patient’s immune system in chronic sinusitis and has extensive training in the medical and surgical treatment of nose and sinus problems. Her philosophy for medically treating nose and sinus diseases is to firstly understand the underlying reasons for her patient’s symptoms so that an individualised and step-by-step rational approach to medical therapy can be instituted. She reviews her patient’s treatment progress regularly with an explanation of their progress based on symptom scores and examination findings. Sinus surgery is considered when medical treatment fails to relieve sinus disease. In some situations, surgical treatment may be considered earlier if a patient presents with a complication of sinusitis, or findings that require urgent surgical treatment or a biopsy.
Dr Pant specialises in advanced endoscopic sinus surgery and skull base surgery in both adult and paediatric patients, using minimally invasive endonasal (through the nose) approaches.
Dr Pant is a staff specialist consultant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and a senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide. She has an active teaching and research career at the University of Adelaide. Dr Pant has presentations both nationally and internationally, and has significant publications on sinus and skull base surgery, and sinus inflammation, including nasal polyps and allergic fungal sinusitis. Dr Pant is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, member of the Australian Society of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, Australasian Rhinology Society, American Rhinology Society, North American Skull Base Society and American Academy of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery.
The photo of Dr Pant is also copied from her 2020 online biography.
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