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esangkyu
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Country: United States
Interests: Libraries, red meat, and the George Forman Grill
Expertise: Sleeping while in lecture, while studying, while driving, and probably while you are talking to me...
Playing the same song on the guitar over and over...
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/21/2003
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| i want to write something more substantial... but my lack of patience...
so i'm talking to this girl about the Dark Knight and what we thought of the movie. then out of the blue she starts pulling out references from old Batman comic books (Batman Returns, Frank Miller style) to our discussion.
is it weird that i find that really hot?
i need to get out more. | | |
| its a matter of context i think... so this past month alone, work and a digital rectal exam seem to be synomymous things for me. i'm on colorectal surgery so all the operations i've been doing deal with poop... i've had my hands on poop filled colons, rectums, i've disimpacted stool from everywhere possible including stomas (when you bring a piece of bowel up to the skin surface and a person poops from their side into a bag), my patients have infectious diarrhea, they are constipated, they are vomitting poop, they are lying in their poop, nurses are saving the patients poop cuz they want me to look at it, everything poop.... poop is everywhere. so i'm playing with my little 15 mo old cousin who's all happy and running around. i notice this stench coming from him directly and despite the fact he had a diaper on i see this brown discolored spot from the last place he sat on. and i'm completely grossed out. so i pick him up at arms length and hustle him over to his mother... umm... i think he needs to be changed (thinking please don't ask me to do it) i at times think i am hard to shake when it comes to being grossed out with bodily fluids... but i guess not. a little 1 year old kid just did me in. | | |
| oh what'd you do on your friday night? go out? have fun?
well... actually i had my face less than a foot away from this dude's anus (and no thats not how i roll) trying to see why he's bleeding and how i can stop it.
whenever anyone mentions how they think what i do is glamorous.... i laugh... and then a part of me dies inside.
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| so i'm running up to see this patient... one who is critically ill... to consent her for surgery. her only hope to beat the infection.
i walk into her room and the nurse turns to the patient. "oh here's the doctor who told you you were going to die."
me: "what?"
nurse: " you told her she was going to die..."
me: "no... i did not..."
turns out the nurse is a complete idiot. some big huge white guy told her she was going to die. but that's besides the point. i didn't tell her she was going to die... that was the first time i had seen her actually. i tell her i'm from surgery... i tell her we are going to take care of her.... i tell her we are going to remove the source that is making her sick...
she looks at me with complete fear in her eyes..."am i going to die?"
i look at her and smile... "no... i really don't think so. we are going to do everything we can to keep that from happening."
she smiles back and relaxes a little as i go over the consent form. besides the fact she's maxed out on norepinephrine, she doesn't look that bad. (being maxed out on norepinephrine is bad)
a couple hours later, i stop over to the OR where my chief and attending are cutting her open. i watch intently... the miracle of surgery... you can fix things that no one can... the definitive treatment... you take out the source of the pathology...
suddenly the attending stops, throws up his hands, and scrubs out...
this lady's going to die. there's nothing we can do...
my eyes bug out, i look at my chief.... can't you extend the incision? is there nothing we can cut out?
there's nothing. absofreakinlutely nothing.
i'm speechless as i watch them dress and wrap her... and still while i transport her back to her room. the picture of her wound filleted open fills my mind.... was there really nothing we could do... is there really nothing we can do except let her die...
within the hour i got a page that they were starting Xigris. a 10,000+ dollar can of last resort. another hour later i hear a code blue go off for the hall that patient was in... i look at my chief, and he looks back in understanding.
the huge white guy was right... and i was completely wrong... not even close.. not that we didn't do everything we could... there was just nothing we could do...but i thought we could help her... i even told her so..
i really hate my job sometimes...
i try to tell myself things happen for a purpose... some people you can't save... and i know and accept that well... but it sucks so bad because that is essentially the point of your job and if you can't even do that...
i've seen too many people die this year already... and every time i have to stand there... absolutely helpless.
i should've followed my brother into radiology... | | |
| on general surgery...
her: oh! you're a surgeon?? oh wow! do you operate on the heart??? or the brain??!
me: no, i usually stick to the belly at this point.
her: oh.... (disappointment all over her face...)
i suppose guts and poo are not the most attractive area of expertise. even in grey's anatomy, its always heart or brain surgery. there are no episodes like "WE NEED TO GET THAT GALLBLADDER OUT BEFORE IT EXPLODES!"
what a crappy show...
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