Thursday, April 27, 2006

Disturbing mental images

Just to update you, I did stop watching the spelling bee shortly after posting the last entry. It was getting incredibly annoying. Anyway, today I was with my surgeon, who yet again didn't have any surgeries today (actually we had 2 yesterday that I got to do some suturing in). So she sent me up to the hospital to hang out with another surgeon. He only had 1 case left - a hemorrhoid case. Yep, he lopped off some external hemorrhoids. I think I'll have nightmares about that one. The case itself wasn't technically difficult or gross but the tool involved - an anal speculum - and the thought of the pain she would have with pooping in the next few days, as well as the cause (pregnancies) was more than I wanted to think about or see at one moment in time. I wonder if teens would be better at contraception if they saw enough deliveries with bad tears or knowing that hemorrhoids could result from their irresponsibility. Or maybe I'm too much of a nerd and it wouldn't work on those more prone to teen pregnancy. I don't even like to think about my own female exam when I'm holding the speculum to do the exact same exam on my patients. And so you can imagine the horrible images that floated through my brain when I saw this anal speculum. I suppose it's no better than when I have to do digital rectal exams but a finger seems so harmless in comparison (sorry for the details dad). And to make things even more horrific, this woman having her hemorrhoids chopped off was awake! Ok, so it was conscious sedation with local anesthesia and she may not remember the details of the surgery but if I should ever need this done to myself, I'm making them put me out. In fact, that goes for any operation, minor or major, I may need in the future. I don't have a problem doing procedures on others but I'm a wimp when it comes to my own body. My assigned surgeon cuts stuff off herself all the time because it's simple enough. Not me. I wouldn't be able to stick the needle in to just anesthesize the area. Hopefully I won't become an insulin dependent diabetic because I'd be screwed.

The moral of the story - pregnancy can really mess your body up and men have no right to complain about a little rectal exam.

And now time to water my flowers.

Monday, April 24, 2006

spelling bee

I don't know why I'm watching the portland spelling bee but I find it incredibly annoying. Some of the words are so freakin easy and then the next word is way harder. And these kids are spelling the easiest words wrong! Ok, so I probably can't talk because I didn't spell very well when I was in the 7th grade. But seriously, these are the words that have been spelled wrong: stupor, census, rosary. And the announcer is a freakin idiot as well with crappy pronunciation. Ok, back to clinic notes