Saturday, December 5, 2009

I Slept With Tiger Woods!

That there is one big honker of a tumor. It's bigger than an egg. It is attached to a patient from our free clinic. It's been bugging Dr. P.A. and me for ever; that thang has got to go. We've been poking and prodding it for months, tried needle aspiration under local which is about all we can offer at our shelter/clinic. Naturally the patient doesn't have a pot piss in, he's totally uninsured and scared to go to County because they'll likely just hack the entire limb off.

He could be mistaken for a CEO if you spotted him from across the street, but when you get a little closer you can see that the overcoat is little tattered and he smells like bung-choda. He always waits his turn very patiently, reads books about origami, and has a list of well thought out questions regarding treatment options. We're very curious about his past, but we don't generally ask too many questions at our little clinic where all you need for treatment is a signature on a consent form, and it doesn't even have to be your signature. We've had charts for Elvis, Jesus, Osama bin Laden and the Lone Ranger.

Favors were called in, and an MRI was obtained and pathology services secured. Based on the MRI it was a solid well encapsulated mass, which means it should pop out easier than boobies from a big girl's blouse, unless there is extensive investment of tendons or nerves, in which case it could take a little work.
It's difficult to set up a procedure when your patient doesn't have a phone number or a reliable address, but yesterday after much anticipation, the big day finally came. We had to do it in the procedure room in the office because no self respecting hospital or surgery center is going to donate anything to anyone.

Block, prep, drape, exsanguinate, apply tourniquet, cut and SQUIRT right onto my new school marm specs. BLOOD FOUNTAIN. This was not supposed to happen, it was not supposed to be vascular. We checked for this, and you asshole that's sniffing and saying we should have had a venous Doppler, yes you are correct, but you do it better for free. First time I ever saw a pumper with a tourniquet on, I would have been less surprised to find and ectopic pregnancy or a creepy alien. This presented a problem in that we can't have that much bleeding in an office procedure, it's against the rules, and we were flat running out of sterile gauze. It's also bad when it's under local because that means the patient is fully alert on the other side of the drape and you can't swear or even depart from a monotone. The plume of smoke produced by the cautery, the mounting pile of bloody gauze and the calls for ties, ties and more ties might have been a hint that something was amiss, but he just reclined and reviewed his origami manual. For all the ado, we ended up with a large (securely closed, hemostats achieved) incision and a 4mm punch biopsy for path. Damn. More frustrating that trying to get Mr. Bunker to put his socks in the hamper.

And yes I'm positive I slept with Tiger Woods. It was a few years back, but I'm sure it was him. Or I guess it really could have been David Letterman, hard to tell them apart. I'll just wait to see which bunch is getting the better payout and jump on the pile right after my tearful interview with TMZ.

10 comments:

Capt. Schmoe said...

Mrs. B.

Its too bad you didn't get any photos of the bleedin' or of the splatter. It would kinda like Dexter meets Twilight. Cool.

Also, use caution while cauterizing in the office setting. Excessive cauterizing has been known to set the smoke detector off. I don't know about where you are, but we charge for false alarms.

One last thing. For gods sake don't hire that media-whore attorney Gloria Alred like that Rachel Uchitel woman did. You instantly lose any credibility you might have had and you will have to listen to her shrill egotistic rants.

Thanks for the post Mrs. B.

Ann T. said...

Dear Mrs. B.,
What a harrowing story. Sleeping with Tiger, I mean.

No, I really don't.

It's amazing what hoops you must have jumped to treat this patient properly. I continue to be amazed how much good happens inbetween the spaces and despite the rules, far, far away from what we are mostly talking about.

Thanks for all the blood and gore,

Sincerely,
Ann T.

Linnnn said...

Hey! I've got a tumor in my abdomen. You all up for something a little more challenging?

Gia's Spot said...

Oh Mrs B had I only known the kind of surgery I would have gotten had I visited your clinic instead of going with the big guy at the orthopedic clinic with a hand specialist who assured me that the removal of my ganglion cyst was pretty routine stuff.... fast forward to the OR , under anesthesia, waking to see and hear the doctor and anesthesiologist going on and on about their golf game while I sat there awake watching my arm pump blood out and look really meaty and disgusting as the clamps were holding the incision wide open!! I must have made some noise (besides the screaming in my head) because they both looked at me in horror and quickly gave me more of whatever and back to sleep I went! The doctor never mentioned this at my followup office visit so I was sure to express my horror of it all and ask him if he remembered it! Heehee he surly wanted me to forget that ever happened!! Your tumor looked familiar, like my cyst on my upper wrist!!
Nice of you to help this person out!! And if I were you I would try to forget the Tiger Woods incident you had. The money is about dried up and do you really want to stand in line to lay claim to that trash? Havent you learned with Archie when enough is enough? Ming?aybe some personal council l

Edith Bunker said...

Sorry for not including pictures of the excitement, but our photography efforts were abandoned in order to search for sterile gauze.

Capt, I never thought about that possibility. I started a fire once when the assistant gave me a cup of alcohol instead of saline when I was using a hand cautery; the gauze went POOF. For some unknown reason I was wearing sensible shoes and most of the smoke was generated by my rubber soles as I extinguished the flames by stomping on the offenders. Pt never knew! The smoke alarms SHOULD have gone off then.
And I think I do want that annoying Allred lady, just so I can be there when someone whacks HER with a 3 iron.

Thanks for stopping by Ann T, I like your gang project. Blood & gore are not regular features, but give it some time.

LINNN: GET THAT THING OUT OF THERE. IT'S BUGGIN ME NOW.

Gia, sloppy, sloppy (easy for me to say, I wasn't there) too bad Frank wasn't doing your anesthesia, that never would have happened. I'm surprised you could see it all though. Any yes, sage Gia, I certainty do have enough issues without creating new problems for myself, so maybe I'll just leave a new (pretend) battle to someone else.

Unknown said...

I <3 blood & gore. Pics next time please!!

Mister Wolf said...

Have you ever noticed that when you have a real fire the smoke alarm never goes off but when you make a grilled cheese sandwich, it does?

And yes, I'm still alive...barely. Finishing off some incredibly boring school projects.

CholeraJoe said...

I'm just waiting for some fancy boy to come forward and say that HE slept with Tiger, too. Wouldn't that shake up the media to learn Tiger swings from both sides of the tee box?

Unexpected bleeding has never been one of my favorite things. About once a year I'll biopsy an endobronchial mass and it'll bleed massively. Of course the patient coughs and of course the blood gets nebulized everywhere. The room and everything in it looks like we just came off the set of a slasher film.

Edith Bunker said...

Good luck with finals Roman Wolf. Better you than me.
And Cholera Joe, there is SURE to more, we've only just gotten to the porn stars, the boys and underage girls are lining up their Swill bank accounts.

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