going for the jugular

so i'm back in glasgow and totally loving it! home feels so good... (viva la digital tv!) but no, carol is determined to get her life back!


meanwhile...
ENT part deux in the southern is amazing! amazing surgery witnessed by yours truly today was a total laryngectomy! it was a full-blown affair: max-fax went in first, whooped open the neck and dissected aside the great vessels, ENT peeps next for the windpipe (to the 'tune of take my breath away'.. well,actually, it was phil collins in the background, and i did giggle, yes...), and finally plastics went in for the pec major reconstruction of his neck..

surgery is soo freakkin cool. i reckon laryngectomies are the most invasive ENT surgery u could get ! what a friggin privilege, considering laryngeal cancer (smoking men and heavy alcoholics, be warned!) affects only 5 / 100,00 of the population!

this year's totally pushing me toward surgery!

anyhoow... laryngeal cancer and a post-operative permanent tracheostomy and losing your natural voice is NOT ideal...

image taken from http://www.healiohealth.com/Library/Images/Tracheostomy.jpg

NB: Dear Doug, do feel free to correct my vocabulary if appropriate. Fastidiousness is always appreciated in my world. ;)

halloween in the hospital

THE DUMFRIES DIARIES....

Dumfries, indolent city by day.the Infirmary. the doctors' residences - a bulwark of respectability, civility and excellence...??????

but come halloweeen......,

bats ears

update:
whilst having my nostrils examined for nasal septum deviation and having my cartilage ring and earshape carefully scrutinised today, i was made to feel like a little girl again!!

meanwhile:
i think my surgery attachment started to take a dip when i left general surgery. orthopaedics was the culprit. power tools on osteoporotic femurs just didn't do it for me. especially when the surgeon's drilling away into the medullary canal with bone marrow spilling out the head of the femur, out of the patient's proximal thigh... nope, orthopaedics is DEFINITELY not for me...

anyway, it be 3 more days til carol's back in glasgow..
these last 10 weeks of peripheral postings has totally gotten to me. missing glasgow and being forced into a position of incessant nerding does have its palpable effects on an already socially-challenged medical student in the gloomy british island... but i guess 'downtimes' like these does press one to realise more certainly that God does have His plan for all of us.. and that He does care more about our character than our comfort. Paradoxically (yet so very typical of Him), He is the source of all our comfort.

today's revelation:
human beings are created with the innermost desire to know truth. without knowing truth, our souls will not be still!

God's promises... God's promises...

meanwhile, i promise myself to have a refuelling of social life once i'm back in glasgow.. i must, i must, i must! dear friends, be warned.

uterine didelphy

two uteresus! freaaakkkinnnng TWOO UTERRUSSESS.... two pap smears for one lady! two cervixes... oh my gooooooodddnesssssssss....

total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpino-oophorectomy

image taken from : http://www.cs.nsw.gov.au/cancer/sgog/assets/OvarianCyst.jpg

i saw... an ovarian cyst the size of a small balloon today and i thought that would be the biggest ovarian cyst i'd ever see. but then the next TAH +BSO showed up an even larger one that was the size of a honey melon... and i was like.. oh my goodness, this is sooo coool. and then i asked the lady if i could prod it.. and i prodded the melon-sized cyst (it was still warm! oh my gosh oh my gosh) and it was warm and taut and squiggly and it was threatening to rupture! and then i picked up the uterus next to it and held it in my hand! and it was tiny!! and both ovaries were gone and i was like.. oh my gosh! i'm holding a uterus! and then i went back to the operating table i felt the omentum! (how great the omentum is!) and it was warm tooo! and really really rubbery! and then i was prompted, "carol, look, peristalsis!" and i turned and saw... PERISTALSIS... LIVE! oh my gosh. surgery is so freakinnn coooooool.