This morning I get on the phone to an assistant in the gynecologist’s office, to whom I’m trying to explain, for the THIRD time today (not to her, but to two other folks) that because it looks like I’m headed for a mastectomy, a medical oncologist advised me to consult with a plastic surgeon before that comes to pass, and so I would like a referral to a plastic surgeon who knows what s/he’s doing.
She doesn’t quite follow. It’s a complex series of thoughts, after all. So I explain (again) that I need to talk to a plastic surgeon before I get scheduled for a probable mastectomy.
Says she:
“Is that in the pelvic area?”
{thought balloon: you ARE one of my students, aren’t you?}
“No, honey, mastectomy has to do with your breasts. They’re going to chop off one of my boobs.”
“Oh. How do you spell that?”
Ha haaaa! Is that hilarious or not? And just think how hilarious it is that medical offices are populated with folks like this, ready to take care of your every health need…
Ouch… who knew there were people in this day and age who haven’t heard of a mastectomy, especially in a medical office… I am more afraid to ask what sort of plastic surgery goes on around the pelvic area too.
That is utterly terrifying and another reason that, if you do get the breast removed, you make that before your procedure, you get a magic marker and clearly mark off exactly which one is to be removed. Not that she’d be doing the procedure, but you have to figure there’s others like her spread around.
Actually, that’s exactly what WonderSurgeon does! She personally comes into the prep room and, even though she of course knows which boob is in question, she ASKS you “is this the correct breast?” Then she writes YES right on your skin.
She does not, however, write “NO” on the other one. 😀
Husband is getting a new knee this coming Tuesday. I thought of sending him into the operating room with a circle drawn around the right knee, but the truth is the left knee is almost as bad. In this case they can’t really make a bad mistake unless it gets put in backwards. 😀
Heh heh…. That they won’t is not a foregone conclusion. Is there a left and a right in knee replacements?
Hmm, now you’ve given me something new to worry about. 😀
All of this remind me of a hilarious scene from “Murphy Brown.” I’m sure you remember her from back in the day. She was having a minor surgery, I think it might have been a lumpectomy, on one of her breasts. She was worried they would cut the wrong side, and as they were wheeling her into the operating room she kept yelling, “It’s the RIGHT one, the RIGHT one. Are any of you dyslexic?”
I remembered that line in case I ever needed to use it before surgery.
LOL!! Actually, I asked WonderSurgeon if she wanted me to mark the desired boob before coming in to the hospital, and she said thanks, but she preferred (since this particular patient would be conscious in the prep room) to ask face-to-face and be sure she REALLY was looking at, marking, and seeing to it that others on her team registered the correct one.
I’ve had several surgeries lately. I think its standard procedure now for the doctor to ask where you are expecting the surgery and to mark it on the correct body part. Actually, it eases my mind – years ago when I had an injured ankle the doc had the wrong one almost completely wrapped before it occurred to me to stop him!
Yipe!!!
And the thing is, when you’re sick or hurt and scared, you’re not thinking clearly. You have to rely on the doctor & her team to get it right. What a scary experience.
“Is that in the pelvic area?”
Jeeeeezzzzzzz……
You should have said, “No, it’s further south, in my scrotum.”
When I went in to have my gall bladder taken out, one of the surgeons was talking to me about what was going to happen in the next few minutes. I said, “I’ve heard about surgical mishaps, so I wrote ‘Take out this gall bladder, not the other one’ on my body.”
The surgeon said, “Actually, you have only ONE gall bladder.”
“Um, yeah. That was a joke,” I replied. Apparently surgeons have no sense of humor.
However, when Abby was in the ICU with GBS, most of my meals were taken in the room (and plenty of them were cheese, crackers and an apple). One day a couple of neurologists came in just as I was taking an apple out of the bag. I looked at them, then the apple, and said, “Gosh, these things don’t work at ALL.”
The U.S. doctor cracked up. The doctor from another country looked puzzled.
That’s good. Actually, both of those are good.
Come to think of it, WonderSurgeon can be so extremely focused that at times she also seems to have no sense of humor. I would think a surgeon’s job could be crushingly stressful — migod, even a very minor procedure could end in the patient’s death. So many things can go wrong…even if you do your job right, the thing can go haywire, and if it does go well, you’re still inflicting pain and terror on the patient. I imagine the half-hour or hour running up to a procedure that’s major enough to require an anaesthetist must be a real psychological challenge.
Some docs, though, don’t have that excuse…and they still take themselves too seriously. 😀
I remember enough horror stories of people having the wrong whatever operated on that I’d carry a sharpie with me anywhere in the hospital 🙂
And I always figure that the incompetent may not be doing *this* procedure but they are probably screwing up something else in the records which is extra reassuring!
Yup. We are surrounded!