ENT: Neck mass and Ortho Lecture

Because today's lecture (ortho) was scheduled for 4 pm, I was able to go to the surgical hospital and meet Dr. P and Kalan for two surgeries. The first one, a nasal polypectomy/sinus surgery, was observation only. Man, I knew the nose was extremely vascular, but I couldn't believe the amount of blood that was suctioned out of those nostrils after he removed the (extremely numerous and huge) polyps. And to think, this was the patient's fourth polypectomy. Those things just don't know when to stop growing, apparently. The second surgery was a neck mass excision, and I got to scrub in. The mass was soft, about the size of a golf ball, most likely an epidermal inclusion cyst, according to Dr. P. The atmosphere in the surgery was extremely laid back. Mix 102.9 was playing on the radio, and the CRNA said he felt old when I said I first heard Alanis Morissette when I was in junior high. Then he was shocked when I didn't recognize Hootie and the Blowfish (I knew of them, but I recognize songs by their tune more than their title or artist), but I redeemed myself by identifying Madonna as the artist of "Vogue." There was also talk of politics; since Obama finally has a lead over Hillary, Dr. P commented that Hillary needs to win over 2 big states if she wants a chance, and that Obama may be the biggest figurehead in politics since MLK. I asked what Bill Clinton would be called if Hillary were to be elected. "Vice president," Dr. P replied, and said that the White House needed someone who hasn't already been in the White House in the last 20 years. At the end of the surgery, Dr. P let me sew the neck incision up with a running locking stitch. The first few were ok, but somewhere in the middle I messed up before correcting myself, so overall the stitches look like what "a drunk spider would have made." Still, they did the job, and since the stitches were covered by Sterry strips anyway, no one can see my not-so-great handiwork.

It was past noon by the time we finished surgery, so Dr. P treated Kalan and me to lunch at a Mexican restaurant called La Familia. There, we chatted about various things ranging from good restaurants in town to the various places Dr. P has traveled to (Napa Valley, Italy, the Alps, to name a few) and recommends that we visit someday. Geography-wise, he's really knowledgable; he's traveled all over the state and recognized Don Emelia's when I mentioned it had good mojitos. "The best mojitos I had were in Athens," he said. Wow, who knew? After lunch, I went to school and napped on the couches (fell asleep in the middle of reading) before lecture.

The lecturer was Dr. H (one of the three dreaded ortho docs), and when he entered the room he was wearing a funky-looking hat with a feather sticking up. He later said that it was a "flirting hat" worn on Valentine's Day in the Czech republic (a former student had given it to him since he likes collecting hats). Although he was nice overall, he still didn't hesitate to pick on people, me included (he said that my mouth made the shape of a zero when I was yawning). His former students all refused to sit in the front row for fear of getting picked on, but he still snagged a few people to be his guinea pigs in demonstrations. At one point he asked us what we all wanted to be. Most of us were undecided, but Corey said he wanted to do neurosurgery so he got teased a bit by Dr. H for that (he thought neurosurg was for weirdos). After class, when we were leaving the building, he said I gave him a lot of trouble b/c I looked so serious and didn't smile in the first few jokes he made (I'm very slow on the uptake), but eventually he got through to me and made me laugh. We also got our grades back for our first few quizzes, and my grades SUCK! Is there a possibility I'll fail surgery b/c of lousy quiz grades? Please let there be a curve...