Odysseys of George

Yesterday reminded me of a topic a friend of mine spoke during the PTK course - How was your day? He spoke well that I remember almost every word he said, “We almost always answer this question with “fine” without really dwelling into our day”

This was mine yesterday. It started well with me doing a low rectal cancer case - though there was a period of palpitation when the pelvic venous plexus started to bleed. A little of sweat, and all was over and well. Just as I finished the case with my trustable colleague,Shireen, she informs me of two impending cases for emergency - one a middle age lady,ill with pus within her gallbladder(empyema gallbladder) and the other an eighty year old lady with suspected perforated viscus. I was on call and after a 2 month of quiet calls, looks like my jinx have returned.

The empyema gallbladder was called and the surgery was a bit of a challenge but after wrestling with the almost-perforated sac for 2 hours, the surgery was complete and I await for the next.

She had multiple black pigment stones impacted at the entrance pouch(Hartmanns pouch) causing the obstructed system to get infected by bacteria. She was lucky as within the next 24 hours her gallbladder would have burst and death would have been close! This was also the last surgery for Shireen who would be pursuing her dreams of becoming a paediatric surgeon. I wish her all the best and thank her for the companionship and laughters!

Then the 80 year old lady came into OT and I get a call from my MO while I was munching on my dinner, calling me to join him as what he found was not appendix. So joining him, I decided to convert to open surgery and assess the condition further, just to find that she had a perforated diverticuli disease of the right colon. So, chop! chop! chop! and a right hemicolectomy was done.

Just as I thought my night was over at 2am, I get a call from my medical officer saying that there was this gentleman who vomitted blood - Gosh, he was pale and was rushed off to the daycare for an OGDS(an instrument to view the inner aspects of the upper gastrointestinal tract) - he had a large duodenal ulcer.

It was 4am by the time I reached my room. I was happy but tired and how was my day? Excellent!

I am on call again tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Medical, On a personal note, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.