3.26.2005

A real horrorshow

You do not know the stuff of nightmares until you've done surgery.

The setting here is an operating room: a poor, unfortunate gentleman with rectal cancer. It's too close to the end to make anything workable for an asshole, so the whole thing has to come out. The procedure, if you're interested, is an abomino-perineal resection, which basically means "we cut you in two places, one of which you're really not going to be happy about."

The upper incision is straightforward stuff; cut open the abdomen, divide the bowel, close off a few blood vessels and away you go. The lower incision involves spreading this poor bastard's legs apart, and cutting a hole about the diameter of a compact disc centred on his anus. Core that whole thing out until you reach the abdomen, at which point you meet up with the upper surgeon's hands. Oh, be sure to have the student standing behind the ass guy for maximum impact.

At this point, you've essentially got a sixteen-inch drilling sample, which you then have to remove from the patient. The easiest way to do this, of course, is to PULL IT ALL OUT THROUGH THE ASS. The whole mass is delivered like some horror-film version of childbirth, leaving a gaping cavity (which is, in fact, dilated at least 10 centimetres; time to push!). You can see daylight streaming in from the abdominal cut.

Closing up is pretty straightforward; the upper guy connects what's left of the colon to a permanent colostomy bag - no asshole anymore for you, sir! - and the lower guy just puts in a fuckload of stitches, leaving the patient a smooth plane like some rectal castrato.

At this point, the student will wish to go wash their eyes out with bleach. Let them.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cam,

You are going to be a wonderful doctor/surgeon because you understand that this is a horrible thing to have to do to a person.
That, and from what I remember you are quite brilliant and a very dedicated student. I hope med school isn't killing you. Good luck!

Cheers,
Daphna

6:13 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, I'm officially never going to complain about my job ever again. And I'm certainly not going to complain about my health.

8:04 a.m.  
Blogger Sofi said...

If I could kiss my own ass, I would. Right now.

8:13 a.m.  
Blogger Ryan said...

I doubt I've ever heard a more persuasive argument to go get a rectal exam RIGHT NOW. I may get four of them, just to be on the safe side.

11:16 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Uh, yeah. Cam, what do we do to make sure this never happens to us? Tell us! Drink brocolli juice every day? Quit smoking? What? Just tell us so we can start now!

Neil

10:14 p.m.  
Blogger Albino Squirrel said...

Neil,

Fibre! Fibre fibre fibre! I've become an evangelist for fibre now that I've worked with this colorectal guy for three weeks. It a) reduces your risk of colon cancer, b) reduces your risk of diverticulitis (causes rectal bleeding, and c) lowers your cholesterol.

I don't care how old-mannish I appear to be, I drink a glass of Metamucil every night now.

7:25 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not to be the complete asshole that I promised myself I wouldn't become, but a vegetarian diet can apparently work wonders when it comes to preventing colon cancer.

10:07 a.m.  

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