2003-10-02 - 9:53 a.m.


 

Medical Diaries

A couple of nights ago, I got sucked into the Heath Network and a program they have on called Medical Diaries or something along those lines, which, from what I gather, follows someone around with a serious medical condition and follows them through corrective surgery and then does a quick �3 weeks later� update sort of thing. The first show I caught was about this man weighing 500lbs and was going in to have gastric bypass surgery. His was an interesting story about how devoted he was to his job as a nurse, and knew damn well and good that his obesity was probably going to take his life around 40. They also show bits and pieces of the surgery and let me just say that it�s quite amazing to see a 10 inch fat layer being cut through with that hot knife-thing that doctors use to cut away the lipids (is that used in the right context? I thought a lipid was more of a molecular-breakdown sort of word). N-E-Wayz, I was enchanted in the whole thing and was so satisfied to see him all happy losing 30 lbs in the three weeks following surgery and the viewers were told that he would lose about 250 lbs over two years. That�s a lot of poundage. I can only imagine. Weighing in at 180, I cannot imagine weighing 250, let alone having that much weight to lose. I�m sure he�ll look all nice and skin-y at the end. By �skin-y� I mean with skin hangin� off him like a flaccid dick. I�m sure they�ll do some skin removal.

To my surprise there was a second episode immediately afterwards about a 14 year old boy whose chest was caving in on itself. His sternum was one inch from his spine. His chest looked like it had been severely hit by a wrecking ball. The Concavity of his chest had caused his heart to literally be pushed aside and it was cutting off the circulation of blood (only 50% of what it should be), and his lunch capacity was nil since it was crushing his lungs. The cartilage that grows from the ribcage to the sternum had grown too much causing his rib cage to made an �M� shape. I didn�t� realize that this was not crazy rare. Regardless, he went through surgery and was all happy by the end, his mom was crying and he could finally go out for the basketball team. His follow up thing was him saying that he could finally prove to his Dad that he could play sports and make the high school team, which almost brought me to tears because I would think he would be more satisfied with the whole �hey look I can breath and circulate blood thing� as opposed to making his father happy through his sports accomplishments. I suppose at 14 things like that aren�t rushing through your head though.

That pretty much depressed me for the rest of the night, but all was not lost because yesterday I began reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, which is a fact-based thriller. So far, the majority of the story is taking place in Paris, where the curator of the Louvre was murdered and found sprawled out on the floor with a cryptic message he had written before he died. Reading about Paris makes me want to go back there so badly I can taste the baguettes. It has also made me want to use my French more, but I really don�t have the opportunity at my job or elsewhere. This is why I need to move to Paris. I�ll put that on my list of things to do. A short vacation there is at least in order. Can someone please send me a couple of thousand dollars to fund my excursion? Thanks!

That�s all I have to report so far. I can�t be funny all the time, you know.

e.

Diaryland