Friday, August 18, 2006

The Devil's in the Details

First, let me establish that I currently have, and have always had, two arms firmly attached to the customary areas of my body. The upper right arm suffered a bit of damage, and three days ago Dr. M performed surgery to repair it. Before I was knocked out, he scrawled "THIS ARM" with indelible marker by my right shoulder. You want an orthopedist with an eye for important details. You want nurses like that too, but several times during my hospital stay I had to instruct them to put the blood pressure cuff on my uninjured LEFT arm, thank you very much.

This morning my osteopath had Dr. M's Operation Report faxed over. I glanced over it while stopped in traffic on the way home. (Darling Husband was at the wheel.) I was already feeling queasy from painkillers, and reading about how my own deltoid was peeled away from the fractured humerus and dissected didn't settle my stomach any.

But I burst out laughing when I got to this sentence: "The arm was able to be removed without difficulty." Inquiring minds want to know how it was reattached so quickly and seamlessly.

2 comments:

Elizabeth Krecker said...

Medical language is too funny sometimes! I once read a radiology report that said, "The patient's right breast is unremarkable." Did that mean my left breast was remarkable?

Mindy Tarquini said...

Hello, I stalked Elizabeth over here from Miss Snark's. Regarding the arm removal and reattachment:

There's a reason you paid the big bucks for the good surgeons.

Elizabeth, that's just radiology-speak. Believe me, you want all your body parts to be unremarkable. The remarkable ones are what keep all the other specialists in mai tais.