The Case For Earplugs During Surgery

[Martin]

Things You Don't Want To Hear During Surgery:

Better save that. We'll need it for the autopsy.

Bo! Bo! Come back with that! Bad Dog!

Wait a minute! If this is his spleen, then what's that?

Hand me that ... uh ... that uh..... thingy.

Oh no! I just lost my Rolex.

Oops! Hey, has anyone ever survived 500ml of this stuff before?

There go the lights again...

"Ya know, there's big money in kidneys, and this guy's got two of 'em.

Everybody stand back! I lost my contact lens!

Could you stop that thing from beating? It's throwing my concentration off.

What's this doing here?

I hate it when they're missing stuff in here.

That's cool! Now can you make his leg twitch?!

Well folks, this will be an experiment for all of us.

Sterile, shcmerile. The floor's clean, right?

What do you mean, he wasn't in for a sex change?

OK, now take a picture from this angle. This is truly a freak of nature.

This patient has already had some kids, am I correct?

Nurse, did this patient sign the organ donation card?

Don't worry. I think it's sharp enough.

FIRE! FIRE! Everyone get out!

Darn! Page 47 of the manual is missing!

[suegha]

Very funny! The one that made me laugh...

"Ya know, there's big money in kidneys, and this guy's got two of 'em."

[Martin]

I was taken by this and posted it, because I had such an experience of overhearing a comment during surgery.

It was in 1993 in Singapore's top hospital, where I was having PTCA (percutaneous transluminar coronary angioplasty).

Basically, it is bloodpipe plumbers doing a Dynarod job, and should take about 45 minutes.

They floated their probe up a main artery from my groin and manoevred it through my heart and down into a blocked artery onthe outside of my heart. I saw all that on the screen, but then they filled me up with 'happy juice', because they had got the ###### thing stuck!

Three hours later they were still trying to withdraw it, and I came conscious enough just in time to hear the leading surgeon say "I am going to take the risk". Fortunately, I was so full of happy juice that I was amused that i had heard something that I wasn't meant to hear and just said "Oh, it wouldn't help for the patient to have a panic attack, then" and drifted off in my happy daze.

When he took the risk, it did a bit of damage, but that healed OK and they did the whole thing again, without incident, after another three months.

Fortunately, my contract with my employer, which was one of the Government technical colleges, covered medical expenses, because the bills were gi-normous.

[suegha]

Wow!!! That's not funny.