Warning: More gross medical stuff
On Thursday I had a
fibroadenoma removed. It was no big deal, just local anaesthetic, but still it was the whole surgical routine: a sterile OR where I couldn't even wear a ring, painfully bright lights, and a sizable audience. (There was a brief period in my late 20s when it weirded me out that the students, residents and fellows were all my age, but it passed.)
They covered me up from head to toe in those green paper sheets so I couldn't see a thing. After a few minutes the student and the surgeon stopped talking and it was quiet. But not completely quiet. I could hear something very quiet and very cheesy. I asked, "What is that?" The surgeon first told me it was the cautery. I said, "I guess that explains the burning smell, but I meant the music." He said, "Oh, it's '25 or 6 to 4.'" Mistaking my curiosity for enthusiasm, someone turned the radio way up, and I was just stuck, because how can you not laugh at that song? And how
can you laugh when you're having thoracic surgery?
The Straight Dope says the
lyrics are about being unable to write a song:
Staring blindly into space
Getting up to splash my face
Wanting just to stay awake
Wondering how much I can take
Should I try to do some more
[Refrain]
Chicago was followed by the almost-as-funny "Jesus is Just Alright with Me" and Steely Dan's "Black Cow." Until this minute I thought the
lyrics said:
Take your big black cow
And get outta here
So that was no good either.
By the time they'd moved on to appliance and lottery commercials and into a Pink Floyd block, the tumor was out. The nurse asked, "Do you want to see it?" I was kind of afraid I'd freak out, but I also really needed something to distract me from the radio, not to mention the stitches. She used forceps to nudge a little jar under my sheet, just a couple inches from my eye for me to look at. She held it there for a while, then said, "You know, you really can't see it very well in the jar." Next thing I knew, this tumor was out of the jar and 2 inches from my eye, and if I were going to freak out that would be it. But I didn't. With the same surfeit of helpfulness that probably inspired the loud music, she told me I could take it home if I was willing to pick it up from the lab this week. I passed on that one.
Every surgery should be painless and this amusing.
