Hospital Diaries V: The Seagull

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Version française

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This is part of a series. You can begin at Part I and follow the link at the end of each installment to read the next.

When everybody around you is suffering, your own pain becomes less important. I quickly realized that my complaining and moaning weren’t providing any relief. I was only contributing to the overall noise in the gurney hall.

A nurse had taken away my bottle of ibuprofen and the painkillers that they had given me were totally ineffective. I was too stiff to move and the thin blanket covering me was not keeping me warm. I was in constant pain and felt helpless.

When another nurse came to check my vital signs, he noticed my distress and asked:

“How are you sir? Are you in pain? Can you rate your pain?”

I could not understand why nurses insisted on wanting me to rate my pain on a scale from zero to ten. I felt it was impossible to draw meaningful conclusions from such subjective impressions.

“It hurts a lot,” I answered.

“You were given a painkiller two hours ago,” said the nurse after looking at my chart. “Maybe it’s not pain you’re feeling but only discomfort.”

I was not in the mood to discuss semantics and I gave the nurse a spiteful glance.

Pain is a reaction to an unpleasant stimulus. Tolerance to pain can vary deeply between individuals. The most common tool used to measure pain is a standard scale graded from zero to ten. The accuracy of this tool is questionable.

“You’re probably right,” I said with sarcasm, “and I’m also very cold.”

“In that case I can help you.”

The nurse went away and came back with a warm blanket to wrap me in. I dozed off almost immediately.

During this first night in the gurney hall, my neighbour who had broken her back was transferred to an actual hospital room and I now had a new roommate who was retching loudly behind the thin curtain separating us.

When I woke up in the morning a tall slim man in a white smock was standing by my stretcher.

“I looked at your MRI results and saw that you have light arthrosis on two of your lower back vertebrae. That would explain your spinal stenosis and could be the cause of your paralysis.”

The hospital staff spoke in a strange language that I could barely understand. They also tended to show up unexpectedly and never introduced themselves. I found this extremely annoying.

“That’s interesting,” I said snidely. “Who are you sir and what do you do?”

“My name is Dr. Sharp and I’m a neurosurgeon. I doubt surgery on your spine would be beneficial. You don’t have severe arthrosis and I do not recommend this operation”.

Surgery is too often viewed casually by patients and doctors alike in the Western world. However there is something creepy in having masked strangers performing mysterious acts with sharp objects on sleeping people, don’t you think?

“Dr. Sharp, are you telling me I have arthritis?” I said confused.

“No. I said arthrosis. Arthrosis is a degenerative disease of the bone cartilage. Arthritis is a swelling of the joints. Arthrosis is a wearing down of the bone cartilage that often occurs with age.”

“And what is spinal stenosis?” I asked.

“Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal where the spinal cord is located. In your case, arthrosis may be the cause of that narrowing but as I just said I don’t think surgery will be helpful.”

“I’m relieved,” I replied. “Spinal surgery sounds risky.”

Unimpressed by my comment, the doctor gave me a blank look and added:

“In any case, I will discuss this with my colleagues and we’ll talk about it later.”

I was never to see Dr. Sharp again. I often wondered if that hospital didn’t hide some kind of “Bermuda Triangle” that mysteriously swallowed up doctors.

The Bermuda Triangle is an area of the Atlantic Ocean between Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda where many ships and aircraft have vanished. Some people believe that the Earth’s magnetic field is to blame for these incidents. This might also explain the shortage of doctors in hospitals.

That morning my friend Lucide called me on my cellphone to see how I was and to find out if I had been given a room. I took the opportunity to ask her to bring me some ibuprofen to relieve my aching body.

While I was on the phone a man with dark hair and bushy eyebrows rushed in.

“So, are you ready for your surgery?”

“What surgery?” I said, startled.

“Well, the operation on your spine to get rid of your nasty arthrosis, of course!”

“I thought this procedure wouldn’t be necessary! But first of all, who are you sir?”

“My name is Dr. Backridge and I am a neurologist. Who told you this operation would be unnecessary?”

“Erm... It was doctor... Huh... I can’t recall his name but he was some kind of brain surgeon who came to visit me this morning,” I said, befuddled. “You’ll probably find his name in my file.”

“I never read patients’ files, they’re totally unreliable,” the doctor said with a twitch. “So? Do you agree? Can I book the operating room?”

I felt cornered. I am not impulsive by nature and, right at that moment, I did not have all the information to make such a serious decision and weigh its consequences objectively.

The doctor was rocking nervously on his heels while tapping with a pen on a clipboard.

“Dr. Backridge, can you guarantee arthrosis is the cause of my illness?”

“A 100% guarantee? No, I can’t say that for sure but it’s a possible cause.”

“Doctor, I hope you can understand how I feel. Right now I can’t walk and I’m afraid that if I get this operation I will never be able to walk again.”

The doctor gave me a fierce look.

“Listen sir, don’t waste my time. If you don’t agree to this surgery, I can see only one explanation...”

“Which is?”

“You’re putting on an act! You’re faking!” he snapped.
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He then turned and left abruptly, his white smock flapping behind him like the wings of a giant bird. He made me think of a seagull that comes out of nowhere, making a lot of noise, shits everywhere and leaves as he had come without ever accomplishing anything.

“I would not mind if this doctor got lost in the Bermuda Triangle,” I thought.

Seagulls have existed for at least 30 million years. This bird with the obnoxious squawking can be found anywhere there is a lot of water. It will eat anything but seems to enjoy feeding on human garbage.

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To be continued in: Hospital Diaries VI: The Overflow

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The Pressure Cooker

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When I was four years old, my father brought home a pressure cooker. It was one of those “modern” devices aimed at taking some pressure off domestic life (excuse the pun or don’t) by cooking food faster.

This pressure cooker was made from cast aluminum by National Presto Industries, a company that also manufactures adult incontinence products. Notice the steam regulator cap sitting on top of the vent pipe at the centre of the lid. I cooked delicious Boston baked beans in this vessel in 45 minutes.

Cooking with pressure cookers is different from cooking with regular saucepans. A small amount of liquid – water or broth for example – must be heated to a boil in a sealed container. As the pressure builds up inside the vessel, the heat is turned down to let the food simmer while maintaining enough steam.

When the food is nearly cooked, the heat is turned off and cooking continues as pressure gradually abates. The pressure regulator capping the steam vent should not be removed while the pot is under pressure.

Also, if the cooker is overfilled, the steam vent over which sits the pressure regulator might become obstructed, causing the pressure to build up inside the cooker and force out the content through the pressure valve.

That’s what my father learned to his dismay when he first cooked a three-pound ham using too much beer as a cooking liquid. The whole ham escaped through the tiny pressure valve and splattered on the kitchen ceiling, making my mother very angry at the mess he created and fearful of using the apparatus.

Even though pressure cooking seemed modern in the early 60’s, it certainly was not a recent invention. Denis Papin (1647-1712), a French Huguenot, discovered it.

Tired of being picked on for his religious beliefs by the powers that be in France, he moved to England in 1675. In London, he met Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an Irish-English chemist who was experimenting with air pressure.

At the time, England was undergoing a tremendous scientific revolution. Francis Bacon’s scientific method was the rage amongst “natural philosophers” who were experimenting with practically anything. This led to a radical new way of looking at the causes and effects in the natural world which, people were discovering, was not what they thought it was.

We are not exactly sure how Denis Papin came to experiment with steam. However, I can certainly imagine him sitting in a pub, drinking cheap Spanish wine and listening to Robert Boyle pompously lecturing about air pressure. While Boyle was going on and on about his views on pneumatics, Papin was probably thinking that it was a bunch of hot air.

After all, air is immaterial, it cannot be seen or touched. Of course one can feel it as the wind blows but Papin perhaps thought scientists should focus on something more concrete.

At that moment, the innkeeper might have been preparing tea on the stove, a new beverage that was becoming popular in England. Taking a sip of his wine, looking at the saucepan of water on the stove, Denis Papin maybe thought ahead of Benjamin Franklin that “a watched pot never boils.” Boil.

Boyle was explaining that the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to its pressure. Crazy Boyle. Boyle. Boil. Wait a minute! When water boils it turns to steam. Steam is a gas and unlike air, it can be seen!

This may not be what really happened but I do know that inspiration sometimes comes in strange ways.

Tea (Camellia sinensis) was a luxury item in the 18th century. It was heavily taxed by the British government which led to the famous Boston Tea Party where the gentle people of this New England town unloaded into the harbour three shiploads of this merchandise as a protest.

Anyway, in 1679, Denis Papin addressed the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge on the subject of a new invention he was creating: the “steam digester” which was the ancestor of the modern pressure cooker. Two years later, according to the legend, when Papin cooked a delicious stew to demonstrate the prototype he was presenting, the Royal Society was so impressed that it invited him to become a member.

In the 17th century the line between gastronomy and science was very thin.

After a few years, Papin moved to Germany and invented the piston steam engine. He returned to England many years later and unsuccessfully asked the Royal Society to reinstate him.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was the head of the Royal Society of London when Denis Papin tried to be reinstated. Newton probably refused deciding that fine cooking was an art rather than a science.

Denis Papin died destitute and relatively unknown, presumably in 1712, and was buried most likely in an unmarked pauper’s grave in London.

Given that so many inventors suffer the same ungrateful fate, it is surprising that anybody attempts to discover new things.

My father was not discouraged by his first experiment with a pressure cooker. Actually he cooked with it all his life, as I have. Used properly, a pressure cooker will produce tasty meals quickly, giving you more time to focus on other endeavours, like blogging.

Prostate

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When I was young, prostates did not exist. Well at least, nobody talked about them.

In biology class, I learned that human beings were a bunch of entrails wrapped up in skin and supported by a bone structure set in motion by a muscular mass.

My teachers told me about the heart, the œsophagus, the stomach, the bowels (of course!) – the large and small intestine – the liver, the brain, the spleen and the pancreas, but never about the prostate.

On the other hand I was often told about a womb bearing some fruit that apparently was blessed.

Could it be that such blessed fruit was a prostate? No. It was impossible. But go figure: anything can happen when gods are involved.

The truth is the prostate is a gland that hides underneath the bladder, patiently keeping watch while producing a slightly caustic liquid through which valiant sperms will swim, while pursuing their reproductive duty. This fluid protects the sperm entering the acidic environment of the vagina.

A sperm is a tragic hero. In his quest for an egg that most of the time fails to show up, he has to fight and destroy his own weaker brothers.

Every instant of every day, entire battalions of these courageous soldiers are slaughtered while trying to accomplish their duty. If I am writing this story and if you are reading it, it is because one of these brave fratricidal and paradoxical champions, protected by a vaguely caustic liquid armour made by a prostate, successfully completed its mission.

I was in my teens the first time I heard about the prostate. My grandfather (the one with only three teeth) thought his prostate had gone awry when he relieved himself in the toilet after my grandmother used a blue disinfectant for the first time.

If water in your toilet turns this colour, don’t panic. Your prostate is still functional. The water is blue only because somebody cares about killing germs.

I realized then that a prostate can provoke a fearful laugh.

When a prostate ceases to work, manhood is at stakes. Man’s procreating role is compromised. Survival of the species is jeopardized. This is no ordinary fear. This is the ultimate terror: fear of extinction, of total collapse.

Laughing is a reflex that can defuse fear. With laughter we can boldly face threats of danger and doom.

In Movember gentlemen, grow a moustache... for fun. But remember it’s a symbolic gesture about the little mass of flesh in your groin that produces the ammonia without which we would not exist.

Movember is a portmanteau (for "Moustache" and "November"). In November men from everywhere in the world grow a moustache (sometimes to their girlfriend or wife great displeasure) to raise funds and public awareness towards male illnesses, for example prostate cancer.

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