The thing that surprised me the most when I first arrived to the O.R.s here was not the DaVinci (which by the way I got to play with a little) or the awesome surgeries that take place here every day. Actually, it was how politically correct everyone is. No cursing during the whole surgery. At all. The 12-hour-long surgery. Not even a "shit" slipped in the conversation.
Coming from a place where cursing, yelling and being everything but politically correct is the rule, this clearly shocked me. A lot. No. Actually, it shocked me a whole fucking lot.
Until this guy came in. I love this guy.
It was just a regular day in the OR. My second week, just starting to get the hang of everything. I got assigned to a monster case with this young attending I've never worked with before.
Right after we opened her neck:
"What the fuck is wrong with this lady! There is so much shit going on here, I don't know where to start" Turns to me and adds, "Sorry, I curse a lot. But there really is too much weird shit going on here"
I couldn't help laughing. It definitely made my day. Through out the entire surgery he would go "what the fuck fuck dude!" or "holly shit, man!".
The case ended up really bad, we had to take some really big chunks from that ladies face and neck.
Then, the second case. An almost routine nasopharyngeal DL w/ biopsy turned out to be the real surprise of the day. The patient was this really pleasant 29yo guy who ended up having SCC all over his nasopharynx, hypopharynx, and tonsill bed. The path results shocked us all, we really didn't expected such an extensive disease. As the doctor put it, "Wow! I feel fucking bad about this shit. This guy is fucked. Totally fucked"
For me it was a great day. I curse a lot, probably more than I would like to. So this guy made me feel much more at ease, comfortable and just more fit. This kind of silly and small details make this whole experience a bit more real to me. Everything is so picture-perfect that I sometimes get the feeling that its just too good to be true.
So, anyways. By the end of the day we were all:
"Fuck it. I'm done. I'm going home"
