Random Thoughts

There are a lot of random thoughts that become seemingly normal to the neurosurgery resident that people not in the field might find interesting, amusing, or down right appalling. I thought I'd share some of them.

1. I really should quit and find a better paying job.

2. I stumbled upon a familiar name on an operating room slip in the OR lounge. It was for a baby who we pronounced basically dead with very little chance at survival following her intracranial hemorrhage. The slip was for the harvesting of her pancreas... I don't know but after not hearing about her status for about a week it was kind of eerie for it to come back at me out of nowhere like that.

3. We routinely operate on people and have to leave the bone off so that their brain has room to swell. They go around and have to live while wearing a helmet. I thought of that when I saw my snowboarding helmet in my closet while getting dressed for work this morning. Yes, a patient without half his skull snowboarding.

4. Doctors really do make the worst patients. Especially the ones who think that by being an orthopedic surgeon or internal medicine doctor that they have the faintest idea how to manage the problems that bring them on our service. This isn't frickin Burger King, you can't have it your way.

5. If I ever get diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I'm no longer able to talk or care for myself... please hire a hitman and have me killed. Seriously. Seeing these patients that have been on our service for as long as I've been an R2, slowly wasting away, a former shell of what they used to be... being tortured by the misguided "love" of their family members who think that by holding on so tight to the memory of what once was is honoring their life when in reality it's only prolonging their journey through the valley of death. It really kills me.

6. Do robots have feelings? What about talking ones? (if you don't know, don't ask).

7. Why am I so awesome? God I suck. (simultaneously).

8. Post call sleeping is tricky. You sleep to your hearts content, and then you can't sleep at night, and you're tired the next day instead the day after call. But if you don't sleep enough, you lose that half day of freedom to your mild delirium.

9. I never thought I'd ever have to shave this many heads. All that practice cutting hair during college paid off.

10. I'm hungry.