Funny Stories from Jersey Neurosurgery

I have been up in the tri-state area for about seven weeks and things are radically different from Texas but I truly love everything up here. I am currently sitting at a Starbucks next to Lincoln Square watching the people walk by in their assorted scarves, hats, and coats. The hustle and bustle is not as annoying as I thought it would be, however some days I just want to choke people especially when driving, everyone here drives so slow even when there is no traffic.

Well that was not how I intended to start out this post but rather tell a few funny stories from the hospital. I apologize if you find this too vague or too medical but I will do my best to make it relevant. My first month in New Jersey was spent doing neurosurgery, for some reason this month everyone in New Jersey (or so it seemed) decided to pop and aneurysm in their head. Almost every night we would have a new admission of someone who had a ruptured aneurysm. I learned an enormous amount about the treatment of this disease, which is very complicated to manage. In medical school they just breeze over this stuff but when it comes to the day to day of managing these patients in the ICU it is very complicated. Most of the patients end up needing to be in the hospital for 3 weeks, so I got to know them very well seeing them multiple times a day.

One lady was already in the hospital when I arrived and she had an ACOM aneurysm (don't worry about what that is) but It is near the frontal lobes and as most people know from TV this controls your impulses so she became impulsive and would say anything that came to her mind. Everyday we would go into her room and ask her similar questions to see how she was progressing, things like "What is your name? What is the date? Where are you and Who is the president?" It seemed like every day her name changed a bit as she added a new name to the end of it. The funniest thing happened when she need to have a drain put in to her brain because she was developing hydrocephalus (water on the brain). This procedure can be done at the bedside and is relatively simple. After numbing the scalp an incision is made and the skull is exposed. You then use a twist drill to drill through the skull until the dura (membrane around brain) is exposed, a cut is made in the dura and then you pass a tube into the ventricle (water collecting area). Patients are awake for this or slightly sedated. She was fully awake and as the chief resident drilled through her skull she looked up and said "Heyyyyy now...are you drilling in my head?" we simply told her we weren't and she said ok and continued to watch tv.

A few weeks later another woman was in the unit with the same problem but she had an attitude to put it nicely. Everyday when we woke her up at 6am she would yell at us and tell us we were rude for not letting her sleep. When we asked us to show her two fingers (seeing if she can follow commands) she would always flip us off with both hands. She accused one of the interns of being a lesbian for touching her. She also had a slight crush on one of the other interns.

Woman: "Hey can you do me a favor?"

Intern; "Sure, What do you need?"

Woman in a raspy voice: "Smile"

To appease the woman he smiled

Woman: "You are one sexy bastard"

The intern left the room to her yelling, "You know it, You know it, You know it"

Then there was my favorite patient she came in late one evening cussing up a storm the only words she could say were shit and fuck (we call this an expressive aphasia). She ended up having a left MCA aneurysm this artery supplies the language areas. When the family arrived they told us that sounded like her and weren't surprised. She ended up having the aneurysm coiled and having a drain placed. Slowly as she recovered she would try to talk but all the came out was "ughhhh" and "mugggh" followed by giggling. "Mrs. So and So what is your name?" she would respond "mugggh" and would laugh. She was very frustrated that she couldn't understand or speak, but would try and laugh to play it off. He facial expressions were priceless when I would come in and see her. I actually caught her and her husband flirting one day, which made me really happy.

Then there was the most awkward thing I have ever seen. A 90 year old nun came into the ER after having a massive stroke. We went with the attending to examine her and write our consult even though we knew she wouldn't be a surgical candidate. When examining a patients neurological status we need to know about their strength, pain sensation, vibratory sensation, ability to follow commands and other things. In order to test patients pain sensation we will pinch their skin, stick them with safety pins press on certain nerves etc...however, when a patient is stuporous to try and arouse them we will do a sternal rub or twist their nipple. The attending decided to see how she would react he would twist her nipple. Watching a late 60's man twist a 90 year old nun's nipple was probably the most awkward thing I've ever seen. I couldn't help myself by thinking "that's probably the most action she has ever had"

Lewis and Clark

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to go and explore the great northwest because of an interview at a residency program in Corvallis, Oregon. Corvallis is home of Oregon State University and has a population of about 55,000. I arrived in Eugene on Friday after a 6hr flight from NYC. I then drove up to Corvallis in my big pimpin' Chrysler 300, it was an absolutely gorgeous drive. Most people describe the northwest as a place where it rains every day, but not this day, the sun was shinning, the air was crisp and fall was in the air. It happened to be OSU's homecoming and the weekend of Halloween so it is needless to say the town was hoping. My hotel was on the Northern end of the main street and after unloading my belongings I got a prank call from a fellow classmate who was rotating at the hospital. After I figured out it was EB, he and took a stroll down the main street and settled into a restaurant to enjoy some pizza. While walking up and down the street it was impossible to notice all the children (and adults) in their costumes trick or treating. All of the local businesses give out free candy each year. Being a Texan I am used to extremely nice people but these people we're even nicer than Texans, which took me off guard after being in the northeast where a bad look gets you in trouble.

Later that night I went to have dinner with the current residents and fellow applicants. My friend TP was there interviewing as well so after the dinner we went to a wine bar next door. The waitress(?) was great and very informative and very eager to tell me about all the awesome things Oregon has to offer. It didn't take too much convincing because thus far everything I had experienced was either gorgeous and/or friendly, including her.

The next day I had my interview in the morning, which went well. I then had lunch at a local brewery with TP. EB met up with us for a bit once he was done at the hospital. TP's flight left that night so we dropped her off and headed on our great adventure to coast. We drove for about an hour through the rain to Newport. First thing on the agenda was to drive over an awesome bridge I saw we did that and then saw a spot to go park near the beach. We walked out on the beach where the wind was blowing at least 30mph. Since we were both from Texas and decided it was cold we left. We heard about a brewery there so we went and walked through it, seeing how I am not a big beer drinker I didn't try any. At this point we were kind of out of things to do, but then we saw a lighthouse. I decided I needed to go in to the lighthouse and once I figured out I could go all the way to the top there wasn't much that could stop me. The stairs were a little scary but when else was I going to be in a lighthouse in Oregon? I then proceeded down to the gift shop to buy a coffee cup since I have decided I collect them. The volunteer informed me that Oregon had six lighthouses, after a few minutes of small talk she discovered I was from Texas and informed me that Texas also had six lighthouses, who knew? I asked her which was a prettier drive up or down the coast she suggest we head north so we did. The girl at the desk of my hotel told me I should check out the Devil's Punchbowl. When driving up the coastal highway we saw a sign for it and made a quick U turn. She was absolutely right it was amazing. There also happened to be a winery at this point with free wine tasting. The Flying Dutchman Winery is the western most winery in the United States according to Dan the man working there. After trying a few wines I bought two and had them shipped back to Fort Worth.





We continued our drive up the coastal highway and then found a random side road that cut back towards Salem. This ended up being very interesting. The one lane side road winded through the mountains and we lost all cell phone reception. Convinced we would die if anything happened to my shaggin wagon 300 we pressed on. Deer roamed through the forest and moss covered every tree. We finally made it back to salem and took the highway back to Corvallis where we enjoyed dinner at a local sports bar where I had the brisket nachos.

Updates Coming

I am promising an update by the end of the week. I have several blog post ideas currently and will try to get some of them up soon.

In the mean time check out my sisters blog http://eatfoodlearnlanguage.tumblr.com/