"I Have Never Seen That Before"

Apparently I like to be a little bit different (honestly, how many people get Crohn's Disease AND Cancer) but sometimes the things that make me "unique" surprise even me.

Both of these happened post-opt while I was still in recovery.

1. Anyone who has gone through some kind of procedure knows about the sticky pads they place on your chest which they attach wires to to monitor your stats. And thanks to all of the doctor shows out there I'm sure many, if not all, of you who have never even set foot in a hospital still know what stick pads I'm talking about. At some point after surgery while I'm in recovery, I'm at the point of still being a little bit groggy but fully conscious, they being to take off / unhook all the monitors and tape attached to me that is no longer necessary. Time to remove those sticky pads that are on my chest and sides. About half a dozen. She rips them off fairly fast as you would a band-aid or piece of tape. Just like both of those, I have that stinging/burning sensation. It doesn't take long for me to realise that it hurts more than what I think would be normal and it doesn't seem to be fading. Just the light touch of the hospital gown resting on my skin feels like pins and needles. This is when I pull down the collar of the gown to expose the spots and ask the nurse if I have a rash or something from the pads because it's stinging (I can't see them myself). The expression on her face said it all. Apparently the pads had actually burned my skin a little bit and when they were removed they took a layer of skin off with them. In her words "I have never seen that before". It's fairly normal to have some redness from the pads but definitely not burning. I showed the marks to many of my doctors and nurses in the following days and it was more of the same, "I have never seen that before".

2. I've been in recovery for a little while now. Everyone who was waiting to hear about the surgery got to come down and see me. It's now just me and my parents and the nurse gives me some ginger ale to sip on. I'm doing just fine and my nurse goes to help another nurse with a new patient that just came out of surgery, she's just on the other side of the curtain. A little while later she runs back over to my bed because she sees that my heart rate has spiked. My parents could tell what she was concerned about by the monitor she is looking at. This is when my dad says, "it's from the ginger ale". My nurse, understandably, looks at my dad a little perplexed. He continues, "each time she takes a sip of ginger ale her heart rate seems to increase". I have to assume that she must have thought my dad was a little bit crazy or maybe just over tired waiting for me to get out of surgery. She definitely needed to see it to believe it. She watched as I took my next sips of ginger ale and sure enough my heart rate went from about 102 to 152 in seconds. Moments later it would slow back down and remain constant... until the next sip. I don't think it was until she witnessed it about 3 times before she truly believed the two were connected. And you guessed it.  She said "I have NEVER seen that before".

What can I say, I like to be different.