Creepy as can be

When I was a boy, in the 1960s, a hypothetical question came up during a family chat. The question was, if you had cancer (which, at that time, nearly always meant you were going to die) would you want to know? The question sounds crazy now but it wasn't that long ago that patients weren't always informed fully of their conditions. My mother said she wouldn't. My brothers and I said we would, as did, I think, my father. 

Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Son."

These days we all have access to our medical records, of course, and it's for the best. Doctors make mistakes patients catch, or sometimes they don't think of something a patient might. I recently looked at a report based on the amputation of my right leg last month. It's like reading an autopsy report about yourself and in this case it is, indeed, about a chunk of myself. It's pasted below, but I don't plan to read it again.

 

B (2). Right leg, disarticulation: Received fresh in a specimen bag containing patient name and "right leg" is a right above-the-knee leg amputation measuring 81 x 17.5 x 16.5 cm consisting of femoral head and entire right leg extending down to the foot. The leg consists of an intact femoral head with a soft tissue resection margin that is red-pink and consisting of muscle, fat with overlying tan-yellow skin. The soft tissue overlying the thigh is serially sectioned to reveal a tan-yellow encapsulated lesion that is calcified measuring approximately 12 x 5.5 x 1.5 cm lying on the anterior surface of the leg. The mass grossly abuts the underlying metal rod implant and is 3.5 cm from closest overlying skin. The mass is 10 cm from the medial resection margin, 14 cm from the anterior resection margin, 11.5 cm from the lateral resection margin, and 16 cm from the posterior resection margin. The resection margins are inked black and the specimen is representatively submitted as follows:

B1. Anterior resection margin, representative

B2. Medial resection margin, en face, representative

B3. Lateral resection margin, en face, representative

B4. Posterior resection margin, representative

B5-B19. Tumor, representative, after brief decalcification

 

Gross done by Aidan P Kerr at 2/26/2018 3:39 PM.

The Loser's Autopsy

It's 2032 and the Complete and Total Loser is lying naked on a steel table. It's not an appealing site. He's seventy-four and his never-loved body shows it's age. For some reason, although he has no descendants or people who care about him, his body is being autopsied. 

The pathologists do the usual disgusting things that are rote to them with the Loser's intestines and organs. They saw open his bald head and remove his brain. This see this small plastic tab inserted near the base of his skull.

"No!" one of the doctors says to the other. "They never removed this?"

"I guess they didn't," the other says. "How the hell did that happen?"

"I don't think I've seen an example of someone with this not removed in my twenty-seven years of doing this. No wonder this poor man lived such an inferior life, from what I can see on his chart."

"Yeah," says the second doctor. "There would be a hell of a liability suit if there were anyone to press it. And, of course, if the courts hadn't been dissolved in 2028." 

"Such a pity. The clarity, intelligence and confidence this man would've had if someone had just remembered to take this out in his infancy."

"Well, what are you gonna do, right?"

"Yeah."