Lazy Blogger Is Lazy

[bloodyrosemccoy]

ARRL Field Day
Great American Backyard Campout
Anniversary - Monday Holiday Law
Anniversary - Stonewall Riots
Birthday - Mel Brook (actor/director/producer)
Birthday - Gilda Radner (actress/comedian)

 

Post 5 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done. See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to add another!(2.b., 2.c., etc...) Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.

 

1. Skinny dipped in the Indian Ocean

2. Made Lewis Black laugh

3. Struck up a long-lasting friendship with an author because of one of her characters’ names

4. Watched a brain surgery from inside the OR

5. Biked the Gemini Bridges trail in Moab, Utah

 

Anyone else done that?

Comments

[10cents.livejournal.com]

Okay, I know the point of this isn't necessarily to get bombarded with questions, but now I am REALLY curious about numbers 2 and 4. Mind elaborating on them? (I adore Lewis Black's comedy, and the brain surgery just sounds really interesting, hence my curiosity.)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Excellent questions both! I don't mind aswering them at all!

2. So on the day of my graduation from high school, Lewis Black was going to be performing downtown, and it seemed like the perfect way to celebrate my end of high school. It was a great performance, and at the end he and his opening act both waited in the lobby to sign autographs and sell CDs. When I approached, I mentioned that I had come here instead of going to the school-sponsored graduation party.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because it's a stupid party," I said. "They're having it in a sports mall, and they actually lock you in until 3 a.m.." He raised an eyebrow, and I added, "The locking is to preserve our virginity and blood alcohol content."
He frowned. "What about after 3 a.m.?"
I shrugged. "Beats me. I guess they think we'll have gotten the idea by then."
And he cracked up.

It wasn't a hilarious punchline, but I felt rather proud of myself anyway.

4. Okay, I say this a lot, because I think it's awesome: My daddy's a brain surgeon. This may be the reason I'm fascinated by The World Of Medicine, or maybe I would have been anyway and I'm just lucky. Either way, for a long time as a teenager I kept remarking that it would be cool if I got to watch him to surgery, wouldn't it? Huh? He was noncommittal, until one day early in the morning when he called me and said he'd gotten clearance for me to come down to the hospital RIGHT NOW and watch. So I booked it down there without eating breakfast, got into a pair of scrubs, and was led into the OR where one of the assistants got the task of explaining to me what was going on.
"Just don't cause an unnecessary disturbance," the team told me. "We have people faint here sometimes. Then there are two patients! Ha ha!"
"Ha ha!" I agreed.
So I stood back and watched while they popped open a lady's skull--it was a relatively simple operation to drain a subdural hematoma. You pop a quarter-sized hole into their head with a Big Damn Drill, then whip out something I swear is a sterile a turkey baster full of saline and use that to flush out the coagulated blood. It was really incredible.
"This is really incredible," I thought.
I think it's about then that I woke up on the floor.
So the inglorious end to my adventure was me in scrubs on a gurney sipping orange juice.
But still, it was very cool. I must have had a subconscious response, because my conscious mind had no idea anything was wrong until I woke up. So if you ever get the opportunity to watch, remember to eat breakfast first.

[10cents.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I had no idea about what your dad does for a living--that's REALLY cool, as was the fact that you got to see that procedure. It's no wonder your Doctors... in SPACE! stories have such a good medical sort of feel to them (I would never even TRY to write anything set in a hospital/doctor's office for more than a few paragraphs, because I know I wouldn't be able to capture the feeling AT ALL).

The Lewis Black story is also great, although it kind of gets overshadowed by the bad-assery of drilling into a person's skull. :)

Thanks for taking the time to share these!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Poor sumbitch gets me pestering him all the time for cool medical stories. Mostly it's a boring parade of people with back pain (and, I discovered, a lot of "back pain"--distinguishable because back pain is actual pain in your back, while "back pain" is more related to wanting Moar Painkillers), but sometimes we get an Oliver Sacks-worthy tale in there. Other times, we meet voice actors.

I have no idea what he'd think of my medical stories. I try to give them a medical feel as well as an alien feel, but it's tough to work out. The stories did seem a natural offshoot of my fascination with the body, how the body goes wrong, and what we do when that happens.

The drill is very badass. It's got a hypersensitive pressure sensor on the end of it so that when it breaks through the skull it stops dead. You don't want that getting away from you, after all.

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

I was just as fascinated by these as 10cents was. You should tell stories such as these more often. XD

(I totally would have passed out too. Brains are scary. O_o)

And I have not biked trails or anything so interesting, but I did see Arches National Park. Many phallic rocks!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

Many phallic rocks!

You're a ursulav fan, aren't you?

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

I also condone hamster sex, masticating pears, and balancing fish. >_>

(But I swear to God, there were phallic rocks! And strategically placed caves!)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ah, but have you been to Goblin Valley? Now there is a valley set for Business Time.

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

I have not! Had not even heard of it until now, actually. But I googled it and I am very sad I missed it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* 'Tis not a very difficult conclusion to come to if you've been there, though. Just do an image search for "Goblin Valley."

[evilcresyluna.livejournal.com]

I've had to leave O.R. twice due "erm, I'm not okay" moments I've being pretty sure I'll faint or vomit or both - once during spinal surgery and one c-section (if only I'd lasted a few more moments in that one! I heard squalling almost the second I closed the door behind me!), I've made it through okay on a hysterectomy and another c-section. (psych nursing hasn't offered too many fainting moments) Most interested thing I didn't pass out during was a chest wound dressing wherein I could see the heart beating - really cool.

[dreams-cametrue.livejournal.com]

I have a very overactive shock reflex. The first time it hit me was in 8th or 9th grade, I had been in study hall and was reading a Reader's Digest magazine where they were describing a brain surgery. I was like you, doing perfectly fine and not feeling a bit squeamish when suddenly the tunnel vision began. The tunnel got longer and longer, and about that time the bell for the next class rang. When I got up the tunnel became almost infinitely long, as I was going to my next class I couldn't see anything and was stumbling down the hall bumping into people. I never went completely out (I have no idea how I managed not to) and luckily my next class was air conditioned so I was able to sit and recover. Next time it happened was about 15 years ago, I was reading a magazine on an airplane and the story was about one of the Indy car racers who had suffered severe leg injuries. The photograph of the x-ray with all the hardware did it for me, I passed right out in my airplane seat. I was still a bit shaky when I got to my layover, I ate a pizza slice and felt some better. The weird thing is that as a kid I helped a family friend who was a vetinarian and I have assisted vetinary surgery (see my own list where I stole this meme) and I never felt weak at all. Go figure...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Isn't that weird how it sort of surprises your conscious mind? And the things that set it off? I noticed that it's the sound of hyperventilation for me--I actually almost fainted while not watching Hostel, because my friends were watching it and had the sound up enough that I started breathing in time to somebody's hysterical screams. They were puzzled when I had to get up from my book and lie down on the floor with my feet on my chair.

We think it runs in the family. Dad's got some stories of his own (he's proof that you can apparently get over it), and my brother is an urban legend at our old high school for being The Reason The History Teacher No Longer Shows Those World War I Slides From The Veterans' Hospital. (He's got a really specific trigger, too, which is knowledge I may use for evil someday.) And I have one other totally unconscious incident of my own on record, but it was in reaction to pain instead.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

That's kind of awesome.