A Simple Truth About
WEEKEND SURGERY
It's really not as hard as it sounds

What a weekend! It started out with a few drinks at a friend's retirement party and ended up with me performing surgery on myself and two friends.

A close friend of mine had just retired after 38 years at the same place of employment. Our whole office attended his retirement luncheon last Friday thinking it would be like any other retirement we've been to in the past few months. A meal, a drink or two, a few boring speeches and back to work for the afternoon. If we'd only known what would transpire, I'm not sure I would have gotten out of bed that morning.

The luncheon was just as we had expected, except for one thing - drinks were free. And like most guys where I work, I couldn't resist a freebie. So it was three drinks before lunch, two drinks during and I lost count after. When we finally headed back to work, our secretary, who hadn't imbibed as much as myself and the other two riding with us, graciously offered to drive. What a mistake that was. The three drunken passengers in the car (myself, Darryl and Bob) could easily have driven better than Connie had, even though she was completely sober. At least she made it back unhurt.

When Connie drove into the parking lot where we work, we were all white-knuckled from a series of close calls she had had on the trip back from lunch. We thought, however, that we had made it unscathed. That's when she quickly spun into the parking lot and came head-to-head with a truck leaving the carpet delivery business next door to our office. The delivery truck had a number of extension ladders extending past the front of the truck cab and before either vehicle could stop, one of the ladders had pierced our windshield and smashed Bob's shoulder. I leapt out of the back seat and started pounding on the delivery driver's door and yelling for him to get out but I stopped and turned to run when I saw him pull a gun out from under the seat. When I spun around Darryl was standing right behind me and I knocked him down as I attempted to get away. As luck would have it, Darryl fell on a piece of re-bar sticking out of the asphalt that was supposed to have been holding a parking curb in place. Unfortunately, the curb was gone and all that was left was the re-bar which was now penetrating Darryl's side, right below his rib cage. The second that I hesitated, the delivery truck, now attempting to flee the scene, ploughed over me and left me lying in his dust with multiple fractures to my left arm and leg.

Needless to say, we couldn't call the police. We were so inebriated that we all thought we'd get charged if we did. Then I had to open my big mouth. I mentioned my joke about not being a doctor, but playing one on TV. Everybody took me seriously and we headed into my office (mine's the only one with a couch). I pulled out the office tool kit, my laser pen and my Exacto knife and went to work.

After I got my second wind, things started to go fairly smoothly. Reconstructing Bob's shoulder wasn't nearly as complicated as I had thought it would be. A few metal pins here, a bolt there, and Bob was pretty much good to go. The alcohol in his blood easily countered any pain that I caused and he was on his way home without having to put in a second of overtime.

Darryl's problems, however, were a little more serious. First, I had to open him right up as a lot of internal organs were hemorrhaging and this was obviously a bit of a concern. I have to say here that my laser pen performed a lot better than I expected and I would advise any amateur surgeon to carry one with them. It was really quite a simple modification to boost the power that the laser ran on and then to fine-tune the wavelength only took a few minutes. (One funny moment occurred when, at first, I had the laser power set too high and instead of cauterizing the damage to Darryl's spleen, I actually tore right through the spleen and into the small intestine.) Once I had all the bleeding stopped and put dissolving stitches into his spleen, pancreas and small intestine, I gave Darryl a quick tetanus shot (the re-bar was rusty) and he was back on his feet.

Fixing up the breaks in my bones took a little longer than I expected (it's difficult working on yourself), but with the experience I had gained when repairing Bob's shoulder, it was really a straightforward operation. The only thing I probably would do differently next time is to reassemble the bones outside of the body and then reinsert them into the limb - live and learn!

And here I am. Sunday night. My leg is a little sore, but other than that I'm right as rain.

As always, send me your suggestions for future columns on crang.com. Next time: Surgical Insurance - Is It That Hard To Get?

© March 11, 2001