Yeah, so in that last post, where I predicted I'd be back to complaining about my job in approximately a week? I'm ahead of schedule.
The head-kicking line forms to the right.
I picked up some last-minute conference coverage when one of this publication's regular reporters got sick. They pay well, and if I do a good job on this I may be able to get more conference coverage gigs, which would be awesome because it's a quick-hit sort of job -- three days at the conference, three days to turn around stories, and then I never need to worry about this stuff again. So I'll be working my ass off until Sunday, but then I can go back to my regularly scheduled sloth, which is the way I like it.
But here's the thing: I'm covering The American College of Surgeons meeting, and apparently they decided to throw me in at the deep end. I've been doing radiology coverage, which really isn't that bad because it's all pretty (and to me, indistinct) pictures of the insides of people, often in attractive computer-generated colors that have nothing to do with actual organ systems. It's easy to ignore the fact that you are, in fact, looking at a malignant liver.
But this one? Here's what I've come away with so far:
Oh my god, medicine is disgusting! There are so many things that can turn your insides to goo, necessitating a surgeon to bring said insides outside, and gah! I had no idea how many things could kill me if I just got a bruise! We're all DOOOOOOOOOMED!
A slightly more coherent take: The sessions I'm covering are on septic wounds and necrotizing soft tissue infections. That stuff ain't pretty. So basically, my first session is at 8 a.m. (which, you have got to be kidding me), and I'm barely conscious when I'm confronted by slides of people's groins rotting off, or their one thigh at twice the size of its counterpart and oozing viscous fluid, and pictures of someone who's basically been flayed so they could dig out all the rotting flesh, a someone with his entire fistshoved into a persons fat layer, showing how far an infection has spread. And that's before we got to the amputated limbs!
Seriously, folks, it's disgusting in here.
On the upside, it's given me more impetus to lose weight (first because who could eat after that, and second because obesity is one of the risk factors for flesh-eating bacteria that totally could kill you -- if you're lucky! -- or make you beg for the sweet release of death.. Granted, they're talking serious morbid obesity, like 500 pounds, but still. Diabetes is another high risk factors, and that's also something weight loss can ward off. Oh, also? Intravenous drug users are at an enormous risk of this shit, and it is seriously horrible. If I'd ever even considered sticking a needle in my vein, this has turned me off that for life. Jesus, it's terrifying.
So now, I'm incredibly paranoid about every bump and bruise I've ever gotten, and that thing that looks like a zit on my shoulder could be necrotizing flesh, and maybe my sore thigh isn't from pulling a muscle running but from some rabid bacteria releasing spores in my leg and liquefying me!
It's possible that this is the wrong job for me to take.
Oh well, too late now. And I'll need to paycheck to cover my multiple hospital visits to check out every suspicious bump, and the opprobrium chamber I may have to install in my apartment.
But other than necrotizing flesh, things are fine. I actually turned into one of those crazy exercise people yesterday when I registered for the conference. It was one of those possibly last perfect autumn days, with the sun shining and the leaves falling and the temps hovering around the mid to high sixties, and I had been planning n going to the gym but I actually changed into my workout gear here at the conference center so I could go quasi-running around the lake. I went from McCormick up to the planetarium and around Northerly island and back, and just the combination of the sun and the water and the wind and the views and the sensation of moving under my own power had me grinning like an idiot even as my legs hurt (of course, that's probably the necrotizing bacteria that's necrotizing me as we speak. Necrotic necrotization! Gah!)
This afternoon, I get to cover Advances in Critical Care for Surgeons, including Management of Septic Shock. Pray for me.
Addendum: I called my mom to findo ut how long she was a hospital nurse, and to let her know that medicine is foul, and that I was looking at pictures of necrotic wounds. She said "Yeah, well, wait till you see a street person come in and they have maggots falling off them." Thanks, mom, I appreciate that.
The head-kicking line forms to the right.
I picked up some last-minute conference coverage when one of this publication's regular reporters got sick. They pay well, and if I do a good job on this I may be able to get more conference coverage gigs, which would be awesome because it's a quick-hit sort of job -- three days at the conference, three days to turn around stories, and then I never need to worry about this stuff again. So I'll be working my ass off until Sunday, but then I can go back to my regularly scheduled sloth, which is the way I like it.
But here's the thing: I'm covering The American College of Surgeons meeting, and apparently they decided to throw me in at the deep end. I've been doing radiology coverage, which really isn't that bad because it's all pretty (and to me, indistinct) pictures of the insides of people, often in attractive computer-generated colors that have nothing to do with actual organ systems. It's easy to ignore the fact that you are, in fact, looking at a malignant liver.
But this one? Here's what I've come away with so far:
Oh my god, medicine is disgusting! There are so many things that can turn your insides to goo, necessitating a surgeon to bring said insides outside, and gah! I had no idea how many things could kill me if I just got a bruise! We're all DOOOOOOOOOMED!
A slightly more coherent take: The sessions I'm covering are on septic wounds and necrotizing soft tissue infections. That stuff ain't pretty. So basically, my first session is at 8 a.m. (which, you have got to be kidding me), and I'm barely conscious when I'm confronted by slides of people's groins rotting off, or their one thigh at twice the size of its counterpart and oozing viscous fluid, and pictures of someone who's basically been flayed so they could dig out all the rotting flesh, a someone with his entire fistshoved into a persons fat layer, showing how far an infection has spread. And that's before we got to the amputated limbs!
Seriously, folks, it's disgusting in here.
On the upside, it's given me more impetus to lose weight (first because who could eat after that, and second because obesity is one of the risk factors for flesh-eating bacteria that totally could kill you -- if you're lucky! -- or make you beg for the sweet release of death.. Granted, they're talking serious morbid obesity, like 500 pounds, but still. Diabetes is another high risk factors, and that's also something weight loss can ward off. Oh, also? Intravenous drug users are at an enormous risk of this shit, and it is seriously horrible. If I'd ever even considered sticking a needle in my vein, this has turned me off that for life. Jesus, it's terrifying.
So now, I'm incredibly paranoid about every bump and bruise I've ever gotten, and that thing that looks like a zit on my shoulder could be necrotizing flesh, and maybe my sore thigh isn't from pulling a muscle running but from some rabid bacteria releasing spores in my leg and liquefying me!
It's possible that this is the wrong job for me to take.
Oh well, too late now. And I'll need to paycheck to cover my multiple hospital visits to check out every suspicious bump, and the opprobrium chamber I may have to install in my apartment.
But other than necrotizing flesh, things are fine. I actually turned into one of those crazy exercise people yesterday when I registered for the conference. It was one of those possibly last perfect autumn days, with the sun shining and the leaves falling and the temps hovering around the mid to high sixties, and I had been planning n going to the gym but I actually changed into my workout gear here at the conference center so I could go quasi-running around the lake. I went from McCormick up to the planetarium and around Northerly island and back, and just the combination of the sun and the water and the wind and the views and the sensation of moving under my own power had me grinning like an idiot even as my legs hurt (of course, that's probably the necrotizing bacteria that's necrotizing me as we speak. Necrotic necrotization! Gah!)
This afternoon, I get to cover Advances in Critical Care for Surgeons, including Management of Septic Shock. Pray for me.
Addendum: I called my mom to findo ut how long she was a hospital nurse, and to let her know that medicine is foul, and that I was looking at pictures of necrotic wounds. She said "Yeah, well, wait till you see a street person come in and they have maggots falling off them." Thanks, mom, I appreciate that.
posted by SAJ at
1:21 PM
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