A Medical Comedy Scripted By The Marx Brothers

I, too, am tired of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane.


So today I get a call on one of the internal phones. These phones have super top-double-secret numbers that are only dialable from other phones in the hospital system. I pick up the phone. The voice on the other end asks for me by my real, long-form name, the one that I normally keep hidden in a Hawaiian records office.

It's the scheduler for the OB/GYN, reproductive endocrinology, reproductive oncology people. She wants to know if I've scheduled the ultrasound followup for the hot spot they found on my PET scan. The one on my right ovary.

(*sound effect of screeching brakes*)

Me: What? What motherfucking what?

Her: Uh....has Dr. Crane's office not called you with the PET results?

Me: No. How 'bout you tell me what the fucking motherfuck is going on here?

Her: Well, they found a hot spot on your right ovary and I'm sure it's benign most of these things are it's probably nothing but we want to check it out right away so how's tomorrow at two o'clock?

Me: (trying not to sound panicked) Fine. Whatever. Great. *click*

After I hung up the phone, I yelled to my partner that I was heading downstairs for a bit, then borrowed the boss lady's office to have a nice thorough bout of hysterics (I made the appointment for the ultrasound and follow-up first, though). Hot spot, PET scan, ovary, age 41, adenocarcinoma already, holy crap.

Boss Lady sent me home. She didn't even give me a chance to argue, just called in somebody else and shoved me out the door. So home I came, and watched Dr. Who until my brain exploded. Then I took a nap.

When I got up, I discovered two things: That Dr. Crane had left me a detailed voice message after the tone, and that he'd also sent an email. His communications had crossed with the phone call from the folks at OB/GYN, so I had missed 'em.

In both messages, he said that the "hot spot" was something that, according to the radiology people, looked consistent with a dermoid cyst. They'd seen it six months prior, on my first PET, but given that we were busy with other stuff, had elected to advise a wait-and-follow approach. The thing, whatever it is, is unchanged in size and uptake from the last scan, but it's still there. Given that dermoid cysts (those are the weird things with teeth and hair in 'em) can burst and cause peritonitis and so on, the Radiology Guys figured a diagnostic u/s would be a great idea. I agree with that, so I'll be prodded with a wand tomorrow.

I just love incidental findings.

So, yeah. My head, by the way, is fine. My neck and chest both look lovely. My belly, aside from the fact that I have Animal from the Muppet Show on my ovary, is pristine. My adrenal glands were a little overactive, but as Dr. Crane said, that's to be expected on a follow-up scan for cancer.

Teeth and hair. On my ovary.

This explains why I've had the compulsion to floss my Fallopian tubes.