Of all the gall aka going under the knife...
I must have been 10 years old when my parents drove back to New York to visit my grandmother in the hospital. She had gall bladder surgery.One thing I can recall was the mayonnaise jar with gritty looking nuggets in it.
Uh.... that was her souvenir of the gall stones the doctor removed!
Another thing I remember was my father saying she "Went under the knife."
As I got older, I learned it meant surgery. Surgery of any kind.
In the 1960's surgery like that involved an incision as long 12" and it took several weeks of recuperation.
Modern surgery still uses a scalpel, but it's to make small incisions. All the work is done through a few 'keyholes' where instruments are pushed into tubes and a probe with a camera on the end is that the doctors can see through to do their work!
Recovery time is considerably less. The risk of cutting muscles and nerves to get to the area requiring surgery is also less.
Last year, a coworker had a hernia repair. He was in the hospital less than 6 hours and back to work after 1 week.
In my book, that would mean the term "Going under the knife" should be replaced by the term "Going under the laparoscope"
Thanks for reading my blog!
Comments (2)
with less internal destruction yielding faster recovery times.
The tiny cameras have played a major role in this.