A patient who underwent surgery for lumbar disc herniation has not recovered. Post-operatively, she developed paralysis and pain in her lower limb. She has also reported weakness in her hand, but which seems unrelated to the surgical site. She is hospitalized for rehabilitation, leaving her elementary school-aged daughter at home. She must resent me. Every time I see her moving down the hallway in her wheelchair, I feel sorry.
I participated as an assistant in a VP shunt procedure, which took two hours. That’s too long. The surgeon was a third-year doctor. It went very well until partway through. After passing the abdominal catheter subcutaneously, he noticed the valve was damaged and replaced the catheter. After connecting the ventricular catheter to the abdominal catheter, the valve position and ventricular catheter length didn’t match. We had to disconnect everything again, shorten the catheter, and reconnect it. Just writing this makes me feel sick. The abdominal incision was small, which was the one positive aspect. The postoperative CT scan showed no abnormalities.
WILLPOWER MELTDOWN SOMETIMES 