Patience and diligence are vital skills. Without them you won’t get anywhere; and without them I wouldn’t be where I am today. I was born with a birth defect called Pectus Excavatum, sometimes referred to as sunken chest but basically it is the sunken appearance of the sternum along with the chance of heart being displaced and/or rotated and the overall capacity of my lungs are decreased. In other words it sucks.
So that was a constant struggle in my life, I couldn’t preform to my full potential in sports, I couldn’t breathe correctly and I developed asthmatic symptoms. But the worst of all was the teasing, people would call me “hole-boy” “meteor boy” “The kid with the hole in his chest” and other things a little kid shouldn’t have to hear. I couldn’t take my shirt off without feeling everyone’s attention in the room become immediately directed towards my chest. I had to deal with that until I was 12, which is the age the doctor requested for us to wait until I could get operated. So once that time came around I was scheduled to be operated on July 10, 2010. Now that was brutal...
Pectus excavatum is congenital abnormal formation in the rib cage, which causes the sternum to grow inward, this causes the look of a sunken chest. There are mild and severe cases of pectus excavatum. If this abnormal development is left untreated, it can cause pressure on the thoracic cavity including the heart and lungs. Pectus excavatum generally appears more physically prominent in adolescence into teenage years due to puberty. This deformity causes not only side effects to their physical health, but also creates a higher level of self consciousness with their body image.
Lewis Blackman was a fifteen year old boy whose death was triggered by the numerous errors caused by his healthcare professionals. He was suffering from a Pectus Excavatum, a non-life threatening condition. His mother, Helen Haskell, was attracted to an advertised surgery that boasted all the benefits of the procedure without proclaiming the risks. He checked into the Medical University of South Carolina Children’s Hospital on November 2nd, 2000, to undergo this “safe and minimally invasive” procedure. Complications arose following the surgery, but they were not communicated effectively within the nursing co...
Ronnie Oldham once said, “Excellence is the Result of Caring more than others think is Wise, Risking more than others think is Safe, Dreaming more than others think is Practical, and Expecting more than others think is Possible.” Compassion runs through the veins of Cardiovascular Surgeons everywhere. They knowingly go into a field of study where no guarantees are promised and then strive to succeed. Cardiovascular surgeons save the lives of many people by operating on life threatening diseases that occur in the organs within the chest, and the bony structures and tissues that form the thoracic cavity. They must possess many skills, the first and foremost being humanistic skills, other skills include leadership skills, the ability to make arduous decisions with limited information and, more often than not, a miniscule period of time, and lastly, of course, impeccable knowledge of the human heart and body, along with outstanding surgical skills. Many people find that they do not have the expertise nor the mental strength to be a cardiovascular surgeon which is why it is a career best left to the undaunted.
Perhaps my weeping had caught their attention, a woman hovered over me and strapped a breathing mask around my head. Her hands were gentle and she didn 't apply force over my head, instead she was calm and careful. Before I could even speak, the woman turned on a foreign wave of air that came through the tubes attached to the mask. I had no choice but to breathe in the strange air and realized what was happening.
After a gradual build up of symptoms and discomfort, I received the diagnosis that I had developed a Staphylococcus aureus infection in my lower left lung. One of the symptoms of this rare strain of pneumonia, besides fever, sore throat, and night sweats, I would discover, is pleurisy: inflammation of the lining of the chest cavity. It started with a strange slight throbbing of my ear, then a sore shoulder, and finally the most excruciating pain I can imagine. I woke gasping and half expected to see a large gash beneath my lower ribs and an exit wound in my mid back. Moaning to myself with tears boiling in my eyes, I tried to muster the air to call for help. Movement intensified the pain but I finally crawled to my parents’ bedroom and my dad rushed me to the ER. Heading up I5 in the middle of the night, I cursed the demon that was inside
Mike was an international marijuana distributor for the drug cartel in Mexico. He had cell phones from the U.S.A, Mexico, Acapulco and also Europe. He was well known in the U.S.A for the guy to buy drugs from in Mexico. His drug name was Mr. Wave. The women and girls in Chilpancingo were okay with mike selling drugs because he spoiled them with presents. It was like Christmas for them all year and Mike was Santa.
You need to hold the the puffs in your lungs longer and inhale deeper. Do it again and I’ll make sure you are doing it right. It shouldn’t be to hard. You know what, If you can’t take these next two puffs correctly. I have a device that will help you hold and inhale the puffs more effectively,” Once again I agreed and took two more deep breathes and asked if the puffs were good enough. “Alright, I’m going to go into the back and grab the device. You’ll love it and you 'll start feeling better in no time.” “one question,” my mom began to ask, “is jarrod able to go back to school?” “Why yes, this inhaler is very strong and he should be feeling better in no time.” “ Okay, good. He has missed too much school already.” Me, trusting the doctor’s every words was not feeling good about this new information. There was only three hour left of school and I was not one to enjoy the middle school atmosphere. Doctor Albec went to the back to grab the device. “Mom, do i have to go back to school? The day is almost up and I’m not feeling well.” I said trying to pull a fast one in missing school. It was a friday, and would have been a longer weekend for
The ability to become reflective in practice has become a necessary skill for health professionals. This is to ensure that health professionals are continuing with their daily learning and improving their practice. Reflective practice plays a big part in healthcare today and is becoming increasingly noticed.
In conclusion, the science fiction short story by Daniel Keyes “Flowers for Algernon” tells how Charlie needed the operation, and is better off with the operation than without it. Before the surgery, Charlie struggled greatly communicating
The war on drugs and the violence that comes with it has always brought around a hot debate about drug legalization. The amount of violence that is associated with drugs is a result from harsher drug laws and prohibition.
On my hospital bed, I sit and stretch out my arms to relieve some nervous tension. My room is nothing but dull grey walls and the smell of disinfectant. My ears perk up as I listen to doctors and nurses conversing outside. Their voices grow louder and louder as I hear their feet coming closer to my door. I crane my neck towards sounds, only to spot the brass knob of my door turning. My heart begins to race and my breathing becomes shallower. I quickly pull out a pocketknife from under my pillow and slip it into my pants pocket. Stealthily, I roll out of bed, forgetting about the various tubes attached to my body. I wince in pain and tears well up in my eyes as they get yanked ou...
“Whoa-oa-oa! I feel good, I knew that I would now. I feel good….”. My “I feel good” ringtone woke me up from the depths of slumber during my first night call in internal medicine rotation. My supervising intern instructed me to come to the 4th floor for a patient in distress. Within moments, I scuttled through the hospital hallways and on to the stairs finally arriving short of breath at the nurses’ station. Mr. “Smith”, a 60 year old male with a past medical history of COPD was in respiratory distress. He had been bed bound for the past week due to his severe arthritis and had undergone a right knee replacement surgery the day before. During evening rounds earlier, he had no signs of distress. However, now at 2 AM in the morning, only hours later since rounds, he was minimally responsive. My intern and I quickly obtained the patient’s ABG measurements and subsequently initiated a trial of BIPAP. This resolved Mr. Smith’s respiratory distress and abnormal ABG values. To rule out serious causes of dyspnea, a stat chest x-ray and CT were obtained. Thankfully, both studies came back normal.
One of the last things that surprised me, which is a little more serious is the fact that the doctor could only do one surgery at a time. As a parent, I would be so stressed out over a matter of two days rather than one. Another thing that surprised me about the surgery was the fact that it took them about a yea...
As I walked through the halls, people knew; and people glared at me with curiosity glowing through their eyes - piercing me like shards of broken glass. I never knew it was so intriguing seeing, or even knowing someone who had been through a major surgery; but I guess it would be fun to know those things from another person 's perspective, one who has never had the audacity to learn what it 's like to go through those things, let alone to know how it feels to go through it themselves. Even my own friends, were curious. And I will be honest, it 's not a nice thing to be asked every hour of every day where you went or what happened; when you were still crying and traumatized about what had happened. It 's definitely not nice to learn after a while that everyone was talking behind my back and slowly making fun of me as the days went by. The names they called became much more clearer as I noticed the people who I thought were my friends, betray
Through my entire life I’ve enjoy a good health. I was never victim of any disease or medical procedure, but sadly all that changed a year ago. I started to suffer from palpitations or like everybody called it “tachycardia”. My tachycardias were the most annoying thing that can happen to a person, it did not have a specific time to start, you can be running, watching TV or in the worse scenario sleeping. Also, the duration of the palpitations was every time greater and the easiest way to describe it is to accelerate a car up to 8000 revolutions per second until the engine begins to shake. After suffering from one of them I always felt like I’ve ran a marathon in five minutes without even move from my sofa. When I finally went to the doctor he did several examinations to my chest to detect what the problem was, which included ultrasounds and electrocardiograms. By that time I was calmed, until the doctor called to announce what was going on with me. I suffered from (name of the procedure) which in English means that I had more nerves in my heart than what I needed and every time I had a nervous reaction those nerves reacted with each other like two cables doing short-circuit. The solution was simple but terrifying, the doctor would have to operate through my neck to cut one of the nerves in a surgery that would last 3 hours. When he said what he was going to do to me I instantly said -let’s do it!, but inside of my head I only wanted to scream.