Wednesday, November 03, 2004

The Woman Who Cried Wolf

Back in rural NC I worked with a General Surgeon. Because he moved his practice from the Metro DC area to east Jesus NC, he ended up performing more surgical procedures than the regular general surgeon performs. Part of his additional repertoire included GYN procedures. Which brings me to this post.

Basically our patient was a biker dudette who came to our office for consultation. She wanted to have a tubal ligation. Part of the work up for that surgery is a pelvic exam. I got her ready to be examined and then the surgeon joined us in the room to first discuss the procedure and then examine the patient. Once he went over all the details he prepared for the exam. As I had her scoot down to the edge of the exam table I noticed that she had an interesting tattoo. The Doc was explaining where the puncture wounds would be while he was getting ready to examine her. She interrupted and asked if her “wolf” would be injured? (Have I mentioned that it’s not nice to break out in hysterical laughter while assisting a physician during a pelvic exam?) It was extremely difficult to not react to the look the Doc gave me following her inquiry. Because she was already lying down and in the stirrups she couldn’t see his face nor he hers. I was standing next to her at the end of the table. I merely pointed to her pubic region not saying a word. When he removed the drape enough to perform the exam, he understood her question.

Biker Dudette had a very intricate tattoo of a wolf’s head in place of pubic hair. I personally can’t imagine laying there for the amount of time it must have taken to receive the tattoo. Not to mention the discomfort. But I digress. The Doc did not miss a beat and told BK not to worry that the wolf’s left ear would be where that puncture wound would end up. BK seemed ok with this.

A week after her surgery, BK was scheduled for a postoperative visit. She handled the procedure well and was feeling fine. She was quite eager to show off her wolf. I must mention that we did not need to view that part of her anatomy following the surgery. She had a new addition to her wolf tattoo. Since the left ear indeed was where the wound was, BK went ahead and got an earring for the wolf.

Different strokes for different folks.....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You know, there's a great joke lurking here about putting something in the wolf's mouth, but I won't go there out of respect for Wicked.

And I'm also not going to mention where she might have put a nose ring on him.

Howard (3leggeddog)