Danger: easily squicked
I'm dating an anesthesiologist. I like her for many reasons, including that she's extremely capable and knowledgeable about medicine, drug interactions, biology, etc. She's very enthusiastic about her work.
The other night we were in her kitchen, and she was explaining a cool procedure she'd done that day. I was perched on a tall kitchen chair/stool, and she was drawing a vertebrae to illustrate how an epidural is done. You slowly insert a hypodermic needle through the connective tissue between vertebrae, aiming to get not-quite to the dura mater sheath that surrounds the spinal cord. When the resistance changes you know you've gotten it just far enough, but not too far. (If you push too far you penetrate the dura matter, cerebrospinal fluid leaks out, and the patient gets a terrible headache for days or weeks. This is why, when you get an epidural, you should not get it from an inexperienced resident.)
She was talking about how it feels just so when you get the needle into the right place, and how the "bouncy" feeling of the plunger in the glass syringe changes just a little and then...
This whole time I'd been a little squicked, gripping onto her arm, and reminding myself to breathe. The talk of the long needle piercing the tissues around the vertebrae and poking the spinal cord wasn't my cup of tea. I said "I may need to take a break from this conversation..." and she said "... but when doing it in the upper back where the spinous processes are more slanted, you have to go in from the side..."
It was black, and I was dreaming, waking from dreaming, disoriented. I had no idea where I was. Then I realized I was on my back, on her kitchen floor, warm and nauseous, and she was looking down at me.
Seems I'd made some moaning noise, she'd thought I was joking, looked at me, saw my eyes go all unfocused, caught me as I had a brief seizure, lowered me to the ground, and put my feet up on the chair.
To cool me off, because she didn't have any ice, she got a pound of bacon from the freezer and put it on my chest. Then she got her stethoscope and listened to my heart, took my pulse, and got me a pillow.
After verifying that I was pretty much OK, she proceeded to tell me that what I'd experienced was an evolutionarily advantageous mechanism, and a sign of virility. When you're out hunting, and you get slashed by a saber-toothed tiger, you want your blood pressure to drop radically. This keeps you from pumping all of your blood out and dying, and also causes you to pass out and become a not-exciting target. Frequently, your brain gets upset when your blood pressure drops, and fires a bunch of random signals, and you have a mini-seizure. It seems that this response is much more common in men than in women, who were out hunting less, and have to deal with blood on a much more frequent basis. She also said that I "looked all cute when I was seizing, in a virile way." She was either being very sincere, or is a very good liar.
Anyway, after some time on the floor, punctuated by a lot of laughing about the situation, I was allowed to move to a sitting position, and then to go to the couch. Eventually my stomach settled down and my blood pressure came back up and I was fine. She was very sweet the whole time, I was highly amused, and we agreed that it was a most memorable date.
Lesson for the evening: if you're going to hang out with someone who can incapacitate you by simply describing what they did at work that day, be sure they can also take care of you afterwards.
Here's the picture she was drawing. Note the long needle at the bottom of the image and her stethoscope on the left. Click to enlarge.
Epidural sketch
Dr. S's illustration of how to insert the needle for an epidural.
See also this interesting event.
The other night we were in her kitchen, and she was explaining a cool procedure she'd done that day. I was perched on a tall kitchen chair/stool, and she was drawing a vertebrae to illustrate how an epidural is done. You slowly insert a hypodermic needle through the connective tissue between vertebrae, aiming to get not-quite to the dura mater sheath that surrounds the spinal cord. When the resistance changes you know you've gotten it just far enough, but not too far. (If you push too far you penetrate the dura matter, cerebrospinal fluid leaks out, and the patient gets a terrible headache for days or weeks. This is why, when you get an epidural, you should not get it from an inexperienced resident.)
She was talking about how it feels just so when you get the needle into the right place, and how the "bouncy" feeling of the plunger in the glass syringe changes just a little and then...
This whole time I'd been a little squicked, gripping onto her arm, and reminding myself to breathe. The talk of the long needle piercing the tissues around the vertebrae and poking the spinal cord wasn't my cup of tea. I said "I may need to take a break from this conversation..." and she said "... but when doing it in the upper back where the spinous processes are more slanted, you have to go in from the side..."
It was black, and I was dreaming, waking from dreaming, disoriented. I had no idea where I was. Then I realized I was on my back, on her kitchen floor, warm and nauseous, and she was looking down at me.
Seems I'd made some moaning noise, she'd thought I was joking, looked at me, saw my eyes go all unfocused, caught me as I had a brief seizure, lowered me to the ground, and put my feet up on the chair.
To cool me off, because she didn't have any ice, she got a pound of bacon from the freezer and put it on my chest. Then she got her stethoscope and listened to my heart, took my pulse, and got me a pillow.
After verifying that I was pretty much OK, she proceeded to tell me that what I'd experienced was an evolutionarily advantageous mechanism, and a sign of virility. When you're out hunting, and you get slashed by a saber-toothed tiger, you want your blood pressure to drop radically. This keeps you from pumping all of your blood out and dying, and also causes you to pass out and become a not-exciting target. Frequently, your brain gets upset when your blood pressure drops, and fires a bunch of random signals, and you have a mini-seizure. It seems that this response is much more common in men than in women, who were out hunting less, and have to deal with blood on a much more frequent basis. She also said that I "looked all cute when I was seizing, in a virile way." She was either being very sincere, or is a very good liar.
Anyway, after some time on the floor, punctuated by a lot of laughing about the situation, I was allowed to move to a sitting position, and then to go to the couch. Eventually my stomach settled down and my blood pressure came back up and I was fine. She was very sweet the whole time, I was highly amused, and we agreed that it was a most memorable date.
Lesson for the evening: if you're going to hang out with someone who can incapacitate you by simply describing what they did at work that day, be sure they can also take care of you afterwards.
Here's the picture she was drawing. Note the long needle at the bottom of the image and her stethoscope on the left. Click to enlarge.
Epidural sketch
Dr. S's illustration of how to insert the needle for an epidural.
See also this interesting event.