Bizarre

Bizarre is the only word I have to describe some of the medical situations I've encountered in the hospital. Here's a few of the highlights.

After lung cancer and more than one surgery, a man breathes using only 15% of the one lung he has remaining. Wow.

Patients with major head injuries often have to have monitors surgically put into their heads. A hole is drilled into the skull where the sensor sits and monitors pressure on the brain. Crazy. (Can I get one of those for emotional pressure?)

Amputee patients sometimes feel pain in the areas of their bodies that have been removed. I know this is due to the nervous system and that sort of thing, but how bizarre would it be to feel pain in your foot when you don't have a leg? Yikes.

A man fell and hit his head hard on concrete. Nothing was broken; however, the injury created lots of swelling and pressure build up in his skull. Doctors then cut out and removed a piece of his skull to relieve pressure and stored it in his stomach for safe keeping until it can be replaced. What?!

A man slowly drifted from life into death one night. His organs were not functioning, his lungs were not breathing. He was dead. But his pacemaker was still going so the monitor showed a heart beat. The only way to stop it was to run a magnet over his chest and kill the pacemaker. Sad.

Falling from a tree a man crushed a lumbar disc in his spine. In surgery the doctor first removed one of his lower floating ribs. "Look chaplain, I have his rib," he said as the doctor held the bone in the air. This rib would later be fashioned to replace the broken neck bone. Intriguing.

Like I said, bizarre is the only word I can come up with to describe this stuff that happens in the hospital. I'm reminded of Psalm 139:14 which reads, "I'm praise you (God) because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."