#abdominal surgery
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The most powerful moment of the coronation of King Charles III was not the gold glittering off carriages or epaulettes — not the pomp and show and signifiers of power.
It was precisely their opposite: when Charles shed his gold robes and stood in a thin white shirt, his frail humanity implied.
Then a screen was erected around him and, shielded, he had a private consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who dabbed anointing oil with his hands on Charles’s bare breast.
"This was the most solemn and personal of moments,” Buckingham Palace said.
Charles was bare before God, in privacy, God being one of the last beings with no need to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The Princess of Wales looked on as the screen shielded her father-in-law.
By contrast, she was at that point the most magnificent she had ever been, swathed in layer upon layer of regality, the dress, the robes, the hanging chains, headpiece and ribbons all serving to move the viewing gaze — subjects in every sense — from our awareness of Catherine Middleton with her everyday human DNA and towards the shared fiction of her transcendent queenliness.
Less than a year later, this moment is remembered with new and terrible power.
It is spring again, but it’s a time of hard Lenten moral reflection for us as a nation, in relationship to our royals, as well as an ever more voraciously unprivate modern celebrity culture.
Both the King and the princess have cancer, the latter’s disclosed by Catherine in an unprecedented video address on Friday, March 22.
Catherine’s speech was something of a plea bargain in which she traded not only her customary silence but her most personal of health ordeals in order to put an end to toxic rumours swirling online that had become in tone like an unruly mob rattling at the palace gates.
Or rattling at the figurative locks on her medical notes, with three workers at the London Clinic, where she and the King were treated, suspended and under investigation for allegedly trying to access her records (hers, it is important to note, the King’s were unmolested).
📷: Getty Images
What was so powerful about the anointing of the King was the sacredness of that space in which he could be fully human away from observation and judgment.
There should be another one-on-one consultation that is sacred, where anyone, from King to princess to pauper, can expect to be shriven in total privacy, and that is the sanctity of the medical room.
It used to be that priests were our only bound confidants, we could trust them to be privy to all our spiritual ills.
Now doctors are our secular priests: bound by law and ethics to enshrine confidentiality at the heart of the patient relationship.
As a result, our medical privacy in an age of oversharing and online surveillance feels both stranger and more necessary.
If we knew our every GP-inspected rash was to be posted on TikTok for the nation, many of us would quite literally die of embarrassment.
The King’s appointment behind the three-sided screen can now be viewed through the lens of royal illness.
The lavishly embroidered panels and expensive white shirt now replaced by the flimsy three-sided ward screen on wheels and thin hospital gown that can humble us all.
But it also enacts a principle at the very heart of becoming the monarch.
The medical-like screen is erected in the coronation to tell us there are some places the public cannot go; to tell us that there are sacredly personal moments in which a person, any person, however swathed in our projections of power, needs to be nakedly human.
Otherwise, they will go mad. We need to make sure the screens are erected around Catherine now.
Much is said, quite a lot of it by Prince Harry himself, of the dangers of the wives of the princes repeating the tragic history of their mother, Princess Diana, hunted by photographers.
He remains phobic to any hint of tabloid persecution or paparazzi chase. But this is a sideshow, even an anachronism in 2024.
He and others have not recognised how the “chase” has changed. Who needs paparazzi when there are a billion citizen hacks ready to take pictures with their phones, in case a convalescing woman nips to a Windsor farm shop with her husband?
Instead, the appetite now is not to see but to know.
The royals used to have a contract with the public: we pay for them, and in return, they give us their presence.
Nearly all of their official job is to do with surface: to show up, to put in appearances at a set number of functions, whether at the opening of parliament or the opening of a leisure centre.
But now parts of the online mob seem to be staging a coup. We want more than the surface, we want to puncture the skin barrier of the royal family and occupy from the inside.
The “fans” have become an invasive virus. The royal analogy is often that they are trapped in a gilded zoo. This new model, instead, casts the royals more as lab rats.
When Catherine disappeared from view in January after announcing a “planned abdominal operation,” the response from internet truthers was one of irate entitlement.
They are now the 1980s tabloids: ravening for intimacies and making stuff up when thwarted.
This wasn’t the boomer generation, who are both more respectful of the royals and more private about their own health.
It was the fortysomething mothers frustrated when they can’t track the phone location of everyone in their life; or the twentysomethings on Snap Map.
Both desperate for their personalised new Netflix season of “The Royals” to drop.
Catherine presents with such stoicism and dignity, it is easy to forget where this new invasiveness started: when she was pregnant with Prince George in December 2012 and hospitalised for extreme morning sickness.
While she was sleeping on the ward, a radio station in Australia rang the hospital switchboard pretending to be the Queen.
They broadcast the nurse’s comments about Catherine’s “retching.”
One could only find this prank funny if Catherine had already — a young, wretchedly ill, pregnant woman — been dehumanised.
George is now ten and his mother hospitalised again, and in that decade, the physical security of ill royals may have tightened but their claim to bodily autonomy seems to have weakened.
Some say Kensington Palace “brought it on themselves” by their wish for discretion; this claim is duplicitous.
The late Queen Elizabeth II became increasingly debilitated in her final years with not much detail ever given; just as her father, King George VI, died without disclosing his lung cancer.
I’m glad that the British do not subject their heads of state to the same publicised medical reports as the president of the United States; one shouldn’t have to present a stool swab to sit on the throne.
No, instead the apparent justification of all those clicking and posting conspiracy theories “worried for Catherine’s welfare” was this sinful truth.
As a beautiful, 42-year-old mother of three, her drama was more box office than the ailments of those older, a pound of her flesh was worth more.
Pity, Susan Sontag said in her 1978 book Illness as Metaphor, is close to contempt.
Back then cancer was still taboo. Those around the patient, Sontag says, “express pity but also convey contempt.”
Ask any cancer patient and they will say they don’t want pity: it is too isolating, it sets them apart, an unwanted privilege.
This is why the video plea of Catherine was one of affinity, rather than pity or privilege.
Last year, she sat in robes in Westminster Abbey at the coronation of her father-in-law, next to her future king son and future king husband.
In her video address last week, she sat on a classically English garden bench, pale, alone and in jeans, as bare of pomp as any royal can be.
No mention of kings or titles, just Diana’s ring on her hand.
Rather she gave an appeal, parent to parent, human to human, about her “huge shock” and her care for her “young family.”
And, finally, her kinship with anyone who lives in a vulnerable human body susceptible to a democratic illness like cancer, “you are not alone.”
Or, to paraphrase Richard Curtis:
“I’m just a girl, standing in front of a public, asking for some time to endure gruelling chemotherapy."
NOTE: Additional photos have been included in this article.
#King Charles III#Prince William#Prince of Wales#Princess of Wales#Catherine Princess of Wales#Catherine Middleton#Kate Middleton#British Royal Family#cancer#chemotherapy#preventative chemotherapy#social media#fake news#click farms#bots#trolls#disinformation#misinformation#viral#abdominal surgery#celebrity culture
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Hi hope you’re doing well!
in The Last of Us episode 5, Joel gets stabbed in the gut and immediately pulls the blade out.
Obviously if you get stabbed, the best thing to is leave the weapon in place and get to a hospital immediately, but I’ve heard some people argue that in this circumstance (zombie apocalypse, with enemies pursuing them) that Joel did the right thing, since there was no hospital/surgeon he could go to anyway, and the knife would get in his way if he needed to fight or ride on a horse.
I was wondering what your thoughts on this were because I’ve been thinking about it a lot haha. I don’t think his survival in the show after that stab wound was particularly realistic but, what’s typically the best course of action in such a low resource environment? (I understand you can’t give medical advice obviously)
anyway thanks for your time and have a good day!
The reason you're leaving an impaled object in is because you want to take it out in as controlled an environment as possible.
The most controlled environment, in the case of a gut stabbing, would be a fully staffed operating room with blood products standing by, IV antibiotics hanging, and anesthesia/paralytic agents on board.
The reason for this is that there are a lot of things in the abdomen that can cause severe problems when stabbed. If i'm interpreting the gifsets correctly the stab was in the upper right part of his abdomen. It doesn't look quite high up enough to have hit his liver, but that would be a concern depending on the direction and length of the impaling object. Livers bleed a LOT when stabbed. And pulling a blade out generally does more damage, as well as preventing that blade from putting any pressure directly on the source of the bleeding.
Not only that, but Joel's intestines are probably in the way of the blade as well- they're really packed in there, and it's exceedingly difficult to stab someone without hitting intestine. The intestine, of course, is full of poop. And the sac holding the intestine is otherwise sterile, so if you spill poop into that sac you generally cause a massive, massive infection called peritonitis (the same thing you can die of if your appendix ruptures). Pulling the knife out here would spread the poop around a little more, and again possibly done more damage to the intestine, which also needs to be intact to later digest food.
There is also an aorta, which would have caused Joel's death pretty immediately if stabbed, and some other smaller vessels that he probably could have survived getting severed, assuming they did not serve something he needed later, like a stretch of intestine.
Now, as you mentioned, Joel will never have access to a controlled operating room with trained staff. So while he might be making things worse by pulling out the blade, he know's he's either definitely going to die now because he can't fight/escape or probably die later because of damage that really has already been done, so he chooses the latter, which still gives him the best chance of survival.
Now, his absolute best-luck scenario here is something like this account of low-resource surgery taken from Improvised Medicine by Kenneth V Iserson:
Along with this description of a low-resource abdominal surgery, being sure to flush as much as possible of the poop out of the abdominal cavity with saline as possible- called peritoneal lavage- can help decrease the bacterial load in the abdomen and decrease the risk of sepsis.
Probably the second-best thing he could hope for would be something like the attempt to save Malachai in Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (fictional prep for an abdominal trauma surgery, but very well described):
[Dan] crawled out and said, "He's in shock and shouldn’t be moved and ought to have a transfusion. But we have to move him if I'm to do anything at all. On what?"
There was a discarded door in the toolhouse. They moved him on that.
They laid Malachai on the billiard table in the gameroom and then massed lamps and candles so that Dan would have light. Dan said, "I have to go into him. Massive internal hemorrhage. I've got to tie it off or there’s no chance at all. How? With what?"
"My hunting knife, the one I shave with? It's sharp as a razor, almost."
"No, Too big, too thick. How about steak knives?"
"Sure, steak knives." The short-bladed steak knives even looked like lancets. The Judge and Randy's mother had bought the set in Denmark on their summer in Europe in 'fifty-four. They were the finest and sharpest steak knives Randy had ever used. He found them in the silver chest and called, "How many?"
"T’wo will do."
From the dining room Helen called, "I've put on water to boil-a big pot." The dinner fire had been going and Helen had piled on fat wood so it roared and Dan would soon have the means of sterilizing his instruments. Randy put them into the pot to boil. After that, at Dan’s direction he put in his fine-nosed fishing pliers. Florence Wechek ran across the road for darning needles. Lib found metal hair clips that would clamp an artery. Randy's six-pound nylon line off the spinning reel would have to do for sutures.
There was enough soap to cleanse Dan's hands. Dan went into the dining room, fretting, waiting for the pot and his instruments to boil. It was hopeless, he knew. In spite of everything they might do sepsis was almost inevitable, but now it was the shock and the hemorrhage he couldn’t lick. He wondered whether it would be possible to rig up a saline solution transfusion. They had the ingredients, salt and water and fire; and somewhere, certainly, rubber tubing. He would not give up Malachai. He wanted to save Malachai, capable, quiet, and strong, more than he had ever wanted to save anybody in his years as a physician. So many people died for nothing. Malachai was dying for something.
In the gameroom Helen was at work, quick and competent. She had found their last bottle of Scotch, except what might remain in Randy's decanter upstairs, and was cleansing the wound with it. Randy and Lib stood beside her. The pool of blood in the round hole ebbed and did not rise again. The water was boiling in the big iron pot when Randy walked into the dining room and touched Dan's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid it's all over."
Third best is probably to pack the wound, since sewing or otherwise closing the wound would trap everything inside. Hopefully there's not a ton of damage to the intestines (a couple of very small nicks might scar back together without needing surgery if he was really lucky).
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Princess Kate "extremely moved" by public response to her cancer diagnosis
Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her husband, Prince William, “are extremely moved” by the global response to her cancer diagnosis, Kensington Palace said in a statement on behalf of the couple, and reiterated their plea for privacy right now.
The princess, also known as Kate Middleton, announced last week that she had been diagnosed after the abdominal surgery in January that prompted her…
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Jane Todd Crawford: The Pioneering Patient Behind the Dawn of Abdominal Surgery
Jane Todd Crawford’s life story is not just a tale of medical marvel but a testament to the indomitable human spirit. Born in 1763 in Virginia, Crawford’s early life was marked by the pioneering challenges of the American frontier. Moving to Green County, Kentucky, she embraced the rural life of the early 19th century, a period characterized by limited medical knowledge and scarce healthcare…
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#19th Century Medicine#Abdominal Surgery#Ephraim McDowell#Jane Todd Crawford#Medical History#Ovarian Tumor#Patient Courage#Surgical Innovations
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Less Aggressive, Still Forward
"Okay, okay. That last post was pretty angry, wasn't it? I get really angry just thinking about the surgery a year ago. But I haven't talked about what happened on this blog and I probably won't ever. Definitely won't ever. It was a nightmare. I still. My brain can't wrap around how bad the treatment was. It was. It was awful. And that doesn't even cover it.
I had to have a minor surgery this week, to have my displaced feeding tube fixed. Yeah.. Again. It keeps displacing because Ehlers-Danlos is stupid and that's sucky. But it is what it is. I will say this: the hospital was a lot better this time. I still had to argue with them..."
| GO HERE | to read the rest of the blog post
--Please don't delete my caption--
#18+ blog#feeding tube#gj tube#minor surgery#day surgery#major surgery#abdominal surgery#ehlers-danlos syndrome#disability
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A hernia refers to the protrusion of an organ through the muscle that normally contains it. This condition commonly occurs in the abdominal wall, when the intestine pushes through a weak spot. To address hernias, medical health care in Lancaster, Pennsylvania is required. Hernias come in several forms and affect different parts of the body.
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do you think our organs and insides get a little shy when we have surgery and they see light for the first time?
#like. literally most of our stuff has never seen light#and wont unless we have surgery#like imagine your liver like o.o when you have abdominal surgery#the speaking clown
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British newspaper front pages are displayed at a supermarket and on a screen, all carrying the headline that Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, has revealed she is undergoing preventative chemotherapy, after tests taken following abdominal surgery in January revealed cancer had been present, 23 March 2024.
📷: REUTERS / Toby Melville
#Princess of Wales#Catherine Princess of Wales#Catherine Middleton#Kate Middleton#British Royal Family#cancer#chemotherapy#preventative chemotherapy#newspapers#front pages#abdominal surgery
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Prince William drove a new electric Audi to be by his wife at the London clinic this morning. She will be there for a fortnight. (William looks distraught 😞)
Prince William drives himself away from the London clinic.
Police outside the London clinic today, where The Princess of Wales is hospitalized after abdominal surgery.
Police officers outside the London clinic where Princess Catherine is staying after surgery
-news article
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Whumpee is woken up by the feeling of choking and pulling at their throat, and they feel the urge to cough.
A gentle hand squeezes theirs, and a soft voice whispers from their bedside.
"It's okay darling, surgery went well. You'll probably feel a bit hot for a while, you spiked a bit of a fever there..."
Whumpee looks around, confused. The gentle voice continues.
"Do you know where you are? We had to take you to emergency surgery, but you'll be okay."
Whumpee immediately realizes, and their surgical pain, exhaustion, fever and loneliness catches up to them. They start hyperventilating, and sobbing. They just can't stop the tears.
"It's okay dear, you'll be okay, try to breathe regularly." The gentle nurse squeezes their hand again.
"We're taking you back to your room now, so you can sleep off the anesthetic, alright? You did so well."
#so ya girl got emergency abdominal surgery lasr night#and this is what happened word for word#so i thought#i must write a post for whumpblr right NOW#sicknario#fevers#caretaking#exhaustion#tw hospital#injury#surgery#anesthesia#also intubation gives you the most disgusting cough ugh
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Did UK hospital employees attempt to listen in on Kate's medical information? A privateness watchdog is investigating
LONDON (AP) — A British privateness watchdog mentioned Wednesday it was investigating a report that employees at a personal London hospital tried to listen in on the Princess of Wales ’ medical information whereas she was a affected person for stomach surgical procedure.
The Data Commissioner’s Workplace mentioned: “We will affirm that now we have acquired a breach report and are assessing the…
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#abdominal surgery#Information Commissioner’s Office#kensington palace#LONDON#medical records#Prince William#the London Clinic#William and Kate
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i personally love having intercourse with god
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I was stabbed in the heart with a dagger in my dream last night. interesting new experience
#I can always feel pain in my dreams so it's fascinating when it's something my brain is just making up#that I've never actually felt irl. other examples are being cut in half by a big meat cleaver and being awake during abdominal surgery
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Today I had the best time volunteering for a teaching project (which is led by our chief vascular surgeon).
That is, apart from the fact that we ran into some of our abdominal surgery attendings, who gave me a massive (verbal) side-eye for technically hanging out with the vascular surgeons in my free time. (Some of them don’t really see eye to eye, both medically and personally).
And I’m soooo sick of it, can’t I just try to figure out what I eventually want to do with my career without having to navigate a social and political minefield?
#yes I am technically an abdominal surgery resident#but since we are a general surgery department we do both thoracics and vascular as well#and both have been pursuing me to switch to their respective subspecialties#it’s putting a lot of stress on me tbh#because there are a lot of expectations#and I’m a stupid little people pleaser and I don’t want to disappoint anyone#and also I get excited by so many things#I get excited by pancreatic surgery as much as aortic surgery#though I’m at a point in my training where I do neither#which is ok btw#but how am I going to figure this out?#especially if everything I dip a toe in one department the other two get offended#and also there are some co-residents who would be very happy to have less competition in their respective fields#so there‘ll always be comments there as well#if anyone has any advice#please let me know#this is stressing me out#(and yes I do realize that this a very first world problem)#it’s still stressing me out though#and there is sooo much to finding a good mentor#I probably overthink this wayyyy to much#but yeah#After two weeks of actual vacation#(like actually being on another continent doing something completely unrelated)#my brain took the first best thing to cling to#sigh#resa rambles#residency#medblr#surgery
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