I don't believe in superstitions. I know that everything happens for a purpose according to how the Lord works in our lives. I am therefore considering this incident as just amazingly coincidental.
When I was young, I had this red t-shirt that I loved to wear. What made it memorable to me is that, in most, if not all, of the accidents I had encountered then, I was surprisingly wearing that shirt. Of course, I dismissed the association and I kept on wearing it. I don't know what happened to it and I have had other red shirts after that but nothing 'bad' happened when I wore them.
I mentioned in the previous post that I had a scheduled excision of gum mass, which I thought was a squamous papilloma, last Friday. As I have had experience with this kind of mass, I thought it would just be a simple excision under local anesthesia to be done in the clinic. I reassured the patient that the procedure will be short and unremarkable. I had a plan on how to simply detach the pedunculated mass from it's attachment and cauterizing the stump afterwards. I even have a newly purchased portable cautery from the US to do the job. I thought that everything will be benign..
After inflitration of lidocaine, I began deflecting the mass to see its attachment. When I finally saw the stalk, blood started spurting from the its base. I did 'finger pressure' then clamping but to no avail. It was like there was a fountain of blood coming from the base of mass. We kept on suctioning and packing until we ran out of gauze and our suction tip and machine got clogged. The whole operating area became a mess. I then decided to transfer the patient to the hospital for better equipment and because I was then contemplating on bringing her to the operating room just in case the bleeding will not stop.
Surprisingly, the bleeding was 'controlled' en route to the hospital. When we got there, with the help of the resident doctors, I anesthetized the area again and although the bleeding became profuse again, I was able to easily detach it. Would you believe that the point of attachment was only about 2-3mm? Anyway, I did finger pressure again in an attempt to stop the bleeder, but to no avail. I noticed that the bleeder was coming in between the roots of the adjacent molar so I decided to remove the tooth for a better grasp of the bleeding vessel. But, even without the tooth, blood continued to ooze out of the socket! I apposed the opposing gingiva with a chromic suture in an attempt to close the socket but the bleeding persisted. We continued to pack and suction the blood until, most likely from blood loss, the patient lost consciousness, and to our relief, this probably caused the bleeding to stop, at last!
She immediately regained consciousness and as we were waiting for her to regain her strength back, the topic of associating my red shirt to that bloody case came out of nowhere. Moreover, one of the residents mentioned that their new curtain, newly installed that morning, is red!
The patient after a while, vomited all of the ingested blood and I had to put her in venoclysis and IV fluid for her to regain the lost fluid volume. I sent her home with medications after she regained strength.
It was really a bloody Friday and, as I have said, although I don't believe in superstitions, I wonder if none of it would have happened if i wore a different color of shirt!
When I was young, I had this red t-shirt that I loved to wear. What made it memorable to me is that, in most, if not all, of the accidents I had encountered then, I was surprisingly wearing that shirt. Of course, I dismissed the association and I kept on wearing it. I don't know what happened to it and I have had other red shirts after that but nothing 'bad' happened when I wore them.
I mentioned in the previous post that I had a scheduled excision of gum mass, which I thought was a squamous papilloma, last Friday. As I have had experience with this kind of mass, I thought it would just be a simple excision under local anesthesia to be done in the clinic. I reassured the patient that the procedure will be short and unremarkable. I had a plan on how to simply detach the pedunculated mass from it's attachment and cauterizing the stump afterwards. I even have a newly purchased portable cautery from the US to do the job. I thought that everything will be benign..
After inflitration of lidocaine, I began deflecting the mass to see its attachment. When I finally saw the stalk, blood started spurting from the its base. I did 'finger pressure' then clamping but to no avail. It was like there was a fountain of blood coming from the base of mass. We kept on suctioning and packing until we ran out of gauze and our suction tip and machine got clogged. The whole operating area became a mess. I then decided to transfer the patient to the hospital for better equipment and because I was then contemplating on bringing her to the operating room just in case the bleeding will not stop.
Surprisingly, the bleeding was 'controlled' en route to the hospital. When we got there, with the help of the resident doctors, I anesthetized the area again and although the bleeding became profuse again, I was able to easily detach it. Would you believe that the point of attachment was only about 2-3mm? Anyway, I did finger pressure again in an attempt to stop the bleeder, but to no avail. I noticed that the bleeder was coming in between the roots of the adjacent molar so I decided to remove the tooth for a better grasp of the bleeding vessel. But, even without the tooth, blood continued to ooze out of the socket! I apposed the opposing gingiva with a chromic suture in an attempt to close the socket but the bleeding persisted. We continued to pack and suction the blood until, most likely from blood loss, the patient lost consciousness, and to our relief, this probably caused the bleeding to stop, at last!
She immediately regained consciousness and as we were waiting for her to regain her strength back, the topic of associating my red shirt to that bloody case came out of nowhere. Moreover, one of the residents mentioned that their new curtain, newly installed that morning, is red!
The patient after a while, vomited all of the ingested blood and I had to put her in venoclysis and IV fluid for her to regain the lost fluid volume. I sent her home with medications after she regained strength.
It was really a bloody Friday and, as I have said, although I don't believe in superstitions, I wonder if none of it would have happened if i wore a different color of shirt!
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