Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Under the knife. . .

Frankly Speaking took to the road Monday morning traveling to Ingham Regional Medical Center for the excision of a lipoma from the mid forehead.

I was awake for most of the surgery. The nurse anesthetist, Jane, gave me a little sleepy-sleep to keep my mind off of the numbing medication that they were injecting into the surgical site. When I woke up a few minutes later, Dr. Supanwanid had already made his incision and was excising the tumor. He used a bovie - an electrical scalpel of sorts - that cuts and cauterizes at the same time. I could see smoke curling up from my eyes as he cauterized the little bleeders that saturate the forehead. Assisted by scrub nurse Natalie, and surgical tech Jennifer, he and Jane made quick work of it.

The whole thing took less than thirty-five minutes and, surgically speaking, everything went according to plan. They cut that little dude out and stitched me up good as new. I see the doctor again next Monday. I am anticipating that I will be getting some pictures from Dr. Supanwanid. He snapped away with his digital camera before, during, and after the procedure. I'll be posting them here for you all to enjoy!

6 comments:

Soren said...

Was that time counted against your vacation time or conference allowance? Seriously, I'm glad all went well.

Anonymous said...

thats a typical preacher comment there.

Frank Weller said...

Actually, I'm one of those preachers who is in the office . . . Soren . . . I went from the hospital to staff meeting and put in a full rest of the day! Can't say how productive I was . . . I don't remember that much of it.

Anonymous said...

Did you get to see the stuff that they removed from your head?

Frank Weller said...

Yep. Looked like a squished grape, sort of. I'll get pics on Monday, I think

Anonymous said...

Wow! I thought I was the only one dumb enough to actually know what was going on "under the knife". When I had my first knee replacement done, I was awake enough to hear the saw and hear the bones being sawed (of course I had so much "good stuff" in me that I didn't even care). Don't know if I could have handled the "head" thing though....You are "the man".