You thought I had vanished, didn't you ... go on, admit it ...

Well, I might have, I suppose. But thankfully I made it through the removal of my bladder, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and numerous lymph nodes in my lower abdomen ... plus the creation of a stoma using a chunk of my small intestine as a conduit, sewn to my kidneys one end which sticks through a hole at the other... OK, too much information.

(The upside? I lost 20 lbs! Without even trying! Major surgery and the off-putting effects of hospital food for 3 weeks beat the pants off the Dukan diet, I can tell you...)

If you really want to know the gory details, have a look here.

Having so many bits chopped out of me has left me feeling a bit tired and jaded, hence not up to so many jokes as in previous times.

But don't write me off just yet. My sense of humour is coming back at an alarming rate.

And I'm rapidly getting used to my small plastic friend which has replaced my very nastily diseased bladder (see pic on the left.)

In the meantime, let's celebrate medical humour with a few gags passed on by my delightful cousin Alyson in Ottawa, Canada...

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A man comes into the ER and yells . . .'My wife's going to have her baby in the cab.'
I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady's dress and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs, and I was in the wrong one.

Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald ,
San Francisco

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At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient's anterior chest wall.

'Big breaths,'. . . I instructed.

'Yes, they used to be,'. . .replied the patient.

Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes ,
Seattle , WA

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One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had
died of a massive myocardial infarction.

Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a 'massive internal fart.'

Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg

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During a patient's two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed
me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his medications.

' Which one ?'. .. . I asked. 'The patch...

The Nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I'm running out of places to put it !'

I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn't see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body!

Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.

Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair ,
Norfolk , VA

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While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked, 'How long have you been bedridden?'

After a look of complete confusion she answered, 'Why, not for about twenty years - when my husband was alive.'

Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson-
Corvallis , OR

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I was performing rounds at the hospital one morning and while checking up on a man I asked, 'So how's your breakfast this morning?'

' It's very good except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get used to the taste.'

I then asked to see the jelly and he produced a foil packet labeled 'KY Jelly.'

Submitted by Dr. Leonard Kransdorf ,
Detroit , MI

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A nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room when a young woman with purple hair styled
into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery.

When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green and above it there was a tattoo that read . . .' Keep off the grass.'

Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient's dressing, which said 'Sorry . . . had to mow the lawn.'

Submitted by RN no name...

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