Thread Drift

[KnottedYet]

x-raying a cloaca...

Had a patient once flipping out about transexual surgery and intersex surgeries and such while she was on ice (it was mentioned in some article she was reading or something.)

I asked if she knew who Jamie Lee Curtis was... well, yeah, of course. Well, she's one of "those" people, and genetically male.

Lightbulb went on. Patient will be kinder in the future.

(I looooooooved that Jamie Lee Curtis addressed Congress on the intersex issue. You go, girl!) (it was about babies being "assigned" female because the surgery to make a female is cheaper and easier than to make a male, and insurance, and not letting kids choose for themselves, and such.)

[Brina]

(I looooooooved that Jamie Lee Curtis addressed Congress on the intersex issue. You go, girl!) (it was about babies being "assigned" female because the surgery to make a female is cheaper and easier than to make a male, and insurance, and not letting kids choose for themselves, and such.)

Knotted, do you have more info or a link about this?

[Nanci]

It seems to me that, if you had to pick one or the other, whichever surgery was more likely to be successful/natural/functional would be the best.

It also seems like way too much responsibility for a kid to have to choose!

[DrBee]

Geez y'all were quite talkative last night and early this morning!

Okay Nanci - I'm not getting the whole cloaca thing. How can a kid have a cloaca? I have not heard of this, I don't think I have anyway.

salsabike and kelownagirl - good to see you finally posting on here. This has become the first place we check for some of us. As Lise put it - it's kind of like "home". Hope to see you more!

I slept in this morning! Fridays I drive myself (carpool the other days), because I usually only work 1/2 day. I know I'm getting up early tomorrow to ride a long ride and them my mom and stepdad are coming into town late Sat night. So - sleep sleep this morning. I was going to get up early and run. FishJr came in our room in the middle of the night talking about a scary dream she had about orange bumble bees with long pointy stingers. At least she willingly went back to bed after telling us about the dream. Surely that could've waited until the morning

[Nanci]

It's when the child has the urethra, vagina and rectum all meeting together with only one external opening.

Mmm, port. I like the Florida native-grape port a lot, and am hoarding a bottle of "real" port that I bought at a wine tasting.

[DrBee]

Yup - that would be a cloaca. I don't think I've heard of that in humans. That's great that your hospital can help babies/kids in need with nowhere else to go! That must be a good feeling to work there!

[Trek420]

Nanci "It seems to me that, if you had to pick one or the other, whichever surgery was more likely to be successful/natural/functional would be the best."

ahhh gender issues, it's complex but not the same as "well it would be easier to die your hair red than to go blonde"

While I have no gender issues myself, I enjoy being a girl (everybody sing!) but I understand that for those who do it's something they know and very young and just kinda know in their bones. Anybody see Tales of the City? thinking of the Olympia Dukakis carachter.

"It also seems like way too much responsibility for a kid to have to choose!"

Usually quite young the kid is just going to know. And if assigned the "wrong" gender because it was easier to do it's very tough on the kid and throughout their life.

I can imagine, I like guys, really I do but I would not want to be one....except when out on a ride and nowhere near a porta pottie, bathroom or any civilisation it would be nice to just be able to find a tree.

Other than that, would not want to be a guy. ::: sings::: I enjoy being a girl.

But OMG, I don't care what Jamie Lee Curtis genetic makeup is she is soooo hot.

Speaking of hot, temps are high here, but going to bike to work.

Nanci, that is so cool that you can help these kids. If you are sucessful where other places these kids die, why don't more Dr's and hospitals don't know about your success rate and get these cases to you?

Oh never mind, probably all insurance/money.

[Nanci]

This is one of my all-time favorite books on CD: http://tinyurl.com/mxzmb

Trans-Sister Radio.

The bestselling author of Midwives and The Law of Similars continues his tradition of incorporating social issues into his moving narratives. Transsexuality goes mainstream in this Scarlet Letter for a softer, gentler but more complicated age. Allison Banks--42 years old, heterosexual, long divorced, mother of a college student and a grade school teacher in a picturesque Vermont village--meets single, attractive, attentive, 35-year-old Dana Stevens when she takes his film class at a nearby college. Early on in the relationship, Dana confesses that he has always believed he was female, though he desires women, too--and he is soon to undergo a long-planned sex change operation. Despite this revelation, and despite her reservations, Allison invites Dana to move in with her, and they have great sex right up until the night before the operation in Colorado, where Allison has loyally accompanied Dana for post-op and moral support. On their return to Vermont, he--now physically and emphatically "she"--continues to share Allison's bed and her house, though nothing can be the same as it was. Allison's ex-husband, Vermont Public Radio president Will, now her good friend, and their daughter, Carly, cope well with the situation, but the close-knit community is less understanding. Questions of what constitutes community tolerance are explored here, but the novel's central focus is on the definition of sex and gender in the characters' personal lives. Allison, Dana, Carly and Will express their views in alternating first person chapters, and transcripts from a fictional NPR All Things Considered series on Dana and her operation provide additional narrative background. Gender is central to who we are, Bohjalian concludes, but not perhaps to who we love. Sex, on the other hand, expresses who we are. Bohjalian's sometimes simplistic characterizations diminish the emotional impact of the novel, and his abundant research on gender dysfunction often gives the book a curiously flat, documentary quality. Nevertheless, Bohjalian humanizes the transsexual community and explains the complexities of sex and gender in an accessible, evenhanded fashion, making a valuable contribution to a dialogue of social and political import.

[Lise]

Gender is central to who we are, Bohjalian concludes, but not perhaps to who we love. Sex, on the other hand, expresses who we are.

Indeed.

And where else, but "Thread Drift", would you post that on a cycling board? Long live TE/TD!

[Nanci]

Have you read the book "Midwives?" That was the first Bohjalian book I read.

Nanci

[Nanci]

Yikes! My last patient was a 23-weeker born June 22! What a puny little thing! Cystoconray enema caused expulsion of a meconium plug a good 8-10 inches long! I bet he feels better now!

My co-worker is taking home a couple of his left-behind diapers for her daughter's baby doll, but is afraid they are way too small.

I can't believe how easily the nurses handle those tiny babies- I'd be so nervous.

Nanci

[Lise]

Yikes! My last patient was a 23-weeker born June 22! What a puny little thing! Cystoconray enema caused expulsion of a meconium plug a good 8-10 inches long! I bet he feels better now!
Nanci

Dang, that's young. When I started in nursing, 18 years ago, we didn't consider 23 weekers viable. 8-10" meconium, the kid can't be much longer than that himself! Poor little boo-boo. He's got a long road ahead of him.

By contrast, I just delivered a 9# girl! More muscular than fat.

I did not read Midwives. It pisses me off when a work of fiction with a midwife character comes to represent all midwifery practice in the general public's mind (if such a thing can be said to exist). When that book was popular, I spent plenty of time explaining that, no, I don't do c-sections on the kitchen table (with a kitchen knife) in a blizzard when I think the patient is already dead. At the time, I was involved in a law suit (since resolved in our favor--ie, the judgement was that I did nothing wrong), and the thought of reading a fictionalized version made my skin crawl.

The most accurate fictional representation of hospital-based midwifery I've read is an older book called Delivery. A bit dramatic, but then, who would want to read about the time we spend sitting around at 2 AM eating junk food and commenting on Flava-Flav's outrageousness on TV? Sisters On A Journey is a collection of essays by midwives about their work. It's a good read, if you want to get a sense of the wide range within my profession.

I really feel for the little human beings with cloacas. Impressive that they can do intrauterine surgery to repair a diaphramatic hernia. Scary when they're born with an undiagnosed d.h. Everything shoved over to one side of the chest and can't expand the lungs. So far (knock wood), I've only seen one of those.

[maillotpois]

Yikes! My last patient was a 23-weeker born June 22! What a puny little thing! Cystoconray enema caused expulsion of a meconium plug a good 8-10 inches long! I bet he feels better now!

My co-worker is taking home a couple of his left-behind diapers for her daughter's baby doll, but is afraid they are way too small.

I can't believe how easily the nurses handle those tiny babies- I'd be so nervous.

Nanci

How do you fit 8 - 10 inches of meconium plug into such a little creature??

[Lise]

How do you fit 8 - 10 inches of meconium plug into such a little creature??

I thought the same, but, then again, how do you fit miles of intestines into us?

How're you feeling today, MP?

[snapdragen]

Yikes! My last patient was a 23-weeker born June 22! What a puny little thing! Cystoconray enema caused expulsion of a meconium plug a good 8-10 inches long! I bet he feels better now!
Nanci

Isn't meconium like fetal/newborn poop? OWWWWIE - poor guy.