cut or uncut?
So I saw my first medical procedure – not an appendectomy, no open-heart surgery, not even a lanced boil. It was (drum roll please) … a circumcision! Yes, I witnessed that lovely event in a baby boy’s life when he transitions from “uncut” to “cut”. I had always thought, given the fact that rabbis seem to perform these things on tables next to the basket of matzo, that it was a relatively simple procedure. Yeah, not so much. It’s bloody. And bloody awful, to borrow an expression from the Brits (who are largely uncut, I think).
I’m going to go ahead and spare you the gory details, but I will note a few interesting parts of the procedure. First of all, the poor little baby stopped crying during the procedure when we gave him sugar water to suck on. We were told that babies who are getting circumcisions, even when they haven’t been given shots of lidocaine for the pain, stop crying when you give them sugar water. It’s amazing. The most horrible thing they will likely ever go through in their whole lives, and a little sugar water consoles them.
Another interesting detail to the story is about feeling faint. I was sure when we started that the male first year medical student next to me, who’d never seen a circumcision before, was going to be really disturbed by what was going on. I mean, how could he not feel sympathetic queasiness for the little guy? However, the whole time he was absolutely fascinated with every detail of the procedure, feeling great, probably ready to perform the next one on himself. On the other hand, I started feeling noticeably swimmy in the legs and head after the real goriness began, and actually had to sit down for a few minutes. Hopefully this feeling won’t strike again in the anatomy lab….
So guys, next time you hurt yourselves, remember to suck on a little sugar water. Good stuff.
I’m going to go ahead and spare you the gory details, but I will note a few interesting parts of the procedure. First of all, the poor little baby stopped crying during the procedure when we gave him sugar water to suck on. We were told that babies who are getting circumcisions, even when they haven’t been given shots of lidocaine for the pain, stop crying when you give them sugar water. It’s amazing. The most horrible thing they will likely ever go through in their whole lives, and a little sugar water consoles them.
Another interesting detail to the story is about feeling faint. I was sure when we started that the male first year medical student next to me, who’d never seen a circumcision before, was going to be really disturbed by what was going on. I mean, how could he not feel sympathetic queasiness for the little guy? However, the whole time he was absolutely fascinated with every detail of the procedure, feeling great, probably ready to perform the next one on himself. On the other hand, I started feeling noticeably swimmy in the legs and head after the real goriness began, and actually had to sit down for a few minutes. Hopefully this feeling won’t strike again in the anatomy lab….
So guys, next time you hurt yourselves, remember to suck on a little sugar water. Good stuff.
posted by Katie Grouse at 9:34 AM
3 Comments:
*shiver* Hearing that makes me glad we decided not to snip our little guy. Yeah, yeah, I've heard all the stories about why it's better, but we just didn't want to give him unnecessary surgery. They did ask us like 15 times whether we wanted it, which made me nervous that they'd just forget we said no and do it anyway.
Yeah, they kept asking us whether we wanted to circumsize Elena, too, but Yuko and I held "firm."
I'm really glad I didn't know that it was really bloody when Tommy was born. I made them take him in another room and wouldn't let them do it unless they numbed it for him too. I also made them do it before we left the hospital not a week later like a lot of doctors do now. Luckily if you do it early they don't remember it!
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