Estoy cortando carne.

I overheard the conversation, and something didn't sound right. I caught the eye of my co-resident across the room, and I could tell she had picked up the same unsettling feeling.

Sure enough, it was that type of patient where you take half a glance and you're picking up the phone calling the OR to say, "get us a room, we're on our way!"

The patient, stubborn enough to get herself in such a predicament, likewise stubbornly refused surgery saying, she'd come back the next day. She was desensitized to her own putrid smell, and in the process her brain must have become numb. She just wasn't getting it. My chief finally just went with the blunt route, "you leave, and you will die!" She consented to surgery, announcing that she would leave after.

My chief looked at me with a grin resembling that of the Cheshire Cat. I knew what was coming, and volunteered to go before someone else could volunteer me. Perhaps the only two things an intern will get first dibs on, fecal disimpaction and this.

We dab a little tincture of benzoin on our surgical masks. You wouldn't make it otherwise. With each new pocket of necrotic liquifing tissue we open up comes a new blast of foul acrid odor. Enough to make the nose hairs curl.  And my Attending laughs as it brings to mind a Spock quote about the distast for the smell of humans.  And Spock was even just referring to clean humans.

We went to the ICU after the surgery. She never said a word. We handed her over to the ICU team. She still didn't say anything. I wasn't sure what she was thinking, so I finally just asked. She looked at me without emotion in her eyes and informed me that she was going to go home now.

She still doesn't get it.

I can't shake the smell afterwards. While sitting at the computer to dictate, I can smell it. With any movement I make, I can smell it. Like its stuck to my skin. Double shower kind of night.

Much Love.