PSA #4 Wear Your Helmet

Someone else did the work for this PSA. It's one of my favorite commercials. It was made in 2002 by the Brain Injury Association. I've watched it dozens of times, but the ending still catches me by surprise each time. Enjoy!

PSA #3 - Clean Your Navel

You shower regularly. You don't smell. You're pretty clean. But have you looked in your belly button lately? You may be one of the millions of Americans who are walking around with years' worth of fuzz and debris in that little dimple. It doesn't get clean by accident. You have to probe the depths deliberately to get out the crud. It's just too good a hiding place otherwise.

I never gave it much thought before I took to operating on people's abdomens. At the start of every case, someone cleans the skin off with an antiseptic. Part of that process includes cleaning out the belly button. Sometimes a cotton swab is enough. Sometimes you have to get serious and break out the metal instruments to extract what's lurking there.

It can get pretty ugly.

I once saw a lady in my office who was afraid she had cancer. Her doctor had noticed a black mass growing out of her umbilicus and sent her for a surgical consult. She even got a CAT scan to see if this was something growing from the inside out. It wasn't. It was belly button crud. I grabbed it with a clamp, and--Viola! the "tumor" was gone. If only all cancer was that easy to fix.

I think the problem is gravity makes our parts sag a bit. The mid section is no exception. The top part likes to flap over and cover the belly button when we're upright, which is the position most of us clean ourselves in, after all. Unless you're intentionally trying, you may never see the inside of your navel.

So here's my advice:
At least occasionally, check it out. Lie down on your bed, pull up that top skin, and swab out the depths. You may be surprised at what's been living there.

PSA #2 - Hold On Tight

This is an especially important message, near and dear to my heart. Heeding it's advice will save you (and whatever doctor is on call the night you didn't do it) a lot of grief.

If you for some reason, any reason, feel the need to stick a foreign body into any one of your orifices, for Pete's sake DON'T LET GO! Maintain firm control of at least one end of the object at all times.

I mean it.

I learned this lesson early in life from watching my brother taken to the ER to have the magnets extracted from his nose. He thought it would be fun to stick two little magnets about the size of Smarties together on either side of his nose. Only problem was, he had the like poles facing each other and they flipped each other over way up high into his nose. Bad move.

I've taken a few coins out of the stomach or esophagus of children. They're the ones most likely to put things in the holes on their heads. One day I got a call from the ER about someone who had sucked a thumbtack down his windpipe. I asked how old he was.
"Twenty-three."
"Months?"
"No, 23 years."
"Really?!"
I thought people knew better than that by then. Apparently not. The poor guy was quitting smoking and had taken to chewing on anything and everything to keep his mouth busy. He went to cough and ended up sucking the tack down. I think he took up smoking again after that night.

Then there was the man who decided to swallow his crack pipe to hide it from the police. In case you were wondering, crack pipes do not pass easily through the digestive tract. They often require surgical assistance. Don't do it.

And finally, if, heaven forbid, you were ever entertaining the idea of sticking something in one of your lower openings, please STOP! You'll so wish you hadn't when you have to go to the ER and explain what happened. I'm sorry, but the nice people who care for you there will not believe you when you tell them that you just happened to sit on it. And they will most certainly giggle at you when they leave the room. It can't be helped. Particularly if said object's batteries have not yet died.

Just saying. Hold on tight.

PSA - Quit blaming your Mother's doctor

I've decided to do a series of public service announcements. I feel it's a contribution I can make as a good citizen to share some of the knowledge I've gleaned from my years in the medical profession. Don't worry, it won't be anything too boring or technical. There are some common misconceptions that need to be corrected and some common mistakes that need to be prevented.

So here's my lesson for today:

The shape of your belly button has nothing to do with how the doctor cut your umbilical cord. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. If it did, do you really think they would be letting brand new Daddies do the honors these days? I think not. The same guy cut both my kids' cords (Daddy B). One has an outie, one has an innie. Did he learn how to do it better after the first attempt? Nope. He did a fine job both times.

Whether you have an innie or outie depends on whether your umbilical ring (the hole in your abdominal wall where the blood vessels from the umbilical cord went though) closes up. It doesn't matter how that cord was trimmed. It still turns into a nasty little shriveled up brown stump however it's cut.

And while we're on the subject, there really aren't "innies" and "outies." There are people who have umbilical hernias and people who don't. J's got about 6 more months to close his ring before he's past the age where it's likely to happen on its own. I've been reducing it for four and a half years now trying to encourage it to close. Now he's old enough that I usually get told, "Mommy, quit pushing on my belly button!" It's just a hard habit to break now.