jogging an old memory

It's really bizarre how patients pop back into my mind when I revise for the exams. The scarier part is the fact that the patients that I recall tend to be the ones who are ermm, deceased.

Anyhow, the patient in focus tonight is this 50 odd years old man who presented with projectile vomiting and weight loss to the ED. I learnt tons from his illness as it turned out he had advanced gastric cancer.

It was the first time I
1. felt a succussion splash
2. palpated a Virchow's node
3. observed a total gastrectomy.
4. had to take an extremely complete history and examination as I was going to present him at the Surgical sessions.
5. had a patient die on me. (he died a few days after my surgical presentation)

I remembered after the gastrectomy, the surgical registrar was trying to suture back the midline laparotomy wound cautiously and carefully, through loose skin that had suffered the unduly fate of 30kg loss. The only distraction on the abdominal skin was this huge myraid of tatoos. She commented, "well, he's not going to have much to look forward to anymore, the least I could do is to make sure his tatoo matches back up and aligns."

Anyhow, now whenever I revise gastric cancer.. this poor chap pops back into my head.

I hope he's happy wherever he is.