Human Guinea Pig: Part 1 - The Research Facility

 I turned up at the hospital at 2pm on Tuesday and met up with the endocrinologist who's been in charge of arranging the series of tests which I was due to undergo  (she needs a top secret blogging name; we'll call her Dr Olive). We went to the research department where the tests would be carried out, and I was delighted to be introduced to my private room - complete with en-suite bathroom and free TV (and sharps bin, and cardiac arrest instructions).

My charming room

I think I've mentioned this before, but just in case - the tests which I had done over the past few days were done partly as general research into my condition and partly as a guide on what kind of treatment I should be given next. Firstly, a nurse was called in to do my initial tests; height (5'7"), weight (57.9 kgs), blood pressure (105 over 77), blood oxygen (97%) and resting heartrate (116 beats per minute - normal rate is 70-100 bpm). She had obviously not been informed about my tachycardia, because when she saw how fast my heart was going she looked at me askance and said "Did you come here running?" I assured her I had not, and that 116 bpm was perfectly normal for me. Later when Dr Olive looked at the results I think she was quite surprised; I had explained to her that I had tachycardia but she was surprised that my resting heartrate could be so high; of course, at that point when she took my pulse it was a perfectly standard 79 bpm.

I also had my breathing rate observed which was deeply disconcerting, as it essentially involves a nurse staring at your boobs for a solid minute while you attempt to "breathe normally". It is strangely difficult to breathe normally when you know someone is counting every inhalation.

Next came my ECG (electrocardiogram, a.k.a. EKG), where they put a bunch of incredibly sticky pads on your wrists, ankles, and across your chest around the heart. Then they attach a bunch of wires to the pads, which feed into a machine, which then prints out a trace of your heartbeat. It doesn't take very long but it is a bit of a hassle - the worst part is peeling the sticky pads off afterwards, although as the very nice nurse - let's call her Carla - pointed out afterwards, it's definitely a lot worse for blokes with hairy chests!

After that, I had to give my consent to the various tests that they wanted to do, and answer a few questions about my medication, my pituitary adenoma and any other medical conditions. It wasn't particularly exciting, although when Carla asked me if I ever suffered from any kind of recurrent pain, I said no. It was only after she'd asked me two further questions about pain that I finally remembered the fact that I have hypermobility syndrome and consequently have fairly regular bouts of joint pain, and have done since I was a child. I apologised for apparently being a massive idiot and she laughed and said people often forget these things when it becomes normal for them.

Some people with hypermobility/Ehlers Dahnlos Syndrome are incredibly flexible - later, Dr Olive came to ask me another set of questions, and when I mentioned the hypermobility again I think she was faintly disappointed at my lack of hilariously bendy joints. My little fingers do bend backwards alarmingly, but the joints that are most affected are in my legs and feet so they're not very impressive - and at the moment I can't even get vaguely close to touching my toes thanks to damaging a muscle in my left leg dancing.

Once I had been thoroughly questioned, I was left alone to contemplate my crimes - or at least, someone else's crimes, thanks to Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and my Kobo e-reader, a birthday present from my parents and an excellent device for anyone planning to spend time in hospital.

Not quite an ocean view...

You can read the next post about my time in the hospital, and my DEXA body density scan, by clicking here.

The Ugliest Woman In The World

Today's post was inspired by a suggestion from one of my lovely commenters - I have forgotten who (sorry!), but thank you anyway for the idea.

Mary Ann Bevan was known as the Ugliest Woman in the World. She suffered from acromegaly, a condition in which her pituitary produced too much growth hormone, which led to deformity of her face and abnormal growth, as well as headaches and joint problems. After the death of her husband, she was forced to support herself and her four children by working in the freak show at Coney Island in the 1920s.

Mary Ann Bevan

In 2006, Hallmark produced and sold a greetings card in the UK which featured a picture of Bevan and the legend: "When the screen went back, he was to always regret the words . . . ‘I’ll go for number three, Cilla.’”

Dr Wouter de Herder, a Dutch endocrinologist who was on holiday in England, recognised the photograph and complained to Hallmark. According to theis article, he said: "“I immediately recognised the photo as I had just written an article about Mary Ann Bevan... She was in several [freak] shows in England and then later in the United States, but she led a miserable, painful life. I simply don’t think its right in 2006 to use her image to create a sick birthday card. I feel that this card is insulting to all patients who suffer from the same condition.”

Ironically, his words in fact echoed those of the famous neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing eighty years earlier, who attempted to treat Mary Ann Bevan towards the end of her life. He wrote to Time magazine in 1927, complaining of the way it had made fun of Bevan: “This unfortunate woman who sits in the sideshow of Ringling Brothers [...] has a story which is far from mirth-provoking,” wrote Dr Cushing.“She, previously a vigorous and good looking young woman, has become the victim of a disease known as acromegaly . . . Being a physician, I do not like to feel that Time can be frivolous over the tragedies of disease.” Bevan died just six years later.

I've written before about the difficulties facing women with acromegaly, but I think this story really hammers the message home. In eighty years, it seems that although our ability to treat this debilitating disease has improved greatly, our attitudes to its sufferers have hardly changed.

Hallmark pulled the card from stores, but not before its communications manager issued this memorable statement: “Once we found that this lady was ill, rather than simply being ugly, then the card was [...]withdrawn immediately, as it would breach anything we would do in terms of taking the mick out of anyone who was poorly.”

Ugly yet healthy people - be warned.

IMFW: Life Imitates Art

So Blogger has changed its layout and everything, which is deeply confusing to a simple soul like me. If I manage to do anything wildly stupid like posting this next April or forgetting to use a title or something, please forgive me. I am easily baffled.

Anyway: back to IMFW! Today's Interesting Medical Fact of the Week is kind of related to two of my previous interesting medical posts, which focused on face transplants. There's an interesting article on the BBC News website about the fact that the University of Lincoln is offering an art course to plastic surgeons and medical students. They work at life drawing, self portraiture and clay modelling, with a focus on the real-life application for these skills: applying them in their surgical work.

It sounds a little bizarre at first, but at second glance it does make sense. The course aims to enhance students' observational skills and their perceptions of their work, emphasizing that they should look at reconstruction from a patient's point of view as well as their own.

Despite its rather trite acronym, the name of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS...) emphasizes the importance of beauty and aesthetic in the work of plastic surgeons, something which is obviously important in purely cosmetic procedures, but equally key in reconstructive work. I know next to nothing about the training of plastic surgeons, but it would certainly be interesting to know whether surgeons who go into this specialty tend to have more of an interest in art compared to those who gravitate towards other specialisms.

A press release from the university emphasizes the historical link between art and medicine, which was far more pronounced centuries ago; it was considered that artists needed an understanding of anatomy in order to recreate the human form on canvas, while medical texts relied upon anatomical drawings produced by artists, who would often attend dissections. Vesalius's seminal work on anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica, written in 1543, incorporated anatomical illustrations from artists working in the studio of Titian. Perhaps now the link between art and medicine link is being strengthened once more.

Picture Me This

I have decided that what this blog is reallly lacking is pictures. As a graduate of the five-year-old-child school of picture-book thinking, I am pretty much certain that the ratio of writing to ANYTHING ELSE is skewed. This blog is VISUALLY DULL, and randomly writing phrases in capital letters will not help that.

I don't really have any exciting pituitary-adenoma-relevant pictures, other than maybe one of me in hospital with a big fat bloody nose right after surgery, and honestly that's a picture-book which the five-year-old child does not need to see. I don't even have a copy of one of my MRIs. But I am going to the zoo this weekend, so I guess I can always bring back a picture of a tiger...

Obviously I didn't take this picture, because it's actually good. Damn you, B_cool on Flickr!

IMFW: heART

It's not precisely an interesting fact this week; more like an interesting set of pictures. But still cool. The British Heart Foundation ran a competition, inviting scientists to submit the best images they have of their work on heart disease, and the results are surprisingly artistic.

Medical imaging has certainly come a long way from the day that Röntgen first used x-rays to create an image of his wife's hand. She was purportedly unimpressed with his efforts, believing that the picture of her own skeleton was a herald of death - although as she lived for another 25 years, it was a herald rather ahead of its time.