Thursday, November 6, 2008

Can't sneeze can't cough. Can't laugh.

The hernia repair surgery was done last Thursday. It was supposed to take one hour and they were supposed to let me go the same day.

The surgery took only 20 minutes. But they kept me in the hospital for two days. Today after one week, I am off the narcotic painkiller and trying Tylenol. I cannot cough, cannot sneeze and cannot laugh. If I do, I see glimpses of my ancestors.

During the two days at the Hospital, I walked around the ward for hours. Saw interesting ways of using technology. Now health care staff put all patient information into a software system through laptops. Good start I say. The laptops are fitted on tall moving trolleys and attached with external keyboards. When nurses do their rounds, they pickup any one of these laptop equipped trolleys, get your vitals and input the information.

I would be much more impressed when the thermometers and the blood pressure machines can logon to the central network and update patient information without requiring a human to key it in. Its possible and practical.

While doing my "rounds" around the ward, I saw more than a few laptops stuck with the Windows error dialog box.

There has to be an open source version of Linux, just for hospitals and healthcare givers. This will reduce the overall costs. I just checked MEDLINUX.COM. Someone is hosting a bogus advertisement landing page.

Someone needs to come up with a method of repairing ventrical hernias by laser welding. I have been thinking about it. The part I cannot figure out is, how can the surgeon externally pull torn muscle together? A laser beam doesn't have traction. I guess the thing to invent would be an external traction apparatus.

Today I was tempted to get back on the inversion table and see how many degrees I can recline without experiencing stretching in the abdominal wall. At the last minute I decided against it. Instead I am now writing this blog entry.

No comments: