Posts Tagged ‘Pain’

19 items.

“You are going to insert a flexible tube… where?”

by Seraphine Khorana on April 22nd, 2011
Posted In: Comics
“You are going to insert a flexible tube… where?”

I have to wonder, though: What sort of person becomes a butt doctor? I’ve met thousands of people in my lifetime and never once has anyone told me their life’s dream is to be a Rear Admiral. I can understand the desire to be a brain surgeon or somebody that can restore eye sight; I can’t imagine wanting to be up in somebody’s business.
The thing that scares me is– if they go far enough into the colon, through the stomach and past the esophagus– they might eventually find my head. Oh oh.

YouTube video of Katie Couric’s colonoscopy.

Dr. Kylie Johnson’s MADtv colonoscopy. “Alright, Robin, to the batcave!”
“Roll up the windows, kids, we’re going to pass a farm!”

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Two Left Feet

by Seraphine Khorana on September 25th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Two Left Feet

I must have done something really awful in a past life. The great karmic hand in the sky reached down and smote me again. Luckily, I didn’t break anything. I sprained my thumb and elbow. I got a few abrasions and contusions (medical talk for scrapes and bruises).

Hang a faceted crystal in the center of the bathroom; place a three-inch round mirror on the ceiling directly above the toilet to visually reverse the downward flow of water; place earth-type objects in the corners of the room to stabilize the energy.
Quotation from Stephanie Roberts, The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Feng Shui
(Feng shui toilet tips)

Women have this higher alternative value of how to spend their time.
Quotation from Grace Tsiang, as quoted in Women Desert Wall Street (Reuters)
I love this quote.

No results found for “Hiking shoes for two left feet”.
Quotation from Google search

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27 Comments

Day Old Cake

by Seraphine Khorana on July 8th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Day Old Cake

Out of curiosity, I googled how many days old I am. Then I tried to remember as many of those days as I could. I found eureka moments, childhood memories, people, places, my wedding day, adventures, some Christmases. I remembered important days as well as insignificant days that were somehow important enough to be retained. I regretably confess I cannot remember all 14,368 days.
No, today isn’t my birthday, but I will nonetheless try to make it memorable.

Here is a “How Many Days Young Am I?” calculator. (Derbyshire Guide)

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.
Quotation from Richard Bach

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The Shadows On The Wall

by Seraphine Khorana on June 22nd, 2010
Posted In: Comics
The Shadows On The Wall

It is permissible to enjoy moments of not understanding? Do we suffer when we understand too much?

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.
Quotation from Carl Sagan

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable. They never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.
Quotation from Marquis de Sade

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A Powerless World

by Seraphine Khorana on April 24th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
A Powerless World

Not everything is fixable. I don’t now which is worse- knowing something can’t be fixed, or knowing it can be fixed and doing nothing about it. Either way, it translates into feelings of uselessness and inadequacy. And why is it so easy to put off important things until tomorrow, when fixing them today would be much less painless.

“Procrastination” Tales Of Mere Existence (YouTube)

Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.
Quotation from Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
Quotation from William James

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Name Brand Placebo

by Seraphine Khorana on February 10th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Name Brand Placebo

Placebos are scientifically shown to be effective 40% of the time against pain and depression. However, I haven’t found any studies that specifically compare the beneficial effects of a “name brand” Placebo versus a generic sugar pill. I suspect that this is one case where the name brand drug would be more effective than the generic version, despite both having the same “active ingredient.” Yes, I will accept a research grant to prove the point.

Reportedly, patients have even become “addicted” to placebos: According to an Internet paper by Ben Z. Krentzman, M.D., one patient ingested 10,000 placebo units in one year; another had a compulsive desire to take placebo tablets, tended to increase the “dose,” couldn’t stop taking the “medicine” without psychiatric help, and suffered “abstinence syndrome” when deprived of it—classic characteristics of drug addiction.
Quotation from Kenneth E. Legins, Is Prescribing Placebos Ethical?, American Council on Science and Health

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No Sympathy

by Seraphine Khorana on February 8th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
No Sympathy

I am sick. I’ve been in bed all weekend. Since we’re both sick, I don’t get any sympathy.

The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window
The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane,
As a little wind comes in.
The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd
Scooped out and dry, where a spider,
Folded in its legs as in a bed,
Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see but twilight and walls.
Poem by D.H. Lawrence, Malade

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Use it or Lose it: Reptile Dysfunction

by Seraphine Khorana on January 30th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Use it or Lose it: Reptile Dysfunction

3) Lizards without tails lose strength, dominance and “territory” to bigger, fully-endowed lizards. 2) When a lizard’s tail grows back, the new tail is going to be smaller and less colorful than the original. 1) Lizards who have tails can run faster than those without tails. The moral of this tale? When threatened by predators, tuck tail and run.

Geckos and other lizards not only shed their tails to confuse predators (or people), but their tails’ movements suggest they literally “have a mind of their own,” Canadian researchers have found.
Quotation from CBC News, Technology and Science section

Has 3 lizard tails and a baseball card in my backpack.
Tweet from Schneidermike on Twitter

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35 Comments

Random Testing

by Seraphine Khorana on December 26th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Random Testing

It’s the day after Christmas. This is also a time when family violence increases. People are together more, amid the additional stresses of holiday spending and often alcohol. Don’t allow it in your life, or in the lives of your loved ones. Domestic violence is NOT acceptable, even at Christmas.

Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) if you need help or shelter.

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Remembrance

by Seraphine Khorana on November 11th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Remembrance

Today is Remembrance Day, also called Veterans Day or Poppy Day. It’s a day to honor all of those who sacrifice during times of war.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Poem by Lt.-Col. John McCrae, In Flanders Fields

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Sometimes there isn’t a choice

by Seraphine Khorana on October 30th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Sometimes there isn’t a choice

Yesterday wasn’t a good day. I misjudged a step, fell down and broke my thumb. When I got home from the emergency room, my sister called to tell me Aunt Lucille died. Sometimes, there isn’t any choice but to accept whatever happens.

Well why do the hands of time
So easily unwind?
Some lessons we learn the hard way.
Some lessons don’t come easy and
That’s the price we have to pay.
Song by Melody Gardot, Some Lessons

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31 Comments

The Emo Berry

by Seraphine Khorana on October 17th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
The Emo Berry

A life without pain offers no opportunity for self-examination or spiritual fulfillment. Everything that is perceived to be worthwhile and good would become meaningless without suffering and resolution. Accept your pain, but don’t passively accept the pain of others. And remember: Pain is never cool when one person inflicts it on another.

Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Quotation from Kahlil Gibran

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.
Quotation from Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Phemie Alcott’s MySpace Page I love her music!

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24 Comments

Pain Is…

by Seraphine Khorana on July 4th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Pain Is…

“Love Conquers All” is written above the door. Omnia Vincit Amor. The phrase is taken from Virgil’s Eclogues. This comes from the belief that without Love, everything is meaningless. But is it possible to love pain? Would loving pain conquer it?

People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain.
Quotation from Jim Morrison

Embrace of Pain (Starwars Wiki) “The device could induce so much pain that it was capable of turning even the most noble Jedi to the dark side of the Force.”

P.S. Happy Independence Day, America!

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Hind Sight: Am I Lucky, or What?

by Seraphine Khorana on June 29th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Hind Sight: Am I Lucky, or What?

Fewer than 4% of people between the ages of 30 and 40 get gallstone polyps. Women are 3x less likely to get them than men. About 5% of the time, the surgeon needs to switch from a small laparoscopic navel incision to open surgery through a huge incision on the right side just under the ribs. Am I lucky, or what?

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9 Comments

Friend or Enema?

by Seraphine Khorana on June 24th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Friend or Enema?

I’m in the hospital tomorrow, so my comics might be irregular for a few days. Not that they are like “regular comics” anyway.

Surgeons usually fantasize about wild and improbable surgeries. Someone collapses in a restaurant, you splice them open with a butter knife, replace a valve with a hollowed out stick of carrot– but every now and then some other kind of fantasy slips in. Most of our fantasies resolve when we wake, vanished to the back of our mind, but sometimes we’re sure if we try hard enough– we can live the dream.
Quotation from Grey’s Anatomy, Sometimes a Fantasy

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24 Comments

Sort of Pain

by Seraphine Khorana on April 25th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Sort of Pain

Thank heavens for pizza and percocet.

New flu has spread widely, cannot be contained (Rueters)
Nail stuck in nose for years finally dislodged (NY Daily News)

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Vintage: Exit Wound

by Seraphine Khorana on January 9th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Vintage: Exit Wound

Losing my mother was very painful. I developed pneumonia a week afterwards.
I’m in Costa Rica for holiday. I’ll be back soon. Each day while I’m gone, I’ll present a vintage Encore Seraphine comic “rerun” from 2007. I’ve done some light editing on them, but they retain the atmosphere and content of the original. I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll have lots of new adventures to share with you when I return.
Happy New Year!

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4 Comments

The Madness of Crowds

by Seraphine Khorana on October 15th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Madness of Crowds

When the IQ of a crowd reaches 38, I usually sell.
In financial terms, this is called a mental stop-loss.

What Comes After the Great Unwinding? (Reuters)

I would sell my life to avoid
the pain that begins in the crib
with its bars or perhaps
with your first breath
when the planets drill
your future into you.
Poem by Anne Sexton, The Big Boots of Pain

These I assume were words so deeply meant
They cut themselves in stone for permanent
Like trouble in the brow above the eyes:
TAKE CARE TO SELL YOUR HORSE BEFORE HE DIES
THE ART OF LIFE IS PASSING LOSSES ON.
Poem by Robert Frost, The Ingenuities of Debt

P.S. All bleeding eventually ends.

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Ten Cents a Can

by Seraphine Khorana on July 16th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Ten Cents a Can

Hope springs eternal. Until you lose it.
You begin to feel disconnected.
Do you reconnect with hope
by embracing pain or denying it?

“To live without hope is to cease to live.”
Quotation from Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
Quotation from Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tunes without the words
And never stops at all.
Poem by Emily Dickinson, Hope is the Thing with Feathers

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