Sharing a picture of someone’s large prostate as one of the difficult specimens to process for the month. It was taken just four hours before December 25th on my time zone. The one below is a radical resection of the prostate removed bluntly. I still have to mind the turn around time as a personal challenge to do better.
I get prostate specimens often but not with the entire organ sent. So this is the first for the entire year. I also have an entire larynx sent which is probably one of the most complicated specimens to process by the book. It also doesn't help that only 1 or 2 people are left to be asked how to process the specimen from the entire department (not counting consultants) because this is tops the rare specimens on on our region. Just my luck.
Front View:
Back View:
Cut sections:
If the specimen had tiny specs of yellow on it, I would suspect malignancy but not all the time this feature presents itself.
How it's supposed to be sectioned (not shown I went through with it here).
It’s suspected to be benign prostatomegaly and grossly it seems to be so. But you can’t really tell unless you go through the microscope to see.
It’s not like diseases take a vacation or planned therapies need to be delayed. Like any day of the year, the Holidays are arbitrarily decided just cause. Any point in the Earth’s rotation around the Sun could have been the starting point. And now I sound like the spirit of the Holidays never touched me.
For the purpose of pursuing something greater than my self interest, I want to at least give more focus on trying to deliver results within the expected turn around time or faster than the ideal standard. I know how much anxiety one can have waiting for the results over the Holidays especially for people that probably think they have cancer.
It goes back to the previous episode where my shadow just wants to come out. I could drag myself to pursue the ideal but would never get rewarded for it or I could do the work half baked and get away with it. Only few would notice and even fewer would mind since the volume of cases received lately is overwhelming.
Surgeons and clinicians would ram up the numbers just so they can have their leave for the Holidays. The same goes for patients who just want to get this over with.
It’s another day but my work continues and at least it made me rethink my life choices so far. How much time do I really want to put into my career versus having a social life. I wasn’t obligated to return and process those specimens but it’s not like I got anything else going for me over the Holidays.
Would be great to have a significant other to spend time with (outside family) to excuse myself for some slack. Remembering the good times I had those option and drowning them in meditation as I cut through the specimens for the night. It ain’t bad but it certainly could have been better.
If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.