Focaccia as Motor End Plate

So surgery was a bit like going to a rave sober. It was hard not to feed off the high of the surgeons so in love with the OR and with operating. The climate buzzed ecstatic. I came out of the operating room each day singing and still throwing punches, bouncing on my toes, chanting […]

Maple Bread Pudding with Pralines

I’m afraid this last week of surgery finds me spiraling into heavier and heavier contemplation. What if these are the last opportunities I’ll have to touch bowel, to fire an anastomotic stapler, to stitch long incisions closed, to stand for seventeen hours around an open abdomen and enjoy the time passing as though we are […]

Pizza Arteries

There’s nothing like an endarterectomy to make you reconsider having pizza for dinner. This might be the last pizza I’ll ever eat. And as such, I’ve shaped it into a large abdominal aortic aneurysm in tribute to the body part it jeopardizes.  Surgery has taught me so much. For example, there’s nothing like taking surgery […]