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Creamy Cartilage
(mander.xyz)
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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My wife has a genetic disorder that (among many other things) causes her spine to herniate at the drop of a hat. She's had to have emergency surgery multiple times.
About a year and a half ago, a neurosurgeon was operating on her and came to talk to me and my mom who were waiting. She was extremely excited, in that like "academic who just saw something new" kind of way, because my wife had the third biggest herniation she'd ever seen, and the largest in a patient under 70 (my wife was 34 at the time). She asked if it would be OK if she invited a professor from the local university and a couple of his grad students to come look at it.
Oh wow. Congrats... I guess? Glad that your wife has access to good care for that condition.
I've been in the ER for something that... well I won't say, but it was of interest to the attending folks. Next thing I knew, there were two grad students in tow, eager to learn stuff that you only usually see in a textbook. I recall feeling strangely proud, and more proud than embarrassed (oddly enough). It was a weird experience.
Would that genetic disease happen to be EDS? My wife has just come home from her third surgical visit for spinal problems, at 33 years old.
Two previous discectomies. This last one was a double whammy of spinal decompression and a full on fusion.
It is indeed EDS. ๐