Medical words

Day 14 of 'The Daily Post'.

Somewhere along the line, it was suggested that I might have my ovaries removed. The memory of why this was ever even floated anywhere near the cards is hazy, but I think it had to do with being part of a study. It isn't going to happen, but I rather warmed to the idea at the time. I, quite literally, liked the sound of it. Having your ovaries out is called an oopherectomy. I mean, who wouldn’t want one of those? Can’t you just hear yourself saying to all your friends and colleagues "I’m going to have an oopherectomy”. It’s up there with some new glasses, or a puppy for Christmas. And if they were anything like my friends, I’d expect them to say "ooooh, an oooopherectomy”, which I guess would be funny (at least the first time).

If you don’t fancy surgery, they can stop your ovaries working with a monthly injection. That’s called ovarian ablation. Another fine medical term. It sounds vaguely Roman Catholic to me. “Have you said your ovarian ablation yet?” “Oh yes, I did it on my way to confession – wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Though I have to say, it doesn’t do it for me quite like ‘oopherectomy’.

I liked the idea of an oopherectomy because I really didn’t like the word mastectomy. It sounds vaguely rude somehow. I never worked out whether to pronounce it m’stectomy, or mass-tectomy. The latter sounds a bit like mass exodus, which I suppose it is, on the breast tissue front. Anyway, I didn’t like the word.

Sadly, you don’t get to pick your medical procedures on the basis of their names. In any case, I always think the medics are having a bit of a laugh, actually, when it comes to naming surgical procedures. They like long medical-sounding words, to impress lay people, but really, they just take the name of the body part and add ‘-oscopy’ if they’re just looking at it, and add ‘-ectomy’ if they’re removing it. Easy peasy. For example, removing a lymph node is called a lymphedectomy. It’s true. Removing tonsils is called a tonsillectomy. Looking up a patient’s rear end is called an endoscopy. If a doctor looked at your finger and then amputated it, I expect he’d say you’d had a fingeroscopy and a fingerectomy.

This is a practice we housewives should adopt. It would make our jobs sound more impressive to lay people.

“Must hurry,” we could say to each other. “Got to do a dustectomy on the sitting room before the kids come home from school.”

“Yes, I should go too. My bathroom is in urgent need of a grimectomy, and I strongly suspect that after I’ve done a showeroscopy, I’ll be doing a mouldectomy too. But then I’m going to treat myself. I’m going to the salon for a splitendsectomy.”

“Good for you. No such luck for me. I had a note home from school, and I’m going to be doing nitectomies on all my kids, if the scalposcopy results come back positive.”

See. It’s very easy when you get the hang of it.