Amusing medical euphemisms

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I just found out that I have a tumor on my big toe. Now I'm more like Bob Marley than ever! The interesting thing is this: the dermatologist I saw yesterday would not, could not say the word "tumor" during the entire examination (presumably to avoid my running screaming out of the office, yelling "OH MY GOD I HAVE CANCER I'M GONNA DIE") and instead used a German phrase which literally translates to "wild-growing tissue" -- and paused briefly each time before uttering the phrase.

At one point I directly said to her "if I understand you correctly, this thing is a tumor, you don't believe that it's malignant, but of course you want to biopsy it to rule anything out." Her resonse: "Exactly. We will probably want to remove the, uh, wild-growing tissue anyway..."

So I knew what she was talking about, she knew I knew what I was talking about, and she still wouldn't say the word. I actually found this impressive, because even the word tumor doesn't scare me, there are plenty of people for whom the whole movie would have been over once the word was uttered. This leaves me with two questions for y'all: is there a similar English-language medical euphemism for "tumor"? And do any of you know any other gentle, soft substitutions for big scary medical words?

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 08:22 (twenty years ago) link

not exactly the same thing, but my dad's doctors refused to acknowledge his tumor in his shoulder muscle tissue for months until they finally were convinced to operate (after the thing grew to over 3 inches in diametre). they just didn't wnat to acknowledge it, they keytp saying it was a swelling due to his shoulder injury (after he fell down a flight of stairs at karate and shattered his shoulder) but it turned out to be a beging tujmor that needed to be taken out.

― allyzay, Friday, 7 May 2004 08:26 (twenty years ago) link

I had a "wild-growing tissue" once on the top of my left hand. It got big enough to be bothersome in two senses..
a) it got painful to slide my left hand into my left jean pocket as it would cause the "wild-growing tissue" to become scratched up, and
b) Ned, my roommate at the time, kept on looking at the thing with disgust asking me all the time "When are you going to get rid of that cooked piece of cheese on your hand?".

So I went to the doctor, he looked at it, he lopped it off (using local anesthetic), did a biopsy, and just told me it was a benign growth.

So, Colin, I'm hoping this is exactly what that toe thing is in your case.

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 7 May 2004 08:28 (twenty years ago) link

This is not exactly what your looking for but:

my mum works at a sonar word in a maternity hospital. when she scans people who don't want to know what sex there child is (to be), she tells the ultrasonographer that it is either a 'hot dog' or a 'hamburger'.

hell! that's an unbreakable code!

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Friday, 7 May 2004 08:29 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, same kind of thing, db: the dermatologist said she is "almost certain" it's not malignant. (Although she didn't say the word "malignant" either; she said she was "almost certain that nothing more serious is going on here.")

The thing is mostly just ugly to look at -- it's a little painful, but not so that I have any trouble wearing shoes or walking -- but if I kick the growth against a door while barefoot, I see stars and curse loudly. I thought it was a wart, my GP tought it was a tumor, my dermatologist says it's a tumor with a wart growing out of it. So I'm like Bob Marley crossed with Lemmy.

x-post: haha, Robbie!

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 08:38 (twenty years ago) link

i have one not exactly in my breast but to the side near my armtpit. sometimes it hurts. doctors are reluctant t o do any x ray work on biopsy work on this, saing it is nothing serious, because i am quite young, right. they are like, it is some kind os excess breast tissue that migrated during your earting disoreder. but like i dsaid, someties it hurt. ones doctor was going to operate on it but i never showed up for operation. i think that doctors just don't like to say that wrord, "tumor", because the negative connactions are for the fact that you will die from it when so many of them are beging.

― allyzay, Friday, 7 May 2004 08:41 (twenty years ago) link

Well, the entire medical world has gone kinda paranoid/lawsuit-phobic so it's impossible to get doctors to tell you that something is going to be 100% fine, or else they could get sued for lying to you. Before I had my wisdom teeth out, I had to initial against literally 20 different horrific worst case scenarios including permanent brain damage, death, you name it, just to cover their asses in case of liability. Of course, they never had that happen in their offices, and there have only been 10 cases in the world of wisdom teeth operation deaths (all coincidentally having occurred by rather shady practitioners), but they still had to make me look at the hall of horrors and death cbecklist and sign it.

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 7 May 2004 08:43 (twenty years ago) link

See, I just googled for a Swedish-German dictionary to find out what 'wild growing tissue' is in German, and instead I got a pop up ad telling me to donate money to cancer research. Is the Internet trying to tell me something?

― Hanna (Hanna), Friday, 7 May 2004 09:16 (twenty years ago) link

the german word for tuumor is actually "tumor". i mean there are othher words for it but "tumor" is quite accepted from my understanding.

― allyzayq, Friday, 7 May 2004 09:18 (twenty years ago) link

Yes, the word for tumor is Tumor. Sie said "wildwachsende Fleisch".

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 11:47 (twenty years ago) link

When I had cancer, my mom called it a 'lump' because I was too little to know what 'cancer' was.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 7 May 2004 11:51 (twenty years ago) link

It's Not A Tumor!!!

― The Governator (gygax!), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:20 (twenty years ago) link

"not a very good day to be a doctor" = "my patient just kicked the bucket"

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:22 (twenty years ago) link

co-conceiver = dude who knocked you up

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:24 (twenty years ago) link

Wow, would you look at my trainwreck of a Denglish sentence above! I meant to write "she said 'wildwachsendes Fleisch".

"There were complications during the procedure" = "we fucked up the surgery".

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:25 (twenty years ago) link

btw the phrase I posted I got from last night's NOVA documentary on Army doctors in Iraq. It was uttered by a US Army doc whose patient, a young Iraqi girl with serious burns who was being prepped for a flight to Michigan for treatment, had just died. It was fucking heartbreaking to watch.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:27 (twenty years ago) link

Dude, I'm the one with the tumor and this is my thread and I demand lightheartedness.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:31 (twenty years ago) link

sorry to be a killjoy

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:32 (twenty years ago) link

"sorry to be a killjoy" = "the test is positive"

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:33 (twenty years ago) link

okay now that's just a bad joke, I apologize.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:33 (twenty years ago) link

"retained tissue" = necrotic shit left inside you

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:34 (twenty years ago) link

No, stencil, that was funny!

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:37 (twenty years ago) link

funny, but in very poor taste.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:38 (twenty years ago) link

"results equivocal" = "we fucked up the test, can you come in and take another one?"

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:41 (twenty years ago) link

"funny, but in very poor taste" also describes any joke my neurosurgeon brother has told about his job.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 7 May 2004 13:42 (twenty years ago) link

Wow, you all are getting fairly hardcore here. I only was going to mention "anal leakage."

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 7 May 2004 14:25 (twenty years ago) link

But in what sense is that a euphemism? I mean, is that a pretty way to say it? Is there any other way to say it?

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 15:36 (twenty years ago) link

diarrhea?

― sgs (sgs), Friday, 7 May 2004 15:38 (twenty years ago) link

But that sounds pretty, like a girl's name.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 7 May 2004 15:53 (twenty years ago) link

Exactly, and I think "anal leakage" is a more insidious and less sudden phenomenon, if you dig my meaning.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 7 May 2004 15:58 (twenty years ago) link

'code brown' - for when a patient craps his pants.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:22 (twenty years ago) link

haha my former roommates used to yell that in the mornings when they needed coffee stat

― sgs (sgs), Friday, 7 May 2004 19:43 (twenty years ago) link

yeah, "code brown" is the term for "in dire need of coffee" in my experience as well

― martin m. (mushrush), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:19 (twenty years ago) link

Don't drink the coffee at Milo's house.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:21 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, "code brown" would just put me in mind of a mug of shit.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:22 (twenty years ago) link

Which, around here, is pretty apt.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:22 (twenty years ago) link

"this is going to feel kind of like a mosquito bite" = "this is going to feel like i'm grabbing your flesh with a pair of pliers and twisting"

More like a horsefly bite.

― Stuart (Stuart), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

otm

"you'll feel a pinch" = "it'll hurt like hell, but just for a second."

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:40 (twenty years ago) link

"banana" = patient with jaundice

"pfd" = pissed, fell down

"flk" = funny looking kid

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:43 (twenty years ago) link

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