Advances of Modern Medicine

I am continually amazed at what the world of medicine is able to accomplish these days. What seemed impossible only a few short years ago is now the norm. Well, tomorrow morning I go in to have surgery. I have some strange epi-gastric hernia, that means I have a tear in the muscle high up in my abdomen that needs to be stitched up so my guts don't spill out. (One of those fun side effects of pregnancy) So I went to see the surgeon and he told me he could fix me up, he proceeded to walk over to the sink and pull out a paper towel, I thought he was going to wash his hands. Nope, this is what he did with it...

He drew a diagram of where the hernia was and what he needed to do to fix it. I thought well this is really nice of him to take the time for a little patient education so I'll know exactly what he's going to do to me. Then he says. "o.k. I'm going to give this to you to hold onto but make sure you bring it with you on the day of your surgery so I'll know where to cut and what to do." All I could do was stare at him. Keep in mind here that this is one of those brown paper towels you find in nasty gas stations. With all the advances in modern medicine and I'm letting some guy cut me open with a paper towel as his guide. Doesn't really inspire confidence does it? I just hope nothing splashes on it to make the ink run, who knows what I might wake up with.