shaving

[kookyscientist]

Hello,

My dad had surgery in April, a repair of a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder. Anyway, when he got home we noticed that they shaved his leg. Is there a certain reason for this or was it a mistake?

Thanks

[kathyann65]

Possibly to place the cautery pad-hurts like heck when it pulls the hair off, and doesn't always stick well on somebody with hairy legs:)

[kookyscientist]

I don't mean to sound stupid, but I don't really know anything about the procedure. So I'm still a little confused why they did this to his leg when the operation was on his shoulder. Why would they put cautery pads on his leg?

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

Kookyscientist,

When major surgery is done, the surgeon frequently uses an electrocautery to seal off blood vessels by cauterizing them. This (and some other electric devices require equipment to be "grounded", usually a rectangular pad - about 3 by 6 inches, to prevent electricity from arcing or doing errrrrr... other bad sorta stuff. The ground is to the patient. The site of the pad is usually on the upper thigh but can be other places.

[kookyscientist]

Thanks for your replies.

That definately explains it for me. I'll have to let him know too.

Have a good one!

[night owl]

Once I had to get my nose cauterized for a small bleeding artery...small bleeding artery heck I thought I was having an aneurysim! Anyway when the ENT man said he was going to cauterize it, he said, "Now we'll use "THE ELEMENT." Well I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and it sounded like something from the Sci-Fi channel... he scared me half to death! Then he put this pad under my thigh while I sat in what looked like a dental chair. He said by doing this he was "grounding me." All I'm thinking is, "Watch this guy electrocute me or something." Then he packed my nostril...What an ordeal!