White Fluffy Kittens

Yesterday was my first day of my surgery elective rotation. I am with a new preceptor and, well, everyone is new. On this, my first day, I fainted cold right in the middle of surgery. When I awoke I was stretched out on the OR floor with concerned faces peering down at me. The first thing out of my mouth was "I was dreaming of kittens." And what a nice dream it was.

Almost

I performed surgery. Wow. It was the last day of my surgery rotation, and we were doing a lipoma excision. Basically, we were taking out a benign, fatty tumor. Usually, I get to retract things or control the camera, or suction or hold intestines (see last post). But this time, the doc handed me the scalpel and said, "Here, take this." And I thought, that's weird. And then he let me perform the whole surgery! From the initial incision to the final sutures. Ah! It was amazing. The PA later told me that I've officially performed more surgery than he has as a member of staff. Wow. I love surgery. It almooooost, makes me want to go to Med School and become a surgeon. Almost.

Indigo

I held intestines.

We were taking down a colostomy, which is basically attaching the colon back together. There is a very large midline incision for visualization, and those darn intestines just keep getting in the way.

This surgery, in itself, is a pretty interesting surgery - cool procedures, nifty equipment, but it became a much more interesting case when, as we were dissecting around the rectum to clear a spot for anastamosis, we could see the foley (catheter placed in the bladder). Uh-oh. Apparently the bladder had, after the origional colostomy, adhered to the blind pouch which was the rectum (I wish I could draw a picture so you could know what I'm talking about). It was basically wrapped around the rectum - the site we wanted to reconnect to. So now there's a tear in her bladder.

After some swearing, we sutured it shut and consulted the urologist. He came in to take a look, put a camera inside and filled the bladder with saline. It was amazing to see the bladder looking down from the open abdomen! It was full and you could see the light from the camera inside. Up on the screen the images were being shown of the interior of the bladder. The repaired tear was identified and it was closed well, and then we looked at the inlet for the ureters.

Just as we were looking at one of the ureters it shot out a blue liquid! The urologist had ordered Indigo blue when he got in the room and apparently it takes about 5 minutes to get through the system and through the kidneys. As we peeked over to the other ureter it shot out some blue urine as well. Wow. It was pretty much amazing! We now know that we did not cut any of the ureters, and the bladder is in wonderful condition. The patient peed blue for quite a while.

The rest of the surgery was, although amazing, uneventful (which is good... for the patient).

I like surgery.

lap banding

Today was my first day of Surgery. It was so exciting! I was able to scrub in on various cases from a sebaceous cyst removal to laparoscopic banding of the stomach. Good times. I really think I'm going to like this rotation.
Tomorrow I'm taking out a few gallbladders.

eh

It's my second beginning to a new year in a different country. A few years ago it was spent in Malawi with friends and coworkers, and this year it was with a whole mess of Canadians. There were many smiles, much laughter, and great food! All-in-all good times.

just us

Neice and Bro Christmas Eve 2007

sunny side up

I am on vacation and it is beautiful. I love not waking up to an alarm, and then being able to go back to sleep after you finally have woken up. I'm like my own snooze when I'm rested - I wake up every nine minutes for about 10 seconds. :)
There is a lot of family here in this house. I count 10 family members in this very room at the moment.
I have eaten too much food
Laid around too much
Smiled and made small talk with way too many people
Exhausted my desire for sweets
Spent too many hours looking at my brothers new computer screen (it's huge)
Taken too many photos. (Is this possible?)
Laughed a lot... there's never too much of this
Ridden horses
Walked up mountains, and run down them
Driven on wild curvy roads
Seen the ocean
Played in the sand
Hugged a gazillion people
Smiled for photos
Tried to hide my gigantic cold sore to no avail
Played with dogs
I've had a good time - and it's only Christmas eve!
~nancy