Estoy operando.

By the time I got home from the hospital last night, I was so thankful at the prospect of being able to sleep in today I could have cried from happiness.
Things are really busy right now. Transitioned to the Vascular Surgery service with the change of the month. My new team unfortunately inherited a mess as the outgoing residents, nice people, but horribly unorganized. We kept our heads above water though. Always do.

Even though I end up being exhausted, chronically dehydrated, and gnawing away at a stomach ulcer.. really busy is actually really good as it means that I am operating.

This week...
I got to reconstruct a patient's abdominal wall using pig bladder.

I got to sew a graft into a patient's arm. I had worked with this particular attending once before on the same operation. Last time, as the Attending hit a nerve causing the patient's arm to jump, it spooked us both causing us to jump in reaction and she therefore then blamed me for the whole thing. This time when she hit the nerve, causing the patient's arm to jump and her to jump in reaction, my hand stayed rock steady. Couldn't blame me this time! Calm outside, victory dance inside!!

I got to take out a patient's thyroid gland, and then 4 hours later go back in to evacuate a hematoma. Lesson in sticking with my patient, being honest and doing what's right, even if not the easiest option.

I got to cut off a patient's toe.

I got to open up areas of horrible infection. You breath through the mouth and wonder at how patient's can let infections go from bad to worse to festering, foul and dead.

I got to take down a patient's colostomy and hook everything back up again.

I got to cut out part of a patient's stomach. Why anyone would electively decide this is a good decision is beyond me and can not in good conscious ever recommend it to anyone.

Just a few for example..

But today I slept until an army of lawn mowers decided to wake me up. Army, because upon peeking through the blinds at the culprit I saw not one but four riding lawn mowers zooming around and a handful of leaf blowers following behind. I decided to get up and start working on rehydration and laundry.

Much Love.