Day 9

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I’ve come to turns that I will feel tired at all times during this trip, and will have a thin film of sweat on me at all times. I’m used to it now. Today I was scheduled to be in the OR with Celine and Alex! Sound the trumpets! This is my favorite place. Celine and Dan took the first surgery, while Alex and I floated around to the rooms and assisted where we were needed. I definitely need to remember to drink water because the dehydration headaches are not pleasant. The morning was relatively quick and easy with patients.  I saw a 2 month old infant with a meningomyelocyle that was a fascinating case. The poor thing needs surgery. The afternoon however is where all the fun started. Alex and I assisted Rob, the 4^th year in a cyst removal from a man’s left elbow, that was just above the olecranon. It was a long surgery to make sure there were no nerves or tendons were cut in the process. The man we performed it on was out like a light through it. All we did was inject a few cc’s of lidocaine, and at the first incision he was snoring like a baby. Alex and I both did the suturing, which again if I didn’t say enough I love doing! The procedure went beautifully and it ended up being a sebaceous cyst once we removed and dissected the specimen. We woke the gentleman up once it was over and he left a happy man. Sean prepped his 30-something year old man coming in for a lyphoma removal surgery (right upper back) by injecting lidocaine around the area both superficially and deeper while we cleaned up from the first. We scrubed in once again for the next surgery, this time I was first assistant. The minute the first incision was made to the skin, the power went off. This just became that much more of a mess. We grabbed LED headlamps, iphone lights, anything we could find to get enough light to continue with the surgery. Just when that was set, and Sean continued with making the incision the patient was screaming in pain. So we injected more lidocaine to the area, massaged it in and began to continue. Again a few minutes later the patient was screaming. We went through what seems like an entire bottle of lidocaine, and gave the patient a Ketamine shot because he wanted to be out and asleep through the procedure. Ketamine is a very interesting drug. He moaned through the entire thing, screamed that he was seeing God, and worst of all in the middle of the procedure, woke up crying for his mother. Was I living a Grey’s Anatomy episode? His tolerance for not even pain but pressure and the procedure was minimal to nothing. And the bleeding ellipitcal incision that was deep into removing the lymphoma from his back was already more then halfway done, and the bleeding hole in his back where the lyphoma was removed had to be closed. He bled quite a bit which was fun to try and get to stop. Sean clamped off a few of the bleeders in order to try and get the subcutaenous stitches completed. The patient jumped and moved a little through that causing Sean to stick himself and having to leave the surgery. Dr. Schuster stepped in and finished closing the wound. Standing for hours wasn’t terrible, but the fact that the OR was burning hot made it way more difficult. I applied wound care, and bandaged the man up. As soon as it was finished and we sat the man up the power went on. We all just stared at each other in disbelief. Well if anything, surgery in the beatufiul establishements that I’ll rotate through in America will be a luxury, but who can say they have done it in the dark? And done one hell of a great job. Our team rocks!