The surgeon's favorite tool

Fire, it turns out. Indeed, when you get your entire uterus removed, they don't cut it out of you as much as burn it out with flaming scissors. I could stand it no longer, I asked, "Why FIRE!"

"Less blood."

Oh, that makes sense, if our tissues are similar to nylon, and trimming it with scissors leads to fraying, but a trim with a flame keeps it tidy. Ugh.

Again with the burning flesh filling the room with smoke. And my huge HDTV showing me exactly what a uterus looks like, getting ripped out of someone.

She was such a nice lady, I chatted her up before she went under, and she'd worked in surgery before and had no fear, although I felt her joking around was the same tactic I use in a stressful situation (when *I'm* the patient).

I watched a girl of 20 get pieces of her cervix get cut out for cancer testing. Poor thing! I prayed for her of course.

I wanted to work in the Aufwachzimmer today, (the "wake up" room) cuz the nurse who is tutoring me closely, Helga, was assigned to it, but I felt another draw towards it - it's shared space with the ICU, and I had a nice experience with those people. (Well, not all of them.)

As I made my way back there through the series of DO NOT ENTER automatic doors, I saw the lady who'd had the hysterectomy waiting for space in the wake up room. I said, "HEY! How are you? How do you feel?"

She said, "I'm uncomfortable, but I'm tough, I can manage it."

I think my eyes got huge, cuz I'd seen what she'd endured, and I'd been there when her BP dropped so low due to her head down, legs up position, as the anesthesiologists peered intently at the screen and readied themselves for  anything.

I said, "I hope you feel better!"

So happy that I got to see her after they burned an entire organ out of her body. 

So, about the wake up room.

Today there were two ICU patients using it, taking up half of the 4 beds in there.

Helga was not pleased.

She immediately saw a blanket on the windowsill and said, "Someone screwed up. You don't put a dirty blanket on *our* windowsill!" She ran around the corner to ICU, and shouted something.

Then Ralf came in the room - my ICU mentor. I smiled so big at him, "Hallo Ralf!" and he just grunted and walked by me. Seriously, no hello exists in him for me. It still hurts that people see me as nothing there.

Then Maik, the paid intern came in, and I pointed to the patient, one I'd watched closely my week in ICU, one who really pulled on my emotions. He has such bright blue eyes, and his wife is there every day as long as visiting hours allow.  He is suffering paralytic ileus.

And today he was in the wake up room, on artificial food, and had other items around his bed that disturbed me, reminding me of J's father's death.

Maik was so happy to see me, but turned grim when he saw my worry. "He's not doing well." "No." "Shoot." *sigh* Don't die here, please! Get up and be well.

Helga, as sweet as she is, was annoyed. "This chaos has to stop, it's not always like this, with ICU dumping their extras in OUR recovery room!"

I was stunned. These two patients lying there silently were an annoyance?

Is she so territorial about "her" space?

I know there is a caste system in the hospital (the way I've been treated, and the surprise I get when I talk to the cleaning ladies from Turkey). I didn't know there was antagonism across stations in the hospital. That is so childish.

I wanted so badly to be brave enough to say to Helga, "Do you think that the ICU *prefers* to take away space from the OR? Don't you think they'd rather have their patients in *their* beds?"

What a strange intra-hospital conflict.

Overall, though, the OR is a peaceful place. The only stress I felt was one surgeon slightly raising his voice to his surgery assistants, "No, NO, move to the right slightly" (with the tool stuck into the lady's abdomen). Apparently, it would be ideal if surgeons themselves had 4 hands. Cuz directing other people's hands is not always easy.

I enjoy the OR cuz the nurses there seem to want to use me, they actually discuss who I will help and when and where, and they LET ME help.

I've got my Propofol and Infusion and PVC and Larynx Mask all ready and waiting, with newly disinfected EKG and O2 and temp wires. OK I screwed up today when I prepared a child sized tube for an adult...

And then, right before the end of the day, I was preparing that all for the next patient and suddenly I sneezed.

And very oddly, yellow water shot out of my sinuses all over my shirt, and all the things I had prepared on the counter. Yellow water, WTH! I'd never seen such a thing. It was not snot. Then again, I've never had a sinus infection before, so maybe this is how it plays out.

I was horrified, then I realized that my infusion was already stuck in, so sterile. Everything sterile was still sterile. I disinfected the entire area, in horror of what I'd done.

This hospital made me sick, and I still cannot stand up without a headache, and I cough miserably into corners of OR rooms, cuz coughing wracks pain in my head. I'm not well. But I can do this.

I hate that I have to change clothes to leave the area. I cannot "disappear" for a few alone minutes as I could in other stations. The green scrubs mean you're stuck there.

I like that they are giving me more things to do. Using me!

My favorite new thing is to record, on a paper computer printout grid, the blood pressure, O2, and HR of each patient every 5 minutes during and after OP.

They have this fancy way of doing it, so a computer can read it after.

Anyway, the anesthesiologist said "It's my job, really." I said, "Let me do it!"

He relented and let me do it for the next 20 minutes until I was called away.

I said to him as I left, "Take over for me, every 5 minutes!" He laughed, cuz yah, that's his job.

Looking forward to tomorrow.