Exciting cases

On Sunday I did not have to stay long. We only did one emergency appendectomy, which was a quick clean one. That was kind of nice after all the other ruptured ones we did before.... I finally got to see how they usually go!
I hang out at Tim and Deb's house for a while. I was hoping to get some sleep after the night had been very short and I was really tired after all the Christmas Family Get togethers..... But Deb's family was still around and taking a nap would not have worked. So instead I enjoyed their company! Then I went to Meemaw and Pawpaw to spend the rest of the day with my American parents before they went back to Baltimore. We had dinner together (finally some quiet down time, just the three of us and nothing to prepare for....) I really enjoyed that even though it was so short.... Afterwards I dropped them off at the airport. I would not have thought that my car could have made that!!!!
Monday was a very interesting day at work. I was on call with Dustin again... and not really looking forward to that. But it turned out to be a whole lot better than first imagined.... We had another med student come in to shadow and since we did not have many cases going on, I didn't have much to do in the OR. So Vedra arranged for me to spend the morning with the Neurosurgeons... I finally got so see a brain again!!!! Very cool. Even though it was very cold again, unlike the Pediatric ORs where it is nice and cozy most of the time! Afterwards I went to observed the implant of a fake testicle... Unfortunately cases before got canceled and I did not know, since I was with the neurosurgeons, and therefore missed the start.... But it was kind of nice to see the second part of the surgery. Later we did a revision of a ileostomy on a girl that was born at 23weeks and now 27days old. I had been seeing her every morning over the past weeks and was really excited when I got to do 2 of the 4 stiched that had to be done on her to open the ostomy up again and keep it open.... Pretty cool, cause she is so tiny and her skin is extremly thin, I was afraid I might go all the way through into her abdomen, but it worked out and now she is having bowel function. That is really amazing! At night we did not have much to do... Dustin convinced me to have my first (and probably last) dinner at the Kosair McDonalds... We got to go to bed really early, but of course couldn't sleep all night. About an hour after we went to bed Dustin woke me up again to go to the ER to see my first gunshot wound!!!!! That was exciting, it was not bad, just a flesh wound, so the kid got to go home! Later we got called again for an abdominal abscess in the middle of the night. The abscess had been there for 4 days, condition of the child hadn't changed at all... So that was definetely not an emergency case that a doctor and an almost doctor had be woken up for at 2am in the morning!!! Weird things happen at night, but mostly people probably don't realize that doctors don't work 24/7 and that they like to get some sleep at night as well.... Real Ermergencies, ok, gun shot wound, really exciting, but an abdomal wall abscess that had been there for 4 days....
On Tuesday I spend most of the day catching up on some sleep and then helped Deb with Dinner for Meemaw and Pawpaw. I made Spaetzle for the first time and they turned out to be pretty good.
Wednesday was a short OR Day. I got to leave shortly after 1pm!!!! I got to see a laparoscopic Nissen (treatment for reflux) and that was really cool, since I hadn't seen that so far and was always wondering when I observed the open ones how they can possibly do that laparoscopically, but it works, and it works well! Once I left I went to see Gale, who was still in happy morphin/drug land... The next day she did not really remember that I had been there, but fortunately Cheeks was there to remind her of my visit (her newest monkey family memeber). At 6pm I had a cyber date to watch German fireworks, since I knew I wouldn't be up and awake for the American New Years... I really enjoyed it. Thanks to Ricardo, I later got to show my favorite New Years TV show to Tim and Deb (they really liked it).
On Thursday I only had to go in for rounds, because surgeries were scheduled for later and they did not really need me for that. So I got to visit Gale again and then have a nice slow day to once again catch up on sleep. That was definetely necessary! The nasty cold started to come back and I did not want to get sick again!
On my last day at Kosair I was well rested and it did not really matter that it turned out to be the longest non call day.... I got to scrub in on a esophageal atresia repair! One that I had not yet seen. So that turned out to be really great, except that the surgery lasted till 6.30pm..... Even though it was an interesting case and I enjoyed the surgery I was glad to finally leave after 13hours! During the day I had managed to meet Dr. McOmber (one of the pediatric cardiologist) because he was in the Cath lab that day. I promised to stop by the office some time this month (so girls watch out!!!) I don't want to leave before having seen you all again, but I don't know when that is going to happen.... The student schedule is definetely very busy!!!!
Saturday and Sunday I was off. YEAH!!! Two days in a row to sleep in! I finally got to go shopping! I went to the mall, I spend hours at the book store and I finished all kinds of things that had piled up on my list of things to do! I finally got to sit down and study without falling asleep.... On Sunday we watched the UofL-UK-Basketball Game. That was exciting. Now I am looking forward to see at least one game live.... Hopefully we can manage to work that into my schedule.... Unfortunately the weekend was over way to quickly and I did not manage to get much social life in, but to me it was important to get some rest and get things done off my list.
Now I am back in the hospital. I did have to get in until 7am this morning (so another day of sleeping in!!!) and after having taken care of all the organisational stuff like parking permit, access card to all the restricted areas and some other paper work I am now looking forward to my first day of Trauma! I will be on call tonight.... So far the team seems to be really nice....