#16: Adhesions

I've been continuing to bust my butt getting floor work done and have been getting to the operating room a fair amount. Yesterday I assisted for a serious abdominal operation for about 1.5 hours. They've been calling me down to the OR a lot - to help close cases - to help open cases - to do minor cases - etc... It's pretty hard to do all the operating and do the floor work and by the end of the day I get sort of stressed out - my chief resident asked me last night on rounds why I kept sighing every time she asked me to do something else that night. It was because it was 8 PM and every time she asked me to do something it meant it would be even later before I could get something to eat and I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. I said I was sorry and I stopped sighing. It wasn't until 12:30 AM or 1 AM until I got anything real to eat and it was a sad lunch: a grilled turkey and cheese from the grill (the only food option available.)

Anyway, back to the operation - a 90 pound woman with multiple operations in the past for bowel obstructions presented with another bowel obstruction. We opened her abdomen and began the process of trying to figure out where her bowel was obstruction, which meant about 2 hours worth of dissecting through adhesions. It was pretty cool to assist on this operation - I learned a lot about how to dissect through all the old scars intrabdominally - sort of gross but cool in the same way - I'll be even more invested in the patients post-op recovery now that I helped out with the operation.

Last call night: Tuesday, August 29th.
Amount of sleep last call night: 1.5 hours.
Currently reading: My wife's blog.
Currently watching: Six Feet Under Season 5.
Next call night: Sunday, September 3rd (that's 5 days between call nights - for the first time in a long string of call every 4 nights!)