I cured cancer!

well, rather, I held retractors and cut sutures (new skill for me today!) while the breast and plastic surgeons cured cancer. I helped do a bilateral total mastectomy and reconstruction today, which took a whopping 5 hours, two surgeons, two residents, one relatively worthless medical student, two scrub nurses, two circulators, an anesthesiologist, and a CRNA. Phew! It was totally awesome that both of the surgons were women :) Anyway, the surgery went really well and the cosmetic effect was really good. Since this patient had a lot of skin left over, they were able to fill the saline implants a bit today (often they have to wait for the stitches to heal), which will be really good for this particular patient (she's only 40 and very depressed, and had a hard time deciding if she wanted to do both mastectomies or just the one side with the cancer. Anyway, there were no metastases to the nodes, so it was a total success and felt fantastic.

My only major foibles were nearly passing out after the first hour. I ate a balanced breakfast, hadn't had any caffeine, and was moving my legs, but it got really hot inside the gown (picture one Karisa with scrubs, shoe covers up to mid-calf, a mask, a really big eye shield, big poofy hair cover, calf-length plastic surgical gown, and two pairs of latex gloves!) and I had to say I was feeling faint...so I backed up and had to have someone sit me down, scrub me out (ie take off everything but scrubs, shoe covers, mask, and head cover), and put alcohol pads on my neck (for cooling), then go get some juice and rest for a few minutes. It happens a lot, but this was my first one. anyway, the surgeons let me scrub back in and I finished the whole thing out without incident, and got to help :) :)

I was DEAD after that long, so I grabbed some lunch and took a nap...

Anyway, time for me to head back. My 3 pm lecture was cancelled but the 4 pm one is still on, so must pelt down a beverage before scrambling back to the classroom to learn about...something. I don't remember... Never a dull moment!