Poplitea

HAHAHA!! Finally got to scrub up for real and assist in surgery!! :D such a wonderful feeling to get where you want to after all this studying and waaaaiting (since I was 14 years old!! It's been literally 10 years of waiting!).

First up was a mastectomy on a lady with dementia, it went well and she was calm if nervous. Second was a removal of an egg-sized melanoma on the lower thigh of a male. He was rather thin and the melanoma went bone deep, not very good, but more important to get everything away.

Last patient in that OR was supposed to be a woman with a melanoma. However ther had been a miss with planning and there were no longer-stay post-op recovery bed available for her. The short info on the patient just said melanoma and the anesthetist thought it was just skin deep. It was not... It was deep inside her pelvis and she'd need an instaying epidural for pain management and stay a couple of days, which had not been planned for... So she was struck of the operating list.

It is such a disappointing thing to happen for the patient. First waiting and being nervous and scared because of surgery and the cancer and then, just a few hours before you're finally supposed to get rid of it they say "no, sorry, there's been a mistake in planning, can't do your surgery today." Fucking oops! D:

... on my way to becoming a scrub nurse was at one of the three big acute care hospitals in my city. The middle one in terms of size with about 14 operating rooms for just abdominal (mostly) surgery, and then separate operating wards for orthopedic, gynecological and outpatient surgery.

Aaaand straight to business as soon as I got there! :D Got shown around to the changing rooms and such and then had to demonstrate my skills in sterile gloveing, it went ok considering I hadn't actually scrubbed up for "the real deal" yet.

Didn't get to participate any during the first day, just observing my nurse supervisor during a couple of urologic procudures to try to remove bladder cancer and "crushing/blowing up" a kidney stone.

Good first day! ^-^ fiiiiinally starting in on the fun stuff ^.~ it's been months of theoretical courses shared with the anaesthetic and intensive care specialist nursing courses, which weren't very focused on surgical care. Or at all. So yeah, now I feel like I' actually get somewhere!