Poplitea

Another busy day. Got to take over from the night shift nurses first thing on a left-side hemicolectomy. It was an old woman who'd had a diverticulum rupture rather unexpectedly.

Next up was decanulizing an ECMO-patient (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) who's lungs were finally recovered enough to actually oxygenize again. She'd had a rather bad turn of some kind of influenza I think. I was very nervous. Already kind of tired, not a fan of vascular surgery in general and never having done anything with ECMO before, but the ECMO-surgeon was so nice and patient! Wow! Not used to that kind of sunny disposition from any kind of surgeon O_O

Last for the day was changing a VacPac on an open abdomen. It was not a pretty sight. We couldn't actually make out individual loops of the intestines because they were so covered in fibrinogen. At first the surgeons'd had an idea of maybe being able to close it all up today buuuut, that wasn't possible, still to much swelling of the tissues.

And in a somewhat related rant, why has no one mentioned that you get so bloody knackered being pregnant?!? Like, sure I get it when your nearing the due date, but this is early yet and I'm having trouble standing around in sterile garb, I sleep the entire way to and from work, no energy to do anything anymore. It is apparently not uncommon and yet I had no idea whatsoever ò_ó