I Must Have a Guardian Angel

I think I must have an angel watching out for me. I just barely made it out of the medical center today. H-town is flooding like crazy, and the med center always gets hit really hard. (Definitely something for me to consider on where I get a jobby-job after graduation.) I was at the VA again hanging out in the OR again watching plastic surgery cases. I was praying in the middle of the surgeries that my car wouldn't float away, or that I get stranded or not be able to make it home. I'm so glad I made it home.

Unfortunately, we are now trying to figure out what to do with the hubby. He had to fly to Mississippi for a day trip this AM, but his afternoon flight has been cancelled. What really makes that frustrating is that we have to be on a plane tomorrow late morning to head to Atlanta. Yikes. Hopefully this will work out some how. And then there is that system Dean that we have to worry about, too, while we are out of town....if we make it out of town. Argh! Well, the hubby is either going to have to come home tomorrow & possible miss the ATL flight & have to take a later one or he'll have to fly straight to ATL if that is possible. Either way, it looks like I am going to have to pack and take all of our stuff with me. EEK! Lord help us.

Well, I had a very good day at the VA today. I only saw two cases in the OR, but they let me do a lot!!!! It was sooo awesome. I FINALLY had an awesome resident take time to teach me how to suture (other than simple laceration suturing that I have already done in the ER) and let me do some suturing on the patient!! Saaa-weet! He also spent a little extra time after the case to teach me how to tie sutures using only your hands and not using suturing instruments. So, the first case was another panniculectomy. See my previous post on what that is. I assisted on one of those during my month in Victoria. This one wasn't nearly as long or as massive. This patient had lost like 100lbs, but the pannus that we had to remove wasn't nearly as large as the previous one I saw. So, they let me help suture abdominal tissue back together. Again, very cool. THEN, the next case consisted of incision, drainage, and debridement of a previous surgery wound on a finger that got severally infected. It was so bad, that we had to scrape out infected bone. This surgeon let me do A LOT! I got to cut out the old sutures, cut out the bad skin, scrape and cut out the infected bone, pack the wound, and help bandage it. We don't suture this back, because that only encourages more infection since it was a dirty wound. The tissue that was taken out gets cultured & the patient is put on antibiotics. Unfortunately, it may be likely that his finger may have to be amputated. They have to wait for the bone cultures to come back & see how the healing goes. At very least, the patient will have to have the finger fused if not taken off. The bone & tendons where so badly affected by the infection, it is highly likely it will come off. bummer.

So, my guardian angel helped me have a fun, educational, and safe day. Hopefully, they'll fly over to Mississippi and help the hubby out!!! HE NEEDS IT!!! We need him to be able to get to ATL tomorrow. :(