The OR From An Outsider's Perspective

I got to do something this week that I would have never gotten to do in the States- go and watch Eric operate. I have always wanted to do this and we had a visitor here who volunteered to watch the boys, so I donned Eric’s scrubs (no one is going to mistake me for a doctor in two-size-too-big-scrubs and a huge grin on my face- though I did try to walk confidently by people and pretend that I was in fact the OTHER Dr. Mitchell) and headed for the O.R.

He first gave me the tour of the place and I got my hair net and mask. Right away I realized I could never be a surgeon for one simple reason- I don’t like re-breathing my old breath while wearing a mask- EW. Alas, I persevered and watched the end of a skin graft on a 12-ish year old girl. SO SAD. She had been badly burned on her back and stomach weeks ago and just came into the hospital recently, most likely because they hadn’t had the money and were hoping it would heal on its own. Poor, sweet girl.

After that, we were waiting for Eric’s case to start so we wandered around and hopped in an O.R. just AFTER a c-section took place. I was bummed, because that would have been awesome to see, but I did get to watch them sew her uterus back up and then tie her tubes. It was nothing like I thought it would look like. The ovaries and tubes were so tiny. Good thing I wasn’t doing it, because it all just looked like tissue to me. I got a good anatomy lesson from Dr. Kristin and asked 50 (ignorant I’m sure) questions.

Finally it was time for Eric’s surgery, the fancy name for it being “put two pieces of intestine back together”. There were 4 people scrubbed into the case so I was perched standing on a chair at the foot of the table. I watched the patient get intubated, and them re-open the cut (they had done his first surgery two days before) Then I proceeded to watch my super-hot-amazingly-talented-crazy-smart husband pull his skin apart (in ways that I didn’t think skin could stretch) and feel around and pull his guts out. Literally, lots of guts, outside of the body. How do all those intestines fit in there? It was like removing clowns from a car, they just kept coming! Wild. Somehow in all that mess Dr. McHottie (aka Mitchell) knew what to cut, burn, sew, etc. Pretty amazing. Maybe he really was learning something all that time he was gone in residency and not just off playing golf….. Anyways, the other exciting moments of the case (for me at least) where when the patients arm came awake and starting hitting Eric in the butt. That was pretty funny. Unfortunately, they just gave him more anesthesia and his arm went back to sleep. The other crazy moment was when they were sucking out his NG tube and a 4 foot tapeworm came out.  Yep, this was big stuff, they were calling in everyone they could find to look at that sucker.

I had to leave half-way through the surgery to get back to the midgets, but it was good times and I hope to get back there soon to “help” out! J