My Surgical Debut! Part I

 [Due to HIPAA privacy regulations for the hospitals and their patients, I can't give out any identifying info on the patient and I'm not sure if I can write about the actual hospital...so I will be as descriptive as possible without breaking privacy rules!]

Yesterday, I actually, really, finally got to watch a real, live surgery! Two actually! I'm still on a high from the excitement of it all! I went to *a major hospital in Daytona Beach* with seven other girls from my program. We arrived in the lobby at 7:50 am and I immediately realized that I had forgotten my lab coat. Holy crap. Not a good way to start the day, seeing as our instructors had drilled it into our heads that we MUST have our lab coats in order to go into the hospital. I started to break out into a cold sweat as our instructor stomped up to me in front of my new peers and demanded the whereabouts of my coat. I meekly told her that I had left it at home, and she seriously just glowered at me for a full, painful, awkward minute. If I had a tail, it would have been between my legs. Awesome, Erin. Great first impression. After her chastisement, she decided to allow me to enter the hospital but that if it ever happened again, I would be burned at the stake...or something equivalent.

We strode towards the staff elevators and all got in. I felt like I was boarding a metal spaceship to another planet. My heart was thumping in my stomach and my arms were tingling with anxiety. I seriously began to question what the heck I was doing. What if I faint? What if I get sick or knock over a tray or gag from some awful smell or...worst of all...what if, after all I have done up to this point, decide that I cannot handle being in surgery? What then? All of my dreams and hopes and plans would be for naught!

...Ding! The elevator shudders and we all step out into a foreign land. People whiz by us like cyclones as we are marched through a maze of doors and hallways. We end up in a locker room where we're told to hang up our lab coats for the day, as we won't ever need them past the locker room! Seriously?! All that just to take the darn things off? We follow our instructor to the outside of an operating room where a previous surgical tech student is filling out a form. He tells us that he'd be glad to take two of us in and I magnetically slide across the linoleum floor, away from the pack, to the O.R. door. Another girl bravely steps up and offers to descend into the unknown...

The tech explains that this is a ksjdhfkjsdf surgery and will involve ksjdkg langrnsk. Oh, and watch when the surgeon does the ska nefafj. Huh? Hable Espanol?


I silently follow him into the operating room, doing my deep breathing. Once inside, I scan the room and think that it looks nothing like on T.V. Much less dramatic and much more...human? There are nurses chatting and orderlies giving each other high fives and System of a Down plays loudly in the background, much like ambient music in a department store...but way more hard-core...

The room is filled with people. An anesthesiologist, RNs, circulators, techs, a nurse anesthetist and others swarm like bees around a hive. But suddenly, their buzzing quiets to a dull hum and the music is turned off as we turn to see a hospital bed bang through the O.R. doors. The patient is here! Here we go! 

******************

The rest of my exciting first-day-of-surgery saga will continue tomorrow night, as I have to go to bed now so that I can get up at dark-thirty tomorrow! Can't wait for another exciting day of lecture! 

Fast Forward!

So, the past few weeks have been pretty crazy. I moved home, visited with my good friends, said goodbye to my good friends, bought more textbooks, battled with the financial aid department of three different colleges, filled out forms, tried and re-tried on my sweet scrubs, went to surg tech orientation, me and my momma went to Cabin Heaven, GA...

Our cute little cabin in Dahlonega, Georgia! 

I walked my fat chihuahua up and down the street 50 times...

Tyson: Take one

Tyons: Take Two

Glamour Shot.

...and then I FINALLY got to see a couple cool surgeries. Phew!

Being back at home hasn't been as bad as I thought. It's not ideal but food does magically appear in the fridge here and cash magically finds its way into my wallet much easier than cash did in Tallahassee. When I moved back here the one positive I could think of was not having to hear rap music busting through my window on a nightly basis. BUT, Ormond Beach certainly makes up for its lack of rap music aficionados with its robust elderly population currently with driver's licences. Ohmygoddd get out of my frickin' WAY! Buicks 'round these parts are in a constant state of negative acceleration. I swear I don't understand how they ever get anywhere. Attention Old People: just because your car is always slowing down doesn't mean that time is slowing down. 

The extent of what I remember from physics...

Anyway, onto the good stuff! My 10 and 1/2 month program has officially begun! Orientation was about 9 hours long and by the end of the day I felt drunk. We went over a lot of info and I got to meet everyone in my class. There are 24 of us and the make-up is as follows:

18:6 female to male

60% White, 40% Black/Hispanic/Indian

Ages evenly spread between 19 and 50ish

It's a pretty motley crew, but everyone I've talked to has been really nice and just as excited as I am to see some blood and guts! Which is refreshing! Or disturbing...hmmm...

At orientation we had to introduce ourselves whilst seated. I hate doing that. It's awkward, especially when you're first and in the front row, because you're kind of staring straight ahead talking about yourself to no one. I guess I could have turned around but then you're looking up at everyone and that's also awkward. I rambled about my chihuahua, Tyson, and that I liked to eat. Moving on...

We took a tour of our facilities and I was really impressed with the college's lab and equipment available. Our lab is set up with 5 mini O.R. rooms, a scrub room and a central supply room with millions of tiny instruments and green towels. The mini O.R.'s each have a table, a dummy, overhead light fixtures and all of the other metal tables and buckets. It's stocked and I am in heaven :) All of the equipment we'll ever see in an O.R. is in the lab and I can't wait to find out how to use it all!

Disney Land for the Disturbed :)

I couldn't wait to get into an actual O.R. the following week! 

If These Walls Could Talk

So, I moved my life back home yesterday. As Kevin and I were locking up our house without a word or a moment of silence or even a goodbye, my mind was racing with nostalgia.

[Excerpt of my inner dialogue with the old house...]
"...and after pouring my life into you and scrutinizing this crack on the floor and that hole in your wall and spending half my life painting your walls butter cream, I am leaving you now. Sorry that we're leaving you so filthy- with cat hair balls the size of footballs on the floor. I couldn't see them hiding when the furniture was there...and now it's not, and we're kinda in a hurry, but anyway....hope you like your new family. I'll cherish the memories, ol' house."

Before Kevin's house was turned into a Home. I knew there was potential!

Florida heat engulfed Kevin and I like an all-encompassing inferno as we stood outside of our green front door for the last time. The same shoddily-painted, forest green door of which I had so painstakingly brushed with glossy green love mere months before. And beside the hideous door, the electric pink and white carnations (of which we so lovingly adored) that practically struck a pose every time one of us stepped up to the door, exuberantly welcoming us to our home.

The crushing thought of never -never- being inside those walls again made my stomach ache with sadness. Kevin and I had built a peaceful, happy routine in that house- grilling summer corn on the back deck, watching our shows on the couch in the middle of the day, my lighting of 17 candles during cold, winter nights and his retiring to his upstairs man cave to...do whatever peaceful, happy thing he did up there. (Unsolved mystery.) Never mind the teeth-gnashing nights spent on the couch fuming over this and that, or the months of my wearing Kevin down to remove his God-awful, fishing-camp, wood-plank monstrosity from a prominent place in our house or our bare concrete floors that relentlessly sprouted dirt, twigs, bobby pins and trash like a fertile, spring garden.

Goodbye, house. It's Moving Day.

The one thing I regret from not doing on Moving Day was snapping a picture of my loaded down SUV. I was standing in front of my car about to climb in, sweating like a sopping wet sponge, when I actually acknowledged just how much stuff Kevin had managed to cram into my car. It was a white storage-box-on-wheels. Looking into my car was like looking into one of those optical illusion pictures where if you stare at the geometric shapes long enough, your vision will cross and suddenly a dolphin comes bursting from the blue page.

Optical Illusion alert! To see three dolphins: stare at picture up close. Try to look "through" the picture while you have your eyes crossed. Make sure no one is around because there is a possibility that you'll look like an idiot :)

Except all that came bursting forth from my junk was...more junk. To unpack. So much junk. Too much junk. It took me 4 years to accumulate it and I'm sure it will take me another 4 years to unpack it.

***Update! It's been 3 weeks and I'm STILL unpacking. Boxes galore. Swimming in boxes. Help!

So, what exactly is a surgical tech?

According to the Association of Surgical Technologists, a surgical tech:

1. Checks supplies and equipment needed for surgical procedure
2. Scrubs, gowns, and gloves
3. Sets up sterile table with instruments, supplies, equipment, and
medications/solutions needed for procedure
4. Performs appropriate counts with circulator prior to the operation and before
incision is closed
5. Gowns and gloves surgeon and assistants
6. Helps in draping sterile field
7. Passes instruments, etc., to surgeon during procedure
8. Maintains highest standard of sterile technique during procedure
9. Prepares sterile dressings
10. Cleans and prepares instruments for terminal sterilization
11. Assists other members of team with terminal cleaning of room
12. Assists in prepping room for the next patient
13. Preps patient before surgery

Short, non-medical version?  On Grey's Anatomy, when Derek begins some particularly-intense brain surgery and he yells out into the darkness, "Scalpel!" and one magically appears in his beautiful hand? Well, I'm the one who puts it there. Difference between Grey's and reality? Most surgeons look like:

not...

Oh, how I need Season 7 in my life!

So, as far as surgery goes...I'm pretty l-o-w on the totem pole. Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm the lowest person in the OR during surgery BUT that's okay! I'm there to watch and learn! 


According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics: Surgical Technologists (the middle 50 percent) earned between $32,490 and $46,910. *Which is a little high for Florida, based on my own research. And, like most healthcare jobs, "employment is expected to grow much faster than average." 
So, I certainly won't be livin' large, but I will be able to find a job and get by until I start PA school. Sounds like a good plan to me!

No Time Left for You

So, as I was morosely pulling out of my driveway this morning to go to my last class, my last final, my last time parking in the FSU garage, my last time as an undergrad, a song came on the oldies radio station that really put a spin on my mood and depressive thought pattern. "No Time" (1970's) by The Guess Who. Here is the song (start at 0:40) and the beginning lyrics:

No time left for you
On my way to better things
No time left for you
I found myself some wings
No time left for you 
Distant roads are calling me
No time left for you.


Coincidence? Perhaps. But it totally got me out of my I-don't wanna-grow-up(!) funk. It's been great Tallahassee, but it's time for me to be "On my way to better things." 


I thought I was going to shed a tear on my way out of class, but honestly...I just felt relieved. My stressful, difficult bio final was o-v-e-r and I knew I did well. As I was walking back to my car, a large, orientation flock of students walked by me. The kids looked so fresh-faced, so skinny and wide-eyed. I felt a small pang in my stomach as nostalgia crept in...

My brother visiting me in my freshman Dorm Room

Me and my dorm roomie

But, after a quick bout of nostalgia and good memories, surprisingly, all I could think about at that moment was all of the aggravation I had been put through in the parking garage over the years. And how many times I'd walked this same path really not wanting to go to class or dreading an exam or sweating half my body weight. I had felt for the past year or so like a whale trying to be fit into a goldfish bowl. I had outgrown FSU. I thought to myself, "You know what, Erin? You're ready to get the hell outta here! Don't make yourself feel badly for wanting to move on!" 

So, when I pulled up to the stop sign that delineated my campus from the real world, undergrad from alumn, I drove off without a tear. I'm thankful for the amazing memories and people I've met, but more importantly, I'm thankful for not having to hear ghetto rap music at all hours of the night and feel like the oldest, fattest person grocery shopping at "Club Publix." 


I'm ready to edge myself towards adulthood (even if it starts out in my dusty, childhood room) and to take my next big step in becoming a healthcare provider. Classroom today, surgical O.R. tomorrow!!

The Last Time.

At 11 o'clock tomorrow, I will drive onto campus a student and drive off campus an alumni.

 I'm kind of freaking out. When I think of the word "alumni," I imagine a big-bellied dad and a visor-wearing mom at a tailgate watching all of the college madness and reminiscing. I do not want to reminisce. I'm here! I'm here! I'm still a fun, skinny, drunk, optimistic, college co-ed just living for today! Or at least I could be! I'm not going to turn into an alumni tomorrow! I refuse! I'll do anything.

For the past few weeks of summer, I've been living in a weird place of denial and sentimentality. I'm driving my boyfriend nuts because of my melodramatic statements such as, "This is the last time I'm ever going to shop in this Wal-Mart on Tennessee Street." Or, "This is the last time I'm ever going to sit in this bed in this house and study transcription factors."

The Last Time. 

I feel like four years just slipped out of my hand like a slimy fish before I even got a chance to look at it.

The week before graduation has been especially strange because simultaneously everything is changing and nothing is changing.  All of my worldly possessions are either being hastily boxed-up or dumped by the car-full at Goodwill. Dumping them at Goodwill is kind of painful for me...I think I have a hoarder's mentality that everything I own is special or something.

They're just so rough at Goodwill! Their greedy, grubby hands hungrily snatch your prized possessions and throw them into a giant heap of other people's gross crap without regard to their importance or value. Goodwill doesn't make it easy to down-size.

And not only is my life being packed away box-by-box, but I have to give my foster children (read: cats) back to their orphanage (read: Humane Society) tomorrow. I never thought I would like cats, but I have become a total cat lady. Here's Fluffer among boxes as I write:

My Fur Child

Although everything is changing around me (friends moving to and fro, houses and furniture selling, fur children leaving), nothing is changing.

I'm still sitting in bed, eating, with study guides and notes scattered all around me. I have a final tomorrow and am procrastinating like usual via any way possible. People are still emailing me about fall club meetings that I joined two years ago. I need to grocery shop. The world is just...going about its usual Thursday business. Hello, world! I'm graduating tomorrow, people! Shouldn't there be a day of remembrance or candle vigil or something? My entire life as I know and love it is about to change! 

But, I have to keep telling myself that CHANGE is GOOD. I'm about to embark on another great adventure. This time next week, I'll be meeting up with old, wonderful, high-school friends for drinks.

 In less than a month, I will be in an O.R. watching surgery. This time next year...who knows?!

Mantra of the week: Embrace change!