As a tech, we're responsible for setting up and opening the supplies for each surgery. This includes opening little packages of awkward-sized objects in a particular, sterile manner onto a sterile-draped table. These awkward things come in "peel-packs" that are kind of like string cheese wrappers.
So, I'm at my first day in OR clinicals, awkwardly hovering in front of a sterile table being stacked with sterile stuff, not real sure what to do. No one's very friendly. One girl asks me if I can do anything and I jokingly say, "Well, I can't do much, but I can open packages!" She motions for me to proceed. I select a skin marker from the bucket and begin to carefully peel back the wrapper like I've been taught. The OR is silent, waiting for me to amaze them with my surgical tech skills...
Oh, crap. Too much wrist flick at the end of the peel. Rookie mistake. My stomach plummets to the sticky blue floor as the marker angrily arcs from its wrapper and pings off the back wall. The now-infected marker jets like a homing missile towards our sterile table piled with costly supplies.
The missile finds its target. Infected-to-sterile contact is made. Loud, frustrated sighs echo in the cold room. Everything on the table now has to be shoved into the trash, the process started anew. I am demoted to the nurse's prep stand.
FAIL. Multiply this scenario about 17 times. Biggest loser in room.
Later, I go to glove a rather large, impressive, intimidating surgeon. He towers over me with his hairy hand in the air awaiting its glove. He's saying something to me- I'm too nervous to comprehend so I just smile and nod- while I'm grabbing his glove and stretching the Latex open for him. He jams his hand into the glove in an authoritative, hurried manner and begins to extend his other hand. But, wait? What the--? Oh. Ha. Umm. Well. The glove is wonky, a thumb here, a pinkie somewhere else. He can't touch his other "un-sterile" hand to fix it, so it's up to me to awkwardly molest his hand and try to right the glove.
 |
| You are unintelligent. There, I said it. |
*Palm to forehead*
I also said a million stupid things that week...
"Oh! Hi Dr. A!" (I'm Dr. B...)
"Is that the ovary, Dr. C?" (Uhh no. That's the stomach.)
Needless to say, the week was long. Having my intelligence questioned by people I respect in a God-like fashion is tough. Wasting countless dollars of medical supplies due to my inability to open packages is difficult for this little Jew. A cloud of heavy failure followed me around the entire week.
So, when I was assigned a 6-hour long surgery on my last day, I wallowed. I wallowed like a self-absorbed, pathetic warthog. When I found out it was with Dr. Hairy Hands, it was all I could stand. Why ME?! Why is my life so cruel?!
The surgery was a Pancreaticoduodenectomy, or a Whipple, where part of the stomach, the gall bladder and duct, the duodenum, part of the jejunum, part of the pancreas and all regional lymph nodes are removed.
Although quite caught up with self-pity, I was also intrigued to see how this surgery would play out. My curiosity was peaked. So, after scrubbing, gowning and gloving myself, I watched the patient roll into the OR. He was a big, jolly man. He had cancer. We were going to cut it out. Once he was asleep, I stood at his side and looked into his open cavernous body. Slippery intestines and pulsing organs slithered like snakes in a hole. The room was much quieter than normal. I guess everyone knew what I didn't.
"Well, let's close him up."
Huh? It's only been 45 minutes! You got it out that quickly?! But where's my 6-hour long, impressive-sounding case?
The surgeon looked at my confused, naive face and told me that there was nothing they could do. He took my hand and wrapped it around something warm and hard.
"That's cancer. It's too far spread. I'll give him 3 months." And with that, the surgeon ripped his gown off and left.
My hand jerked out of the patient like he was on fire. Wait, what? 3 months? It was incomprehensible. This jolly man would not be here 4 months from now. The leg that I had rested my hand on for 45 minutes will not be alive soon. Gone. Forever.
KCi and JoJo's "All My Life" played almost imperceptibly in the background as the man was wheeled back out. (Wish I could make this crap up.)
I left the room in a daze. My thoughts vacillated between where good people go when they die and how much of a jerk I was for worrying about a darn glove being put on wrong. Like my gloving problems were actually important in a hospital full of sick or dying people.
To finish my week off, I went to have one of the staff sign me out for the week and he blew up on me in front of everyone about how I wasn't doing it right. He threw a pen at me.
<Insert the cherry on top.>
I made it hurriedly down the stairs in my new white coat before a tear pricked behind my eye. I burst out the doors to the hospital parking lot where I completely decomposed next to my car. Snot and audible sobbing were involved. I couldn't find my frigging keys. I looked up and saw a bleary image of a man sitting in a small truck in the spot next to me, watching me fall apart into a hysterical mess. I was psychotically flinging things from my backpack and crying so hard I was dizzy. I finally got into my car and called Kevin. I'm pretty sure he thought Tyson got run over or something.
As I curled up into fetal position on my bed that night, puffy and exhausted, I seriously questioned what the hell I'd gotten myself into.
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