what a day

Approximately 12 miles away in Franklin, Bob is also getting drunk. See, this was our pact: we had a complete clusterf*ck of a case today [robotic laparoscopic partial nephrectomy], so we decided to get drunk together tonight, long-distance style.

Wowowowow. It was crazy today. My assignment was to give a lunch to one person and then staff OR 5. Well, the nurse I gave a lunch to took 45 minutes instead of 30, so then I had to rush to get this robotic laparoscopic partial nephrectomy set up. And seeing as we've only done 1 of these before, it took a loooooooonnnnnnnng time to set up...let's just say that we weren't 100% sure of what we needed. Surprisingly, we were only 15 minutes late. I'm not going to complain anymore though. You already know what the case was like [see 1st paragraph]. The surgeon had 2 nurses [Bob and me] running constantly for 4 hours.

Alrighty, after finally finishing that case, I grabbed some water and a bathroom break, then helped set up a room for an emergency AAA resection [this is scary, think about it: the biggest artery in your body being a potential heatbeat away from rupturing]. Then I started setting up a room for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy [gallbladder]. I got the medications from pharmacy and noticed that the patient had an allergy to latex, so I ran into the room screaming, "DON'T OPEN ANYTHING!!!!!!" Now this would have been good if anyone except the X-RAY techs had been in the room...they just laughed at me and promised not to open anything :) Hahahaha...okay. So then I called the front desk and talked to the team leader, asked if he knew anything about a latex allergy, he said no...then he ran over to holding, talked to the patient, and confirmed that she was indeed, allergic to latex. Stupid floor nurses, they don't know anything [apologies to any floor nurses reading who actually know anything about their patients]. And the room we were setting up in had not been latex-free for enough hours, so we had to move from the 2nd smallest room in the OR to the damn tiniest room ever...OR 14. Not only does it have a drain in the middle of the floor that makes it really hard to level the bed, it is absolutely microscopic. And to fit 2 towers for a laparoscopic case, X-RAY's C-arm and tower, and all the other stuff, well, let's just say, it's a tight fit. Oh, is this a good time to mention that I stayed half an hour late to set this up, because there was no one else to do it?

So there you go, that is why Bob and I are drinking, long-distance style, tonight.

Peace and love,
M