Shepherd's Anatomy: A Journal Read Through

My Own Worst Enemy

** 6 months later**

After a really, really long and sleepless night -- in a good way -- Addie brought up the subject of kids. I think I upset her because I was unable to bring words to my mouth; I don't know, I feel like it's still far too early to even think about kids. Either way, we're still residents, we have so much work to juggle at the hospital; adding child care to that would probably bring heart conditions and unreal amounts of taxes and debts. She headed to the hospital way earlier than usual, I don't know how to fix this, I mean I can't change my opinion.. more sex maybe? haha sorry. Changing the topic now, I think I'm deciding to stick to neurosurgery as my specialty. It's the only specialty that caught my eye (other than Addison if you know what I'm saying) and the adrenaline that rushes through you at 1000 miles per hour because you know that a millimeter of inaccuracy can cost you a life. Neurosurgeons are the most dedicated, detailed, and confident people in the world, and rightfully so. My hands are pretty stable, and I enjoy taking my time and adding precise features to whatever I do: neurosurgery fulfills all my work fetishes.

Today, I'm scrubbing in on an embolectomy, an aneurysm clipping, and a laparoscopic ovarian teratoma dissection for the first 11 hours of my shift. Then, Mark, Addie, and I will have our lunch break for 30 mins, then we'll head into the gallery and watch Dr. Nashville's attempt at breaking the hospital's record of 19 hours 32 minutes with a spinal tumor. I'll keep you updated after every surgery and how the patients are doing, maybe someday this memo will help with your classes, who knows? (p.s. I won't mention their names for their protection and privacy.)

It's 5 A.M. , I'm wearing my light blue scrubs today, and I'm about to head to the hospital to check on yesterday's post-ops, as well as admit patients and help E.R. incomers. Hopefully, there aren't any disasters because I already have my day planned out and I really want to watch the possible record-breaking surgery. Besides, the fatalities and overloaded gurneys, screaming family members, crying children, and the possible debt the hospital would be in because of the insufficient resources and probable lawsuits from self-centered families. Without getting into more detail, it's hectic as HELL. Okay, I have to go now because I'm running a bit late so I'll update you after my embolectomy.

It's now 8:30 a.m. and I just finished my rounds, they went pretty smoothly. I'm not sure if I mentioned this but we just transferred into New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It's much nicer than Bowdoin Street Health Center in terms of management, resources; literally everything. I have an hour long break before I get into the O.R. so I guess I'll just shower and mentally prepare myself for the next few hours.

I just finished my embolectomy! It went very well and the patient is now in recovery. She'll wake up in an hour or so. I feel very bad though because she has no family. Her kids live across the ocean and her husband passed just last year due to lung cancer. She's really, really strong (mentally and physically.) The procedure was time consuming, taking 6 whole hours, but thankfully my next two are MUCH shorter. 15 minute break before my next scrub-in. I'll grab some food.

The heart aneurysm went terribly. Emphasis on terribly. To start it all of, the aneurysm bursted in the middle of nowhere while we were rolling the patient into the O.R. (probably because of stress) and the patient went into v-fib. Worst thing was that we were in the elevator when it all happened so we had absolutely nothing to take care of him. When the elevator doors slid open, we ran almost as fast as it bursted and paged the cardiac surgeon about it. He was forced to operate without scrubbing and barely any sterilization. The patient kept on coding and his heart was too far gone for saving: he needed a transplant ASAP and was placed as a #1 priority on UNOS's list. He's currently being closely monitored by the ICU while being on a heart-lung bypass machine. His wife has been by his side ever since she heard the news. I can't imagine how hard this must be for her. We don't know if we'll receive the heart quickly enough, I mean it's a heart, people usually wait months - or even years for their transplants. Hopefully this isn't a lost cause. It all depends on hope, and prayers (for religious people.) I'm on the UNOS priority phone list and my pager will be on me at all times. Now it's time for my last procedure before the "record-breaking surgery." I'm not even that excited anymore. God damn it.