If You're Into That Sort of Thing

So I went into this whole adventure and my internship with the plan to get as much out of it as i could. Well, I'm sure I've told almost everyone I know by now, but I got to see open heart surgery today! And by see I don't mean from another room, I'm talking about standing on a stool above the patient's head for a bird's eye view of everything. I thought for sure that even though I'm strangely calm and excited about the gory, bloody details of such a thing, I would for sure pass out or at least want to gag a few times- but no! I didn't. So here's the details, and I'll try to keep it PG.

The patient was having surgery to replace his tricuspid valve and have a double bypass. To repair the valve, which controls the flow of blood between the right ventricle and artium- the surgeon inserted a ring into it and did some other stuff ( which i didn't get to see because it was on the under part of the heart).



The double bypass is just creating a 'bypass' around a blocked coronary artery. For this they diverted the blood completely away from the heart and into a machine, which kept the blood pumping throughout his body, while the surgeon worked on the heart- which was completely dead for the majority of the surgery. They found the blocked artery, cut out the blocke portion, and then inserted one that they dug out of his leg. They connected it to either end of the block, so it was a whole new tube and went around the block. They did this with another blocked artery with the vein that runs through the chest. It was incredibly intricate and they were working with veins and arteries about the size of a toothpick.

I'm a bit sad that I didn't get to see the initial incision and sawing of the sternum, they brought me in right after they did this. But I did get to see them close up the sternum, which was pretty gross. Think of trying to close a book that's filled with water. ok, bad analogy- but there was an enormous amount of blood that came squirting out when they forced the sternum back together. I still had a big smile on my face under my mask, which now seems very dark and messed up...

I could talk for an hour about all the cool stuff I saw today, but doubt many other people share my enthusiasm. It was something that I'm sure I will remember for a long time, and I'm still a little giddy about it 8 hrs later.

Hopefully this won't be the last cool thing I get to see while I'm here... it'll be hard to top though!