Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Update

Kris is still in the process of recovering from surgery. They took out his feeding tube yesterday, so that's a good thing. He managed to get out of bed and sit in a chair for a while. Currently they are only letting him eat ice chips, so he's pretty weak. Hopefully today we will graduate to broth - hooray! He's still getting antibiotics, blood thinners (which are shots that go directly into his stomach, no fun), and lots and lots of pain meds. I'm hoping for him to go home sometime this weekend, but that's looking doubtful unless he makes some sort of miraculous recovery.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Of Course It's Complicated and Rare, It's Kris!!!

I'm writing from Baptist Hospital in Jackson. I'll give you 3 guesses.

1. UMC shipped us down the street to practice on Baptists' patients.
2. Kris had a hernia that decided to twist on itself and herniate into his actual abdominal muscles, thereby spilling part of its contents there (and thankfully not into his peritoneum).
3. They have really good cafeteria food here.

Guess #2 is correct. We started out thinking gallstones, then a CT showed a mass which the doctors thought was just a hematoma. Then an exploratory surgery today showed that part of Kris's small intestine decided to get caught up in his stomach muscles and twist and all that good stuff. The smart surgeon took it out though, along with his appendix while he was in there. So that probably saved us another trip. Anyway, Kris is recovering. He's a little unhappy at the moment because of the tube going up his nose and down to his stomach, and also that big gash on his belly that isn't quite closed yet, but other than that, we're good. Just thought I'd give everyone an update. Thanks for the prayers and keep them coming!

On the upside, I found out today I passed my Biochem national board, so I am officially finished taking biochem - forever!!! Not even 1 more class :)

Thursday, January 10, 2008

So Much to Talk About, So Little Time

Whoa I haven't posted in a while. I'm between classes right now, so I'm going to make this one snappy. We'll start from today and work backwards. Today has been great so far. I got a speeding ticket on the way to school this morning which was completely pointless because I wasn't even late. This means I shouldn't have been speeding. I'm just meant to be a race car driver, that's all. I will definitely be taking the class so I don't have to pay for it. I just wonder how much the class costs. I was only going 58 in a 45. Blech. Anyway, life will go on.

Today we have a presentation to give to the class. We were given a patient 2 days ago, not a real one, just a paper one. Then we had to diagnose and figure out a treatment plan. It was surprisingly easy for this particular one. I just hope we don't all get nervous and blow the whole thing. Just for fun they're bringing in an attending and a resident to intimidate us.

Two days ago I did surgery on a pig. It was insane. We opened the femoral arteries and veins and inserted catheters (which are apparently just little plastic tubes). We also slit the throat down and found the carotid arteries and vagus nerves on each side. We used those to adjust the blood pressure manually. Anyway, we got to play and inject drugs and watch the effects and all that. Then at the end I made a huge incision down the side of the pig parallel to the ribs and then we used a rib spreader to spread the ribs and they actually went a good ways without breaking. Then we got to hold the beating heart in our hands, watch the lungs inflate and deflate, and then.... We sent the heart into v-fib. Then I grabbed the shock paddles, we charged them. I said Clear! just like on Grey's and I brought him back to life. We killed him and brought him back to life 5 times! It was pretty amazing.

Anyway, class is starting now. Must pay attention.