A little of this, a little of that....

I never knew how busy I was until I tried to start a blog.  Stuff keeps happening, I want to blog about it, then I run out of time.  (Cue Jessy Spano from "Saved by the Bell": "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm... so scared!") There never seems to be enough time to get anything done outside of school that I want to.

I was in surgery last week for clinicals and I loved it.  The first week of clinicals at Newton Medical Center was in the out-patient surgery center.  I saw breast augmentation (breast implants) for a lady who had battled breast cancer, won, then wasn't happy with how her breasts ended up.  It literally looked like an ice cream scooper had taken chunks out of her breasts.... I wouldn't have been happy with that either.  The surgery lasted about 3.5 hours and she looked a lot better afterward.  She didn't feel better after surgery, that's for sure, and I'm really surprised she went home that day.  She looked horrible.  It's amazing what modern day medicine can do.... cut someone up, put breast implants in, sew em' up and they go home that day.  Amazing.
Some of the neat surgeries I saw last week were an  appendectomy (appendix removal) done laproscopically, same surgery procedure done to remove a gall bladder, 2 thyroidectomies, kidney stone removal, and a mid-foot amputation.  I LOVE SURGERY! It was a fun environment to work in.... I think I've found my niche :)
During the appendectomy, the circulating nurse was cleaning off the boys stomach to prep for the surgery.  She was using alcohol wipes at one point, and she noticed they kept coming off his stomach brown.  She hadn't used betadine yet, so it took her a second to figure out what was happening.  It was tanning lotion!  She said, "Ohhhhh.... he's not going to be happy with me.  I just cleaned off his tan!" Then she slathered him up with betadine so it probably left him even more brown than when he came in.  ha.
The amputation was a totally different experience for me.  The nurse said that we were going to watch an amputation next, and I was totally pumped.  I'd never seen a surgery that removed a limb, and I couldn't wait to see it.  I hadn't seen knee replacements like some of my classmates, and I was wondering how I would do with the "crunch" sounds that come with surgery on bones.  We walked into the surgery room, I looked into the old mans eyes, and I immediately felt guilty.  I was excited to see someones foot be cut off?! It hit me: these are real people.  It's easy to get caught up in the learning aspect and forget that.  Not that I've ever been callous or rude to patients, I just appreciate the fact that I'm seeing something I've never seen before.  That being said, I felt pretty sad throughout the whole surgery.  It was actaully very quick--about an hour once the patient was under and the surgeon began.

Moving on to my ant farm... remember that?! I've had some trouble getting the seeds to grow.  I filled the holes too full of seeds, and too deep, I think.  Since the medium is blue gel, I could see the seeds growing sideways, upside down, etc. etc.  That was a little frustrating.  I did a bit of digging with tweezers and was able to pull some of them toward the surface, but most of them are still growing underground, sideways.  Sigh.  I was a bit anxious to get the ants into the farm because the ants are starting to take over my bathroom.  I hate killing things!!! I appreciate all of God's little creatures, but would rather they not be in my bathroom with me.  It's small enough just for me. So, the plants weren't quite as tall as I'd want them to be, but the time to put ants in had come.... otherwise I was going to take a garden hose to my bathroom wall. Ahhh!  I managed to catch about 15 or so (that is TOUGH work), lost 2 in the process (sorry little guys) and sealed up the farm.  I was excited to see them start digging tunnels and thriving in their new home.  After all that work, I sat on my couch to relax for a bit.  About 15 minutes later, I went to check on the ants.... I bet they've already started building tunnels!!! Such good workers they are!  Nope.  They managed to find the one ITSY BITSY, TINIEST hole in the tank lid for oxygen, then escaped.  I mean, this was a SMALL opening.... I didn't even know it was there.  I was really frustrated. Grrrr.  At this point, I decided that I'd tried my best, and that I was going to have to end the ant farm in my bathroom.  (I've yet to do it though.... I just hate killing things!!) I do have 3 ants in my antfarm that have decided it's a good place to live.  And I will say, I know this is odd, one of them is a wonderful worker :) He immediately began digging a tunnel while the other 2 took a nap (I think--unless they're dead? I'm in Manhattan for the weekend... I'll have to check on that.).  I told Ryan that he is my favorite ant, and he told me I'm weird.  Oh well.  Nature is such a cool thing to watch.... and it is so cool to watch him dig into the gel.  He worked all day at it.... if only I was that hard of a worker! I wonder where I'd be today? Probably a billionaire.

One of the things I love about Ryan is that he lets me do "girl things" on him: like trim long eyebrow hairs, tell him to cut stray nose hairs (ha! old man!), pull out ingrown beard hairs and take care of his nose pores. :) Gross maybe, but I have fun playing beauty school on him.  Last night I asked him if I could clean out his pores.  He said "surrrrrrre."  He really doesn't care what his pores look like so I think it's funny he appeases me by letting me do this.  He said "Add biore strips to our Wal-Mart list."  I wrote down "bjore strips."  He laughed at me and said, "Ummm, Bec, that's BIORE, not BJORE, like the singer."  And I started to crack up, wondering why in the world he knew this?? Hmmmmmm.