7/13/11

This morning I took Puff out and cleaned up Sylvia's apartment some. I took out the trash, folded the laundry and did some dishes. I also organized her messy messy pantry! Then I got ready and headed to my hotel. I was supposed to go in to the Louisville office at 10 but was unable to get the dummy from Danny since he was in a case so Kristin pushed back our meeting time until noon.

Until noon I cleaned up my room at the hotel a little, and made myself a sandwich and worked on my laptop some. At noon I did some more online tutorials at the office. The anesthesia section was the longest, but I think I was able to retain the important information pretty well. Around 3 Danny stopped by the office and dropped off the dummy for me. Kristin and I practiced setting up for surgery with my Cadwell Cascade equpiment, the laptop, and started placing the needle electrodes in the dummy. For an ACDF (anterior cervical discectomy & fusion) we monitor 3 things:
1) SSEP (somatosensory evoked potentials) where stimulating electrodes placed on the arm (ulnar nerve) and leg (posterior tibial nerve) produce an electrical current through the part of the spine that carries sensations of touch to the brain, and the response is recorded by electrodes on the scalp
2) MEP (motor evoked potentials) where stimulating electrodes are placed on the scalp to produce an electrical current through the part of the spine that carries body movement instructions, and the response is recorded by electrodes in multiple muscle groups and in the hands and feet
3) EMG (electromyography) where a minimum of 5 different muscle groups are measured to make sure that the surgeon does not damage the spinal roots (the parts carrying information from the spine to the muscles and nerve endings in the extremities) during the surgery. In ACDF we place electrodes in the biceps, triceps, deltoids, and 2 hand muscles

These are the three modalities we most commonly use, however, there are also other modalities that are used for other types of surgeries, and each surgery is customized according to what areas of the body are at risk of compromise.

After training for the day I went back to target and picked up some soup and other food. I came back to the hotel and ate my soup dinner. I decided to explore the hotel a little and found the pool and work out room. I'm going to watch a little TV and then probably go to bed. I'm definitely watching Design Star as my mom has asked me everyday since the first episode came out :) LOVE YOU MOM!!! We will have to discuss who we think is going to make it to the final! GO DALLAS!