8/3/11

This morning I got up at 4:30 to shower and get my stuff together for the long case today. The case was at Longmont which is about a 45 minute drive from my hotel without traffic. I had to be there to meet with Cory (tech) at 6:15 so I left around 5:15. The case was a long and complicated case. It was a cervical fusion from the front and back, which is very uncommon. Basically the surgeon fused the entire neck from almost the base of the skull down to the vertebra past the large vertebra you can feel on the back of your neck (the large one is C7, he fused to T1). Typically fusions of this sort are just done on the side closest to the disc space (which would be anterior-the front), but this case ensures absolutely no mobility. The patient already had a previous fusion from the posterior which had to be removed first, and screws needed to be inserted (took around 5 hours after an hour of setup). Then we flipped the patient (which involved us moving our MANY MANY leads from the pods that send the electrical conductance to the computer, tie them up against the patient's body, and then re plug in post flip, all while staying beneath a paper sheet that prevents me from touching the sterile field...AKA I am under a PAPER SHEET looking at the naked patient, on my hands and knees, bruising, and getting kicked by the nurses and the surgeon-who of course don't bother to apologize or acknowledge that they have just made a significant dent in my lower back, or tush, whatever the case may be, throw in there that they don't really care if they rip out your leads either....so when they get ripped out before you can get to them, you have to go get more and re-insert new ones, and retape). The surgeon then did a typical ACDF removing disc material and inserting cages. This took a few more hours. THEN we flipped the patient back to the posterior and reopened the wound (which was gushing blood by this point and dirtying my pods) to put rods on the screws that the surgeon had previously placed, which took another hour or so. This case was done by two surgeons at the same time (rather than the typical surgeon accompanied by PA) to speed up the process, yet the entire case still lagged to the 9 hour line, not even including the set up and take down, or the 2 hours of driving I did to get to and from the hospital today. One other note that I may or may not have mentioned--we are not allowed to EAT, DRINK, USE THE BATHROOM, or LEAVE the room during the entire surgery. That being said, I did not eat, drink, or pee between the hours of 6 AM and 5 PM today. See if you could live like that?? Trust me, I worry that I may not even last a year at this point. You don't NEED too much education to do this....you need endurance, and strength of mind. I'm exhausted and ready for bed. More work tomorrow.