Journals
Wednesday,Apr 27 2005, 02:42:40 AMA bit has happened since I last posted. ...
A bit has happened since I last posted. Sarah went to a women's
retreat this weekend and left me alone with the babies. Friday
night Emily, Sarah's cousin, was delayed at the airport so we picked
her up and had dinner with her. She ended up staying the night
and jumping the next filght out. It worked out well because after
several lengthy delays, her original flight was cancelled. The
weekend went very smoothly. That is until mommy got home.
Heidi ran to Sarah with a big smile on her face. Elizabeth cried
more that first hour than she had all weekend. Sarah wanted to
head right back to the retreat center. Turns out E was
constipated and cheered up after that was taken care of. We
filled her with rasins and prune juice so she is a happy baby.
Today was Sarah's last day of work. After working with the same
family for four years, Sarah is off to start her career as a stay at
home mom. We're hoping that this new career will last until Sarah
decides she wants to work at something. The new nanny had Carmen
and Bethany make going away cards for Sarah and the girls.
In class today I was back in the OR. We did an aortic resection,
which means that we clamped the aorta, removed part of it, and then
sewed in a graft. It went very well. We added on an
appendectomy and lost only 5cc of blood during the whole surgery.
The vascular graft is a gortex tube and fun to play with.
Tonight we had a party at our Surgical Anatomy professor's house.
The girls had a blast and everyone enjoyed seeing them. They had
a pet parrot that E loved. Heidi wasn't so sure about it. E
learned to say "hello" when we were trying to get the bird to say
it. Afterwards, E went to the potty as she is wont to do.
Amazingly, Heidi followed her example and had success! That's
right, Heidi peed on the potty for the first time! That makes two
milestones today. This morning she said a three word sentence "I
sees babies." Sarah was putting them into the car for work and H
saw the babies we keep in the car and told Sarah that she saw
them. When we were leaving the party, Sarah and I both thought we
heard Heidi say "I wanna says bye bye." We're not too sure about
the 4 word sentence, but maybe she'll spout out another soon.
Friday,Apr 22 2005, 12:15:15 AMToday was busy for both Sarah and me. Sarah...
Today was busy for both Sarah and me. Sarah went back to work for the
first time in a week, and had to work all day. Bethany was acting
up. Sarah suspects that she missed her parents while they were
out of town. When they returned they went right to work.
Hard for a 3 year old.
I got to listen to a lecture on the pancreas and dissect in the
abdomen. After lunch Champa and I did several surgeries.
First we did a bowel resection of the small bowel and sigmoid
colon. We had lots of time so we did a TAH-BSO (total abdominal
hysterectomy with bilateral salpingoopherectomy--removed uterus and
ovaries). Champa is going into OB-GYN and so loved this part. That went very well so we decided to tackle the
gallbladder again. This time it went textbook. Champa got
into the plane inbetween the gb and liver and it peeled away
smoothly. On a roll, we decided to remove the spleen. The
first 3/4ths went as planned, but I nicked the spleen while trying to
clamp the splenic artery and vein. It bled a bit, so we just
clamped everything left and got the spleen out.
Wednesday,Apr 20 2005, 12:32:52 AMToday E was fussy again, but cheered up...
Today E was fussy again, but cheered up after dinner. We had our
old happy Wivy back. The girls enjoyed dancing around. It
involved lots of spinning with arms in various positions. They
even held hands and danced together a little. Sarah is moving
along with packing their clothes. We have two boxes of clothes
that are 2T. The girls love helping around the house.
Tonight E tried to help Sarah carry one of the boxes to another
room. They both helped drag the trashcans to the curb.
I myself am still recovering from fresh tissue lab. That is where
we do things on cadavers that have been dead for a shorter amount of
time and have less preservative. However, our guy had been dead
for 1 month. The central line ( I managed to place a large Cordis
vascular acces device and get the first placement in the room), chest
tube, tracheostomy, and vein cutdown went well. However, when we
opened the abdomen, we released Pandora's box of evil. The smell
wasn't say worse than the decomposing bodies I dealt with on forensic
pathology (think dead guy next to heat source), but it takes a strong
2nd for worst smell ever. That's saying a fair amount as I have
delt with homless guy's feet and mouths and some more unspeakable
things. The whole Vicks trick you see on TV only leaves you with
minty rotting corpse. The most fun was that we had to dig around in the
abdomen and do stuff. The surgeon seemed to think it was no big
deal and that all you had to do was breathe through your mouth.
Well that only decreased one special sensory apparatus and engaged
another. On to today. We did a laparoscopic cholecystectomy
(removed gallbladder with only three 1 1/2 cm incissions and
camera). We placed our access ports a little too close and
therefore ended up swordfighting with the instruments. At least
it wasn't me that perforated the gallbladder this time. We ended
up opening the abdomen afterwards to play at doing another procedure
(Nissen fundoplication). It feels really wierd when you are using
a bovie ( knife that used electricity to cut) and the electricity
activates the muscles you are cutting through.
Monday,Apr 18 2005, 12:55:36 AMSarah's not feeling so hot, so I'll type...
Sarah's not feeling so hot, so I'll type this (as usual). E was
very fussy and clingy this evening. I figure this is mostly our
fault as we make them late for nap when we eat lunch with friends after
church. It's worth it, and I give E liscence to scream as much as
she wants (which is a lot). H ate 1 1/2 bowls of macaroni and
cheese for dinner. We were talking to neighbors outside and Sarah
came up and asked H if she was ready for dinner. H replied
"cheese!" and went running towards home. We worked more on
the dog room today. I'll have to say that I'm proud of
Sarah. She is thowing away lots of useless junk that she wasn't
willing to in the past. We have a large stack in one corner,
which is our give away pile; and have thrown away ~three large
trashbags worth of junk. It'll probably save us ~500 lbs. on the
move.
Sunday,Apr 17 2005, 12:36:45 AMToday was very busy, but productive. E is...
Today was very busy, but productive. E is still having allergy
trouble, but is dealing with it better. H is happy as ever.
E was being very clingy, so Sarah strapped her on and kept
working. This kept E happy for about 15 min. until she wanted to
get down and play. We got a fair amount of the dog room packed
and organized today. We also worked on the garage. 
