Shortly after being forced to take a step out of the OR during a gout reduction surgery, I took the next logical step in my surgery-watching career: I scrubbed in on an above-the-knee amputation. After orchidectomies (which, by the way, happens on Monday, and I’m still debating scrubbing in for since I missed that below-the-knee amputation), amputations have long been tops on my “no way in Hell could I take part in that” list. And, after my less-than-impressive showing in the gout reduction, I basically planned on having to leave. It was sort of a “hey, Jesse, do you want to come watch?” “Yeah, I’ll do my best” arrangement.
Well in line with my longstanding habit of making absolutely no God-damn sense, I wound up hardly being uncomfortable at all, and easily made it through the whole surgery. Surgeries, outside of the enormous amount of blood, are very similar to the cadaver dissections we did in one major factor: it was always easier to do it than to watch it. In anatomy, the vast majority of “uncomfortable” dissections that I told my group I was going to avoid touching I wound up participating in directly – i.e., scalpel-slash-buzzsaw in hand. Eyes, face… the one exception was, as you might guess, the orchidectomy. And that was on someone who had passed away – my comfort zone for living beings is much, much smaller.
Still, it’s easier when you have a task to focus on. They had this little vacuum tube (like at the dentist’s) and they needed me to clean up blood from the surgical site (while Jodie mopped up the remainder). Then we were cauterizing arteries. Then we were assisting in suturing. There was always a task – something to occupy hands and mind so that you can’t fully process the enormity of what, exactly, you’re doing. The surgery as a whole didn’t take long, either – the surgeon pretty efficiently cut through skin and fascia, took his electric saw to the femur, and removed the leg in its entirety (which went into a nearby box – I’m not really sure what they do with it after the surgery, it’s not exactly like taking your tooth home from the dentist) – another positive in terms of ‘Jesse surviving the operation.’ Plus, the foot was really far gone – gangrene had set in, and blood supply was cut off all the way up to the thigh. I mean, if I were the patient, I wouldn’t have wanted that thing attached to me – framing the operation in terms of “we are removing potentially-dangerous diseased tissue so that this patient can feel better” as opposed to “no, seriously, I’m pretty sure I learned in anatomy that the leg is supposed to be attached to the pelvis, what the hell are we doing?”
Anyhow, it was a good experience – and for the first time, I felt like I really could handle invasive surgeries. I’m sure that if I choose to scrub in on Monday my confidence will be shattered as is only proper, but for now I actually feel like I might be able to handle surgery. Even if I’m not destined to be a “bonecrusher.”
Extenuating circumstances forced me to miss the surgeon’s below-the-knee amputation the following week, but I should have at least one more day in the OR with him. We’ll see what sorts of shocks we can cook up.
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