You want me to do WHAT?!??

I think this Mother's Day will definitely go down in history. Unfortunately, not for all the sentimental reasons that most of us would take note of. How about I start with the word, "I was on call for the day at the hospital".

The greatest part of the day 6:30am to 1:30 pm. I slept in and was able to clean the ENTIRE house including some deep cleaning. Now you may ask yourself, why does that make a good mother's day morning? Well, it was uninterrupted cleaning. That's right! No children and no husband. (No offense guys) I couldn't believe how much I accomplished. A clean house was definitely a gift to me.

My sweet husband called twice to make sure I wasn't having any breakdowns due to spending mother's day alone. How nice of him to make sure I was ok. I love him! I have to admit around 1100, while hooked to the milk machine, I did wallow in some self pity for a moment or two. I mean who really wants to spend mother's day away from your kids and husband?

Well, things started to get interesting around 1:30. I headed into work and recovered one patient, no biggy. The next wouldn't be out for at least an hour or so, so I settled in with my wonderful computer education modules. About 15 minutes later the phone rang and it was the OR nurse asking me to come to the OR immediately. Ok, not so normal. I suited up and headed in to find only the nurse and a very large patient under anesthesia strapped to the table. She explained they were about to start surgery when there was an emergency in the Peds ICU and the doctors had to leave immediately and that she needed to go too. I was supposed to stay there with the patient and make sure nothing happened until another anesthesia doc could come in. Hopefully, within the next thirty minutes. I thought, the next 30 minutes! You've got to be kidding. I'm certainly no anesthesiologist and that dude on the table is huge! So, with my deer in headlights look I tried to calmly ask, "So, what do I do if this very large patient wakes up?" Fortunately, she said he was being gassed which = sleep! I'm thinking hooray! Please don't decide to drop your heart rate or blood pressure until that doc can get here. So, there I am with my cute tech Ashley staring at this patient and attempting to chart his vitals on the Dr's sheet.

Just as I was getting comfortable in comes a new surgeon. The trauma surgeon. Apparently, he had been called for a trauma in the ER, but since this patient was already here on the table asleep he figured he should preform this surgery before he started the trauma. One problem though, there is no OR team yet. They are on there way, but live about 40 minutes away. When he realizes this he asks if either of us know how to "scrub in". I replied with a very QUICK NOOO. To which he replies that's ok you may have to learn because I need to get to the next surgery. WHAT!!! By this point we had flagged down another anesthesiologist, one nurse and one scrub tech. So, that meant I was well on my way to being involved with this surgery. Not Good!

Let me just make a quick side note about me in nursing school during an OR clinical. Me + hat + mask + gown + gloves + hot lamps = lightheaded potentially passed out nurse! Trust me, I know my limits. So, I decide to try and stall.

Me: Sir, my husband is on trauma call at the "U" and will be done in five minutes. Why don't I page him to come help you?

Dr: Hmmmmm, so he's a resident?

Me: Yes, orthopedics.

Dr: Hmmmmmm.

Anesthesiologist: We're ready, let's go.

Dr: All right, suit up Melissa.

Me: CRAP!

So, for the next thirty minutes there I am doing what I thinkk is a "resident's job". Following and mimicking exactly what this surgeon is doing (with my left hand no less) and praying I don't pass out, grab something I'm not supposed to or poke something I'm not supposed to. I felt like I was on this show!

Well, after several layers of fat, 4 layers of muscle (apparently this is not the norm) and the smell of burning flesh I was still going strong. Well, the next few things I had to do required me to lean forward quite a bit so I was right under the wonderful heat light/lamp. Next thing I know the light headedness started to kick in. I calmly handed my tools to the tech and said I needed to sit down. Both the surgeon and anesthesia doc get nervous I'm going to pass out into the sterile field and kick me out! All I can say is I tried to get out of it earlier.

Todd is never going to let me live it down either. Funny thing is, he showed up about 5 minutes into the surgery and didn't say anything because he didn't want to "steal my thunder". My thunder, are you kidding me! At least I got to see a very very very large appendix!