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| Our surgeon Dr. Alexander performing abdominal surgery with scrub techs Alan and Bayron |
Usually I do not spend too much time in the operating room. I mostly work in our in-patient ward, labor and delivery room, and emergency room. In January, it was decided that it would be really helpful during emergencies, if I was trained to assist in the operating room. I spent the month of January working along side of our Honduran operating room assistants (called scrub techs) learning where everything is, the names of countless surgical tools and instruments, how to set up the operating room, how to prepare a patient for surgery, how to circulate, how to clean and re-sterilize instruments, and eventually how to scrub in to be assistant to the surgeons. I was so excited to learn all that I could. I had been in the operating room to watch countless surgeries but had never really been able to be of much help.
After a couple of weeks of training, I was super excited and nervous when our scrub tech Alan said that I could scrub in to be assistant to the hospital's founding surgeon, Dr Jeff. It was a surgery to repair a hernia which I had seen many times. Alan showed me how to correctly wash my hands, and put on a sterile gown and gloves. Dr Jeff entered the operating room and surgery began. As I stood on a stool next to Alan, he showed me how to correctly hand instruments to Dr Jeff as he asked for them and told me to "pull here", "suction there".
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| Dr Alexander performing a delicate operation of repairing the severed tendons in a little boy's hand with scrub tech Doris |
We were about 20 minutes into surgery when all of a sudden I didn't feel so hot. Actually I felt so hot like my whole body was on fire and I started to feel woozy. I don't know if it was it was how many layers of clothes I had on (those sterile gowns and masks are very warm), the smell of burning flesh from the cauterizer, the sound of suctioning body fluids, the fact that I didn't eat much for breakfast, or all of the above. I tried to tough it out but it was only a few minutes before I was suddenly too weak and shaky to hold open the incision anymore and my world started to go black. I knew I had to get out before I fell face first into the patient's exposed abdominal cavity. "No me siento bien". I stumbled off the stool and towards the door like a drunk person trying to stay up right while frantically pulling off my surgical gown. I couldn't breathe.
The next thing I remember, as I came to sitting on the floor up against the wall in the recovery room, was Dr Alexander telling me no to be embarrassed because everyone faints at some point. He had fainted his first time in the operating room. After eating two pastelitos (delicious fried tortillas filled with chicken or beef) three sugary candies, and chugging my favorite pineapple juice, I finally felt well enough to return to the operating room to watch the rest of the surgery from standing up against the wall with nothing hurt but my pride.
Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
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