whyyyy meeeeeeee???

Well, I lied about the sad blog posts. Unless things turn around sometime VERY soon, (which they  better, or I'm going to SNAP), I'm going to have to rename this "The Daily Sob Story" or something. 

It is so sad when old people die, even more sad when young people die, and when PETS die (especially dogs) it is the saddest of all. I think it is because so many people can relate to their animals. They are a part of the IMMEDIATE family. It is like losing a sibling or a child or something. Our family cocker spaniel, Sugar, passed away last night. She hadn't been doing very well, but she held on until all 3 of us girls were home before she went. She wanted us all home. We all got to say goodbye. 

I have never actually WITNESSED death before last night. I've seen dead people, dead animals, but I had never actually seen someone die. My poor Sugarbaby. She had been so sick. Just really lethargic- laying around and sleeping a lot. She had a condition called Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia (apparently common in cocker spaniels). It comes on suddenly and usually is fatal within a few days, unless the dog can have a blood transfusion and is put on prednisone.  Well Honey--The Hero, gave her the blood transfusion, and she lived for a whole week afterward! I really honestly thought she was going to pull through and be the same as she always was. --- Barking her ass of when the wind blew, begging for food at the dinner table, rolling in random nasty things, tormenting skunks--- But I guess it was her time. Thinking she was going to be fine just made it harder to watch her go. 

Like I said, I've never actually witnessed death before last night, and I would rather not ever again. I'm a little bit torn though, because I am glad I was there, petting her and talking to her, telling her it was going to be OK, but it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I mean, I was holding her, telling her it was going to be okay, but I have no idea if it really IS okay... Who does? We just HOPE that they are going to a better place. I guess nobody knows for sure. I just didn't want her to be afraid.

We put Sugar in a box with a blanket after she took her last breath. She looked so peaceful, just like she was sleeping. It was eerie and strange, because as I looked at her in the box, I could have SWORN I saw her breathing. (I literally checked with my stethoscope, just to make sure... She wasn't.) Afterward, we all just sat there on the kitchen floor for a while. Honey just couldn't understand what was going on. She kept walking over to Sugar in the box and nudging her with her nose as if to say, "Hey! Come on, get up! Everyone's here! Wanna play?" After a few tries with no response, she just seem to get it. She plopped down next to her with the saddest look I've ever seen, and covered her nose with her paws. I know how she felt. 

I just hope Sugar knows how much we all loved her. It is so strange without her here. I dropped a bread crust on the floor earlier and I didn't even give it a second thought. I just went about my sandwich-making business. When I went back into the kitchen a few minutes later, it was still there. I was overwhelmed with sadness as picked up the stupid bread crust because I knew why I hadn't even thought about it before. Sugar used watch the floor like a hawk when someone was preparing food. Kiss anything you dropped goodbye, because Sugar would swallow it down in one chomp. Even vegetables. Sometimes even inedible things, like paper. 

Anyway, tonight we say goodbye to my grandma, and now my pup too. Calling hours are tonight with a dinner and cocktails (thank GOD) after. Then the church service bright and early tomorrow morning.

When it rains it pours I guess... 

Home is where the heart is

It is SO nice to be HOME. I'm amazed at how much better I felt the second I walked through my front door. Having family and people around for support makes everything okay. I think I'm finally accepting this. I didn't want to believe that my Grammie was gone. Didn't want to think it was true. I wanted so much to be able to see her again, just ONE MORE TIME, but I couldn't. I think that that mindset- the wishing and praying for the impossible- was what was making it so hard. What were those 5 stages of grief again? DABDA? ... I'm looking it up because I can't remember what the stupid mnemonic means. ha. Way to pay attention during "Death and Dying," Amanda. 

OK- Here it is: Let's see if it's true.

Denial- Skipped right over that one I think.. I believed everything was true when my mom told me... I just didn't WANT to believe it. And I definitely cried-- so, moving on...

Anger- I was mad at myself for not going to see her. Mad that I didn't spend more time with her, and kinda angry at the rest of my family (the ones that live far away) for never calling or coming to see her... 

Bargaining- I bargained with the store clerk at Coach to give me a 10% off card when I was doing my "therapeutic shopping" ...haha! ... wait.. I guess that's not what that means... I did wish that I could see Gram just one more time.. but I didn't try to make any deals... God kinda sucks at those. 

Depression - I think I'm stuck between this one and acceptance. I am definitely still sad, but it is getting better. I'm not really crying so much. Being home is making me feel like my gram is in a better place and happier than she was. So I'm starting to feel happy too. 

Acceptance - Gettin' there! 

Well, I guess it's pretty accurate isn't it! What do you know, SSC taught me something after all. 

Never thought I'd say THAT.... withit.

Anyway. Being home is just what I needed. I really don't want to go back to CT, but there are surgeries to be done! This is ALMOST my last "sad" post... I swear. I'll write again after the funeral, then that will be it! 

:)

Life.

What a weekend. 

I have been so mentally and physically exhausted I haven't been able to write. I'll start with a little recap of the rest of the week before I become Debbie Downer and make everyone want to slit their wrists. 

The rest of my week went pretty well. I got to spend the whole day Thursday with Ortho, and I absolutely LOVED it! We did 2 total knees, I&D'd 2 septic knees (aka volcano of pus!! gross/awesome!) and then took out a prosthesis. I hope to continue to make friends with their PA's so I can skip out on the boring stuff and drill some bones and hammer some metal into some more people. Sweet! Maybe I'll bring them donuts or something.....Ha. A little bribe never hurt anyone....

Friday- uneventful, except I BROKE OUT IN CRAZY BUMPS from my elbows to my wrists. Apparently I'm allergic to surgical scrub. Awesome. Another thing that would ONLY happen to me. My arms are still itching like crazy and bumpy. I can't wait to show my preceptor tomorrow. It should be interesting. Also, I managed to scratch the bumps OPEN during the night so it is really going to feel good when I scrub in tomorrow with that alcohol-based crap. If I even GET to scrub in, because what if it gets worse?!? .. I can't possibly be the first one that this has happened to, so there must be an alternative. Guess we will have to wait and see. 

SO... Anyway. The sad part. 

Friday night my mom called me up to  let me know that our cocker spaniel, Sugar, was not doing well. She is 11, but she was completely FINE when I left last weekend. I guess she had a stroke or something because she became really lethargic, fell over, and then peed on the floor, which is something that Shuggie would NEVER do. The vet said that she wouldn't make it though the night without a blood transfusion, so my heroic yellow lab, HONEY stepped up and gave her a blood transfusion! (haha this is absolutely a doggie soap opera/lifetime movie.) So, Honey saved Sugar's life with her blood transfusion and afterward proceeded to PASS OUT, so my mom had to feed her cookies.. hahahaha.. 

Anyway, so Saturday morning my mom called and said "I have some sad news." .. I immediately burst into tears and said, "OMG NO! Sugar didn't make it!!!!" And my mom said "No, Sugar is OK, she is doing much better. But, your grandma passed away this morning." 

I think I went into shock after that. My hands were shaking and my heart was racing and I honestly had no idea what to do. I felt so completely helpless because there I was in BRIDGEPORT CONNECTICUT, 5 hours from ANYONE that I know, and all I really need is someone to cry to. I still feel that way now. 

I immediately packed up my things and decided to go home, but I found out that the funeral/calling hours aren't going to be until late in the week so I would have had to make 2 trips. So I've been here, in CT, all by myself, all weekend. AND IT'S EFFING VALENTINES  DAY, which is, by the way, the WORST holiday every invented. Anyway, I couldn't just SIT there the whole day wallowing in sadness so I did some research, grabbed my credit card, and ventured out into the connecticut shopping district. 

400 dollars worth of designer handbags later, I was feeling a little better, but not much. So I rented a sappy movie, bought a container of chocolate covered strawberries, and sat on my bed and mowed down the WHOLE FRICKEN THING. 

...After my stomach-ache went away, I went to bed, only to wake up and spend another day at the mall. I bought a dress to wear to my grandma's funeral and got a pedicure, and then just walked around the rest of the day....CT is so lonely. 

It's been a pretty crazy weekend. I'm going to miss my grandma so so so much. I can't help but feel so selfish and guilty for not stopping to say goodbye to her before I came here. The last time I saw her was Super Bowl Sunday... I should have stopped to say goodbye, but I was just so "busy." What was wrong with me?? I completely took the time that we had for granted. I guess I just never even thought that maybe I'd never get to see her again. Well, now I don't. I'll never get to see her smile, or get to hear about how she hated the food at the nursing home. I'll never bring her her "snack stash" that she loved so much ever again. I'll never hear her tell me how nice I've "Filled out" (which I used to hate btw), or see her light up and say "Hi Honey!" when I walked into her room to visit her. I will never again hear her tell me how much she misses my grandpa, because she will never have to miss him again. She got the greatest Valentine's Day present in the world. She was finally reunited with her sweetheart. I know that they are together now, and they are probably happier than they have ever been. I love you Grandma. So, so much. RIP. 

I am sooo exhaustedddd. I just got done at 7 (started at 530) and I have no energy to write!! The best surgery I got to see today was a radical bilateral mastectomy/reconstruction. The plastic surgeon was AMAZING and it made me seriously consider plastics! I'm going to bed in like 20  minutes and it is only 730. I am a grandmother. lol.

I believe that Surgery should be a varsity sport. 

My legs are killing me. My feet are burning. My back is sore. I feel like I just played a basketball game when actually, in real life, it was 3 excisional biopsies and a 3 hour lap chole!! (aka "yank out gallbladder.") Yes. You heard me THREE HOUR LAP CHOLE FROM HELL. I begged to be in on it too because I didn't want to go to clinic.. (I am currently living in an exact replica of an episode of Grey's Anatomy btw.. more on that later..) 

But yeah, despite the AMAZINGNESS of this rotation, I seriously think there should be some sort of surgical rule book that is followed as standard in all ORs. It would make some things a LOT more convenient. Here are a few I've developed so far:

Rule#1: Breakfast/Lunch/coffee breaks should apply to EVERYONE... NOT just Anesthesiologists! --I mean honestly! Every 2 seconds someone comes in to relieve these people! HELLOOO, we all want some damn coffee! You already get to sit the whole time. Quit showing off. 

Rule#2: If you are less than 6 inches away, you can pick your own damn instrument up off the scrub nurse's table. Like honestly, doesn't anyone see how ridiculous it is when the surgeon says "Scalpel, please." and the scrub nurse picks up this scalpel that is literally 2 INCHES from my hand, makes the itty bitty pass to me, and says "Scalpel." I, in turn, hand it to the PA who is 2 more inches from me and say "Scalpel." The PA then hands it to the resident, who just so happens to be ANOTHER 2 inches from the PA, and says "Scalpel." Finally, the resident hands it another 2 inches to the surgeon, who by this time has to tell anesthesia that he's going to be another 10 minutes because that was such a process. Seriously. --The scrub nurse here guards her table like it's a freakin' buried treasure. If you even LOOK at it you get the evil eye. I wanna touch everything on it.... Then run away. 

Rule #3: Surgeon and Assistants must be within 2 inches in height of each other. I swear to God I think I have a permanent hunchback from following the 5-foot-two surgeon today. The table was SOO LOW I don't think that my gown was sterile all the way down there. That's just patient safety. Midget surgeon, midget assistant. Tall surgeon, tall assistant. C'mon people! 

Anyway, today was pretty good, although I think that this see-your-patient-at-5:30AM-round at-6-cases-at-7:30 deal is going to take it's toll on me after a while. Guess we will have to see! 

I'z in ur OR.... Gettin' dizzy and shit...

Oh Hai... 

Well, my first day is over. Thank GOD. Apparently, surgery is pretty technical... WHO KNEW! But honestly, this hospital is AMAZING. Everyone here is so receptive to students because they are here ALL the time. Bridgeport Hospital is associated with Yale. There are three other PA students here. One is from Yale, and one from St. Francis, they are cool. The other guy is from Salauaniner school in Philadelphia. He's super smart, and a just a tad "different", but I'm sticking with him because he's really nice and he has been here for a little over a week so he kinda knows what he is doing. Me, on the other hand, gets lost when going to the BATHROOM. I'm thinking about using iphone GPS just to navigate around this hospital... Seriously. I'm not kidding. 

Anywho, so this morning I went and met with the resident coordinator, and we went on a wild goose chase trying to get me a badge and a parking permit (shit! which reminds me, I never got one so I'ma have to pay 5 bucks when I go to Walmart here in a few minutes! eff!) .... Oh well. So, after about an hour, NONE of that got accomplished. Great.  After that shitshow, the nicest, most helpful preceptor in the WHOLE WORLD came to get me. He is a PA and his name is Brent Something-or-other, but I like to call him Brent the Great. He showed me around a little bit and then was like "Well, we have an open inguinal hernia reduction....Wanna scrub in?" and I'm like "Yeah dude. Sweet." ... (actually it was more like, "Omg yes!! That would be fabulous!" haha) So we get in there and the surgeon is AMAZING and the best teacher EVER! He verbalized EVERYTHING that he was doing! For example: "OK Amanda, Now I am cutting though this fascia so that I can get to the cremasteric muscle. This whole time I am looking for the ilioinguinal and the iliohypogastric nerves because I don't want to compromise them and complicate the procedure. OK, now here is the inguinal ring, and if I lift this up here, *lifts up a great big glob of gobbley gook that looks like NOTHING if you just glance* ...you can see the vas deference and the spermatic cord. Now I am going to dissect them out.." You get the drift.. He was GREAT! So when he got done reducing this hernia he left me Brent the Great to close. Brent was like "Here ya go! Don't be nervous you'll do great.." and I'm thinking "This is possibly the best rotation ever." .......

UNTIL....

Next case was an excisional biopsy of a lymph node in the neck. Dr. Amazing had a little trouble stopping some bleeding and just like that he SNAPPED and turned into Dr. Pissypants! He yelled at Brent the Great and told me that I was distracting him and I needed to move... But I'm not mad at him for yelling at me because I really was distracting him. 

For SOME REASON (probably hypoglycemia) I just suddenly, out of the blue, started having heart palpitations, the room started spinning, and I thought I was going to PUKE on this lady's external jugular. I started taking these big, loud deep breaths and rocking back and forth (aka DISTRACTION) and thinking it was going to pass, but it didn't! I started sweating, it felt like it was 900 degrees in that room, and I was like "OMG I need to sit down." Everyone looked over and noticed me standing there on the verge of death. Then Dr. I Hate Students That Pass Out In My OR was like "Get her out of here NOW!" so this nurse links arms with me, and escorts me out of the OR. Awesome. So, I grabbed the granola bar that I had in my pocket, and the nurse went and got me some OJ and I sat there for a good 20 minutes, white as a ghost. 

I didn't eat very much for breakfast because Salmonella Kitchen made me wanna PUKE this morning. So I'm pretty sure that was it. But gosh. This is something that WOULD happen to me on my very first day. Great first impression Amanda. Just great...

My Blogging Virginity is Gone.

Hooray! My first blog EVER! I've decided to start, just so that I can keep track of everything that is happening. AND because I'm going to HAWAII in 3 months and I want to remember EVERYTHING that happens while I'm there. 

So yeah, anyway, I'm new to this blogging thing so I don't really have a clue if there is a "right" or "wrong" way to do this... In any case, I don't really care. I'm doing it my way... here goes: 

SO.. today was the start of another new PA student rotation. (I'm a physician assistant student and 5 week clinical rotations are part of our program) All of my rotations have been at home or in Williamsport so far, so moving hasn't been a big deal. Well, today......it WAS a big deal. Changing rotations sucks no matter where you are going, but when it is somewhere new and different it is SCARY. I am currently in Bridgeport, CT for my surgery rotation. (It starts tomorrow, and you would think that I would be reading about lap-chole's and appendectomies ..buttt NO, I'm losing my blog virginity. Go figure.) Anyway, like I said, changing rotations is one of the most stressful things ever. It's like flying blind. You have no idea what is going to be expected of you, no idea who you will be working with, and no idea where you will be staying!! Kind of ridiculous, but we have no choice. It's this or drop out and let a year of sitting the same chair in front of a powerpoint screen wanting to KY (kill yourself) go right down the drain for NOTHING. Needless to say, I packed up all of my stuff (and then some), said goodbye to my family and my pup, and hit the road. But I didn't get very far... 

As I was driving I was thinking about what CT might be like, how long the drive was going to take, what I was going eat when I stopped, the amount of stuff I brought ... ect ect. What I was not thinking about was DRIVING. Oh wait, guess that's important. So suddenly, out of nowhere, Creeper Cop comes creepin out of the bushes flips on his creeper lights. I finally realized it and I'm like, "Wow... was I speeding???" I didn't even KNOW. Whatever, so I pull over and this NY state trooper gives me a ticket. He went through the whole schpeal: "Do you know why I pulled you over 'mam?" and I'm like "NO!! Was I speeding?????" .... Apparently I was going 79 in a 65.....so the answer is Yes. Damn... Anyway, so the whole time I'm talking to this guy he keeps throwing me these weird sideways glances.... I was too caught up in getting a ticket to really notice at first but I remember thinking that it was strange after he handed me that lovely pink slip and told me to "drive more carefully next time." ... Great. Thanks. I'll do that. At that point the stress of everything just HIT me like a ton of bricks. I BURST into tears, pulled back out onto the highway and proceeded to cry for at least 20 miles down the road. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I couldn't help it. Like, seriously. A ticket too?? It's not enough that I have to leave home, go to a scary place all ALONE, and stay there for a WHOLE MONTH? God apparently didn't like me very much today. 

After I was settled down to a sniffle, I reached over to the passenger seat for my phone to call my mom and realized what the strange looks had been about.... 

My mother felt bad that I had to leave. She gave me this cute little stuffed hedgehog before I left... and she BUCKLED IT IN the passenger seat!!! IT WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME!! The cop probably looked up my info to see if I escaped from the Psych Center... HAHA. Gosh.  

Guess I will try and get some rest tonight for the big first day! And YES, I will be snuggling with Mr. Hedgehog tonight. LOL