The past four days I was at Mercy for a total of 38 hours. Of those, 12 I did not get paid for. Why you ask because I am crazy and went and observed surgery on my day off. I have been wanting to see Dr. Veronikis surgery for a couple of years now and since my all time favorite resident is with him this month, I finally made my way down there. It was awesome. Ok that’s probably obvious or otherwise I would have never stayed the entire time. I saw a bunch of different surgical procedures. I saw a sling release (I had that done my second surgery when I had the hematoma drained), I saw the exact same surgery I had and I saw vaginal and abdominal mesh removal. The best part is when I read operative reports I will be able visualize exactly what is happening.

This transvaginal mesh and mesh for pelvic organ prolapse has been a big interest in mine for the past year or so. It has actually taken over my heart print (moms who have had a pregnancy loss) calling. My first thought is I agree with the resident, if you can put it in, you better be able to take it out. However there are very few uro/gyn’s in the country who can take it out and even less that can do full mesh removal. Heres my opinion and my opinion only after doing a lot of reading and talking to a lot of patients. Most doctors flat-out deny that any of a woman’s symptoms is related to mesh. They blame everything else under the sun and deny deny deny mesh is causing issues. The only training most doctors have received to put in mesh is a weekend crash course. When mesh first came out some doctors were compensated by the mesh companies for each mesh surgery they did. It seems like a lot of time the statutes of limitation has run out by the time the mesh victim has finally gotten someone to say yes this mesh is the cause of your issues. It’s sad because a lot of the women are in so much pain they cannot do much of anything except lay down. Even sitting causes severe pain. This leads to job loss, loss of friends and even spouses. Yet it continues to be put in everyday by doctors who cannot remove it if the patient has issues. Ok that’s my mesh rant for the day.

After surgery was over they all asked me if I wanted to come work down there. I said no, it is not my calling. Funny enough when I started nursing school I thought I wanted to be a surgical nurse. One day in clinical’s down in the OR and I knew that it was not for me. The patients are asleep so you can’t even talk to them. Plus standing for 10 hours is tough! I did see all kinds of cool things. I saw massive abdominal adhesions, the retroperitoneal  space and the peritoneal cavity. I saw a JP put in and when Dr. Veronikis was doing the vaginal packing I told him if he thought that was lightly packed, he was crazy. I got to see a cystoscopy after the patient was injected with blue dye (can’t spell the name) and watch urine come out of the ureters into the bladder. Now that alone was worth not getting paid. And I got to give Dr. V. crap for all the staples he uses, because the resident did them and then he added more!

Last week I became a high fall risk again. I hadn’t fallen since 1/1/13 when I was running in front of Ugas. However I went with Emily to Dr. Hottie (aka Dr. Larkin) to see if she had a stress fracture in her other leg. He came in and said your x-ray was clear so its just shin splints. However when he did the hands on physical exam he got really upset because they all screamed stress fracture. So he wanted to do an MRI to be sure which would have to be done in Kansas City. So I ran upstairs to use the bathroom and on the way down I fell down the steps. My foot didn’t hit the step right and backwards I went. Emily who couldn’t even see me started laughing. I wasn’t hurt but I was annoyed because I need a yellow bracelet again.

I hope I never have to work full time. I don’t know how people do it. My house is a mess and I have zero energy to do anything today. It does not help that it is raining. Maybe just maybe I will get the ornaments on the Christmas tree this weekend. Hey at least the lights are on!