Sorry if the picture grosses anyone out....but that's what i looked like today.The last two weeks on my surgery rotation have been pretty hectic. I have been working about 10 hours a day and assisting about 3-4 cases a day. Everything usually goes smoothly but today was a little different.
We were actually consulted on a woman in the MICU who apparently had a hole in her dialysis graft in her arm. By the time we got to the room the bed was pretty soaked in blood and there was a nurse holding pressure on the graft so the woman didn't bleed out. After a quick lookover the surgeon I was with decided he thought he could ligate it (tie it off so it stopped bleeding) while I held pressure. He got the first stitch in and asked me to let up off the graft to see if the first stitch had done the trick. IT HAD NOT! Imagine a pulsating hose squirting right into your face. Except it's not water coming at you, it's blood. The surgeon and I were gushed at from head to toe. PTL we were wearing gowns and facemasks with eye shields so no blood got in our eyes or on our skin or anything. I quickly put pressure back on her arm to stop the squirting, a nurse kindly wiped off my eye shield so I could see again, and I looked at the surgeon and said "whoa, that made me a little nervous"! After he finished laughing he finished tying off the graft so it actually didn't bleed anymore.
The poor woman was so sick and delerious she had no clue what was going on. She kept rotating between yelling three things at us...."you're killing me"...."please Jesus, don't let me die"....and "can I have a drink of water".
I left the room and went to change out of my bloody scrubs into nice clean ones. Good times!
