Sunday, May 19, 2013

Fear

Last week I went back to the shelter again as a volunteer surgeon. It went well, except ... as I was closing my last spay a loop of the animal's small intestine popped up riiight as I threw a suture and my needle hit a mesenteric artery. It's a one-in-a-million thing (ok, maybe one-in-a-thousand?) but it freaked me the heck out. I pulled out that loop of intestine and applied pressure - fortunately the thing stopped bleeding and the intestine stayed nice and pink.

Now I'm scared about going in again this week. I KNOW it's not entirely rational. That doesn't matter. Every time I have a rather large issue like that it takes me several weeks to get back on the metaphorical horse.

I used to like surgery much more when I was still in school and not expected to do a good job at it.

In unrelated news, our group ski trip in February will be to Steamboat! I've already been ogling the trail maps.

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