Today I Held A Beating Heart !!!!!!
What a way to spend the last day of N7 clinical,Shoulder to shoulder between 2 doctors performing a triple bipass (CABG).
After the chest was opened and the pericardial sac opened, I was allowed to reach inside, sliding my hand between the pericardial sac and the pericardium, until I was underneath, and then I lifted this warm and heavy heart up from the cavity while it continued to beat, and I held it in my hand!!!!
WAY COOL!!
I am still in awe of the whole experience.
This is how Jane G. and I spent our last clinical day!
It took over an hour to get the patient prepped and the room ready. The doctors came in at 0800 and the heart was in my hand at 0845.
The surgery was completed at 1200.
Good Luck to all on your finals!!!!!!!!
5 comments:
Way to go bonnie, what an awesome experience.......one you'll remember for the rest of your life.
Very cool
If I never make it through the program, this experience will have made it worth it.
That's so cool!! I hope we all get to experience something like that on this journey!!
His heart reminded me of a HUGE chicken thigh, you know, with the fat all over it. The heart was yellow (covered in fat) exceprt for where the right atrium is. It was kind of purpley/red. The right side of the heart was on top and the left side was in the back. It weighed about the same as a 1000 ml NS bag (this man is obese), but was shorter/ fatter than that. If you held it too tight, you could see it throw a PVC on the EKG monitor. Whoa, that is a lot of responsibility!
The Dr. showed me all of the arteries that were blocked and showed me where they were going to attach the great saphenous vein and left internal mammary vein to bipass the blockages. They had a TEE (trans-esophageal-echo) down his throat and we could see all of the valves working. He had some calcification on the aortic valve (will probably give him grief later). We were allowed to walk around in the OR throughout the whole proceedure (don't ever turn your back on the sterile field) and look at all the doins and goins on. We checked out how they were collecting his blood, washing it and keeping only the RBCs mixed in with NS to give back to him.We hung out with the anethesiologist and checked out all of her equip and meds and stuff. I asked a TON of questions! You can learn a lot when you are together in a room for 5 1/2 hours. When I first walked in, one of the circulating nurses said, Bonnie Boss! You helped me out in Chemistry class(that was in 2002 for crying out loud)She had just passed the boards and this was her first surgey with an RN behind her name.
After they had put him to sleep and had intubated him, they put in a Swan ganz catheter (I was standing right next to him). I asked, "Is he supposed to be able to feel this and move around?" They said, No, he is completely paralyzed and sedated" Then I said, "Well then why is he moving his arm and jerking everytime you push the catheter?", and then they all stopped and loked and then said, oh..., you're right, and so they immediately explained to him what they were doing and gave him more meds. They said that he must be a fast metabolizer. (that right there would be my biggest fear in surgery... that I would be aware and not be able to let anyone know)
I hope that you all get to see one of these surgeries. Remember that they do open hearts at Dameron and St. Joes when you get to N7.
I paired up with another student, but they only let 1 of the 2 scrub up to hold the heart.
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