One month til my birthday ya'll!

In honor of it being one month til my birthday, I figured I would blog about it:) 

The past few weeks have been extremely busy. I finished up my rotation at the Veteran's Hospital in Salem, Virginia. It was a great month and not only learned a whole lot, I got to do a whole lot as well. 

On the first week I was at the hospital last month, I had seen this patient who had had a cyst the size of an egg on the outside of his ankle. It didnt hurt him too much but it was getting so large that it was getting in the way of him tying his boots.  So we drained the cyst, and told him to come back in two weeks and we would see how it was. 

Two weeks later, the thing came back and was almost the exact same size. For those of you who are not familiar with a Ganglionic cyst (which is what this patient had) they are very common, benign, but have a tendency to come back even after draining or surgically removing. (google it). So the doctor I was working with basically gave the patient the option of draining it again or taking it out surgically. The patient opted for surgery and the doctor turned to me and said, well doctor, this is your patient, you will be doing this surgery. Of course, I was in complete shock. Really? They are going to let me do the surgery....who in their right mind is going to a. put a scalpel in my hand and b. put me in charge?!! 

So here we are a week later, in the operating room, getting ready to take out this patients cyst. 

Handing off the scalpel blade to me

Making the first cut...yep those are MY hands!!!!

The surgery itself went well. I have not heard back from the doctors to see how the patient is doing and if the cyst came back. The other pictures I have of this surgery are the actual cyst itself, but I figured I would spare you those.

It was a pretty exciting surgery and I enjoyed it. 

This month I am back in the lovely city of Philadelphia.  I am completing my November rotation at Roxborough Memorial.  Next month I will also be in Philly at Chestnut Hill.  So far things have been going well. My good friend from high school, Shannon Marriner has a friend that lives in Manayunk and had an extra room, so for the next two months I have a legitimate  place to live. Whoop Whoop!!!

This month I also sent in my application for residency programs and registered for our second set of board exams. Its been a busy month. 

In the little free/down time that I have, I have been helping Shannon coach a U13 diving team. Its been a lot of fun to watch the kids grow and learn new dives.  We had our first meet on Sunday and the kids did pretty well. We have another meet tonight, so we will keep our fingers crossed. 

I hope everyone reading this is doing well and I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. 

Till next time!

xoxo