Back to the Surgical Ward!

Since my week of dermatology was over, I returned to Pelonomi with Adelle and Dani. The two general surgeons we shadow, Dr. Taylor and Dr. Rost, had patients in the trauma ward as well. One patient had been shot in the stomach as a guy hijacked his car, which happens fairly often. Another patient had been stabbed in the neck and slashed across his back, it was pretty rough. The last patient in our ward rounds was a 19 year old girl (but didn’t look a day over 15) who had a large abscess on her stomach. The rounded abscess was about 5in wide, 4in long, and protruded about an inch from the body. Dr. Taylor injected doxacome into her IV line and then sprayed a liquid (I’m not sure what) on the abscess to freeze/numb it. He made about a 1 inch incision in the middle of the bulge and out poured a pale mint green chunky fluid that filled an entire dental container. It was quite possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, yet so exciting at the same time. After the majority of the abscess was drained, Dr. Taylor put his finger inside the incision and dug around the wound to loosen any remaining chunks of infection, and finished by using a syringe to wash out the wound with water. Throughout this whole process the patient was screaming and crying and calling for her “mommy,” which was pretty rough to listen to, but Dr. Taylor explained that the sedative he gave her before the seizure also causes memory loss so she will have no memory of the torture that just took place.

That afternoon, Sami and I walked to the mall to indulge in Mugg & Bean’s scrambled eggs. I’ve mentioned these eggs before, but they are worth the mention. I have ordered a side of scrambled eggs with every meal I have eaten at Mugg & Bean and their food will truly be missed. We also caught a glimpse of the “interesting” attire (my attempt at being polite) worn by some of the metric schools nearby. 

Tree life

The first uniform we've seen...how unfortunate

I obviously took this inconspicuously 

Jelly shoes? I thought only 7 yr old 90's kids were allowed to wear those.

I'm basically a pro at dorm-life food. Sliced bread, frozen chicken patty cooked in the microwave (disregarding instructions not to), and mustard, one of two condiments anyone could ever need. The other being peanut butter, of course.