The Truth for Weekend Assignment #111

Time for the truth...

I am going to start backwards and with the stories that explain the truth, and then the lie will be revealed!

#3 is True.  I worked for Plastic, Reconstructive & Hand Surgeons.  My second week on the job, I was at the front desk, and a butcher came in that had severed his finger at the PIP joint, the one nearest the tip. 

He handed it to me in a cup of ice.  The girl that was with me at the desk, ran to the bathroom and vomited.  I walked to the back and rinsed it with saline and showed it to the doc who needed to see if it was salvageable who was in the middle of an office surgery.

Nothing phased me like that, so I became the one to greet the parts, and occasionally, rinse and present them to the docs, if the RN's were all busy with patients, too.

I got to see several severed fingers, toes, and nose tips over the years!!!  Very cool, to see them off and then, successfully, back on!!!

But, that's just me... lol

#1 is also true!

It was a Saturday, and my favorite doc had a patient coming in for an office surgery.  The RN called in that she was sick.  The doc knew that I had quite a bit of first aid experience and certification, plus I had volunteered in the ER for a year, and I could handle severed body parts, so I was the logical choice to help him out.

The surgery was to place an allograft (pig skin graft) on an open hand wound that was healing very slowly over time.  The woman patient was to be awake for the procedure.  She was told about the RN being sick, and was fine with me assisting.

  She was very happy with our doc.  Prior to finding him, she was very close to losing her hand from infection.  She had major skin loss on her palm and wrist and no one seemed to be able to help her.  Her own skin would not graft, and she had been through hell prior to my doc.  

His word that I was capable to help was enough for her.   

I handed instruments, opened suture and squirted saline to keep the field clean and clear for my doc.  Mostly, I chatted with the patient, and held her hand. 

I knew her from the office, and she had really been through the mill in the last year. 

Afterward, she hugged me, and thanked me for being better than a nurse because she felt I really supported her more emotionally.

She even signed a paper afterward acknowledging my presence in the OR, and that she was okay with it, and had been given the choice to reschedule, or go forward.

We did a lot of office surgery, local and with anesthesia, so over the years I did get to watch many surgeries.  Hand surgeries, facial lacerations on kids, and many plastic surgery procedures!

I did get to take pictures too, occasionally, for patient charts, or for papers to be written.  Someone not scrubbed in to the surgery had to do it because the camera is not sterile.

However, #2 is the lie.  It was never my job to do so, just something I did when asked. 

I don't even know that it exists as an occupation!!

So, there ya go!  Some of you guessed right on, and others got hung up on the legal implications of #1, which I figured would draw a lot of guesses!  And, some of you thought #3 was just too gross, but hey, it happened and still happens today, somewhere!  lol

Be well,
Dawn