surgery, alaaf!

AIB:

Observing surgeries last week will definitely be one of the first things think when I look back on this trip. The first one I sat in on, a guy had punched through a glass window while sleep walking and they were basically just removing glass from his arm and stitching him up. Going in they told me no major arteries had been cut so there wouldn't be a lot of blood. There was a lot of blood. One of the people performing the surgery said she was still a student at the university of bonn and found surgery very boring but was required to do it. There were also two other medical student watching and complaining about how they had to be there. I just nodded as the dudes pulled back arm skin was a bit distracting. It gave me a view into what I'd never seen before and thats pretty cool. After getting pumped up by that, I went to the second surgery. A woman was in a car accident and needed to get her back realigned with metal bars the surgeons would insert. There were only surgeons this time, no students. And an anesthesiologist was there too of course. I got to talk to him for a bit. We talked about Texas at first. He kept asking me why Americas health care system is the way it is. I tried sharing the little insight I had on the subject but it probably didn't help much. He seemed pretty upset about it. But he did praise America for containing the worlds best place to live by far, Florida (lulz). Then I listened to him go on a  rant about how surgeons are always the heroes and get all the respect but anesthesiologists are more important. At this point the surgeons kept looking over at our conversation insulting them and speaking to themselves in German. I panicked and awkwardly left as the they were just finishing up. The last surgery was by far the best (in terms of observing that is, the patient was way worse off). It was a coronary bypass surgery meaning I got to see a live beating heart stop beating then start up again. And it was nice because they also have to harvest a vein from the leg to graft to the coronary artery to bypass the blockage so it was basically a two surgeries for one deal. It was pretty surreal watching them violently (I really pictured them being super gentle about everything but nope) cut open the sternum and peel back the pericardium to uncover a beating heart. I enjoyed it.

Personal:

We had a lot to study for this week but carnival is quickly approaching so there's a lot to soon look forward to as well. I've already been randomly seeing people in costumes for the last two weeks or so and my host parents showed me some pictures of themselves in clown costumes from previous years so I'm expected a lot of people to be at this parade and word on the street is there's a lot of free candy thrown out to the masses as well. I usually don't like dressing up in costumes but this seems more fun than Halloween. This Argentinian guy I met last week thought Texas was part of Mexico so I decided to get a sombrero and poncho for my costume. Alaaf.