Things you will never see on Gray's Anatomy

Well, it is official - I had one of the worse call days EVER. Now I should explain. Call days can be bad for lots of reasons - pesky phone calls from nurses, sick ICU patients, busy consult service, emergency surgery. None of those things happened to me yesterday - we did do a lung transplant, but I'll come back to that in a minute. I arrived early yesterday morning, rounded quickly on my service and went to the call room and read. I got one patient phone call, but had a quite ICU. Things were going nicely.

I ran to the cafeteria for lunch - had a chicken vegetable medley - less than scrumptious, but would consider passable for hospital food. I went back to the call room and was actually watching some TV. Found out that a lung transplant was coming in so got geared up and went to the operating room. Now things took a decidedly wrong turn.

When I first got to the operating room I felt fine. I had been a little dizzy when I first stood up, but that is fairly normal for me. They had the OR sweltering while we were waiting on news that the lungs were usable, but since I am usually cold it shouldn't have been a big deal. We g0t the news that the lungs are good so we started. Almost immediately upon scrubbing in I start to feel really nauseated. I mean REALLY nauseated. I play all my mental games while I am in the operating room to take my mind off things I don't have time to think about (we all have them - otherwise you couldn't wait 14 hours between peeing). Nothing was working. Finally, I quietly excuse myself from the table and go to the bathroom and throw up. I shrug it off as a combination of the room temperature and my lunch, but need to get back to the OR so don't give it much thought.

Scrub back in and about 15 minutes pass. We have reached a very crucial portion of the case. We are preparing to cannulate the aorta and go on bypass. Not exactly a great time to leave the table. At least that is the argument I have with myself when I start feeling very nauseated again. I break out in a cold sweat and can see stars. I am still trying to hold it together for the cannulation. There is a hole in the aorta, cannula placed - I ask my attending to hold it for a minute. I then promptly turn away from the table and get sick in the trash can. Incredibly embarrassing. Fortunately I have no time to dwell on it. I walk out to the sink, change mask, wash my hands and scrub back in to the case.

This was the next four hours of my life. I would feel great for about 15 minutes and then have to throw up. Luckily, Philip was able to scrub me out once he returned with the lungs and I was able to spend most of this time in the call room, but altogether not the highlight of my training so far. Feeling much better now. Abdomen is sore from the retching, but thankfully nausea has passed. I bet then never show that on House or Gray's Anatomy.