C-Section, Storm Large, -20 degrees

This is a post that continues to confound my efforts to get up online. Every time I sit down and attempt to complete it, something comes up and another day begins with another set of things to post. I refuse to be stopped this time however so, depending on occurrences outside of my control, this will be terse or my magnum opus.

I watched my first birth. It was a C-section which detracted from the experience some if only because C-sections are performed in a sterile surgical room instead of the much more hotel-like birthing suites. That aside, it was a pretty incredible thing to witness and I feel fortunate to be able to be an observer during an experience such as this in people's lives.

The surgical part was a bit gruesome to be honest. There is a lot of cutting, retracting, and some out and out pulling and yanking. Fluids were everywhere, most notably after the amniotic sac was ruptured, causing an arc of amniotic fluid more than a foot high which bathed the surgeons. The patient was obese, so there was a lot of adipose tissue to cut through as well. It was all very graphic. Ultimately, the birth took less than half the time of the repair of the incision afterwards. I followed the patient through the PACU and to her room where she will stay for the next 72 hours. The baby was fine with good Apgar scores, but was large for gestational age, so they had to do a lot of heel sticks to determine the infant's blood glucose. Mom wasn't terribly pleased by this, but procedures are procedures.

The next day I was back and hoping to see a vaginal birth. Unfortunately, the mom-to-be I was following was wholly uncooperative. How dare she hold out and try to ruin MY experience! It was quite funny because the patient's mom almost sounded that way when, after a number of hours, it became evident that the baby wasn't in any hurry to leave the womb. Every phone call she received while we were in the room sounded almost accusatory towards her daughter, as though she were intentionally withholding the child from the world. Even with a high rate of Pitocin on a constant drip, I found out she ended up having a C-section later that evening. One of my classmates got to witness that. I have one more day in labor and delivery. It will be interesting to see what happens then.

Tia and I celebrated 2 years together on Sunday by having a relatively school-free day (except for an exam I had to take that morning at 8am). We used some spa gift certificates from her mom and Sherri and I got a massage and a wonderful hour-long sports pedicure. So relaxing. Then we headed out to eat, which was a bit of a mess because the restaurant we wanted to eat at ended up being closed on Sundays, necessitating a change of plan to an expensive Vietnamese place where we were the sole customers. It was good, but no better than Vietnamese places that were half as much out in Portland. We then saw Storm Large (remember the Rockstar Supernova show?) headline a play called 'Cabaret.' Very bizarre. Lots of skin and a fair amount of gratuitous groping. I dont really no what to say about it. It was a musical on LSD. I think Wikipedia may do a better job of describing it than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaret_(musical)

The other entertaining thing about the evening was that I experienced a new "Holy shit it is REALLY cold here moment." The temperature dipped down to the single digits (6 degrees) and, with windchill, we hit -20 here in Rochester. Perhaps to prove that the people here are a hearty lot, there was one young guy at the show who was adorned in a polo shirt with a light windbreaker and, I shit you not, cargo shorts. My guess is he lives in an ice cave on a planet further from the sun than our own regularly so it must have seemed quite tepid out. As for myself, I could barely think over my teeth chattering. We closed out the night with dessert at the Cheesecake factory. Good lord they have good desserts.

In other news, school continues to hit new lows, but I am not alone in feeling this way. For those of you who dont know me well, one of my BIGGEST pet peeves is when I feel like my time is being wasted. So, when we showed up for class yesterday for our 4-hour lecture in Women's Health with only that day's materials encompassing what will be on tonight's exam, I thought we would for sure be very productive. As usual, I was wrong. Instead we spent the first hour discussing how our respective weeks were, the next 2 hours working on case study projects that were largely opinion based and then presenting them to the class affording ZERO information to anyone and then, the last 45 minutes covering 1 of the three powerpoints that we were supposed to cover. Needless to say, when I found out we had a panel discussion arranged for today, I opted to do laundry instead. I then spent my off hour in a meeting and followed that with 3 hours of ethics lecture. I may need to arrange future spa visits for AFTER Monday.

A few of my classmates discussed sending emails to our instructor so that she would know that we are not pleased with how she opted to run our class......but as usual, nothing will come of it because the risk is greater than the reward, especially since this was our last class session with her. She will of course return, like a bad penny, to teach our NCLEX review. God help me.

Off to study for the last exam tonight. Wish me luck as always.