The First Cut

Today I preformed my first surgery, I made my first cut through skin, isolated my first structure and sutured my first wound. It was amazing, and I thought my hands would begin to shake, or that I would falter or feel faint, but I didn't. Probably because this surgery was on a rat, but on Monday when I watched the demo of the surgery, I felt pretty sick. But there is definitely a big difference between watching somebody cut the skin and actually putting the scalpel blade through the skin your self. Even though his heart was beating and he was breathing (and anesthetized), it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be when I made that first cut. 

I completed my animal surgery certificate course today, I assisted my partner with a surgery on Monday, we did post-op together on Tuesday and today was my time to be in the spot light. All I had to do was isolate the jugular vein, which really wasn't that difficult. And those veins are surprisingly stretchy and resilient. The hard part was the suturing, doing the inner layer of tissue was just fine as it was a discontinuous stitch, but doing a continuous buried stitch on the outer layer of skin was really tricky. I kinda suck at it...but it was my first attempt at ever stitching anything ever!!! I'm pretty stoked on life right now though, mostly because I didn't know if  could ever handle doing surgery. I like it, I'm not good at it right now, but I like it.

After my rat was euthanized (I'm not totally okay with shoving a needle full of anesthetic into a rat's heart yet...) I got to isolate the sciatic nerve. Honestly, it was the first nerve that I have ever really seen. Maybe on day I will get to repair one.

I'm pumped to keep studying, get on with my research project (mice officially ordered) and become a doctor! Surgery might still be in my cards, but I need to practice suturing, so, I bought this:

My first suture kit

 The only problem is that I only have 2 packs of sutures, one for fascia and one for skin. So if you know anywhere I can buy sutures, let me know!!