To theaters again today. TWO CASES OMGARGH.

How much love?

Can say only: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥.

Oh, the LOVE. The severe and total love of it all and it amazes me and I got to see two procedures so I was there all day and only had to do four hours in ITU, not that this is anywhere near as bad as it was but when you only have to do four hours in ITU because you've spent eight in the theaters that's good, that is so good there are no words. I Think This Is It. Honestly.

First case: Aortic Valve Replacement and Grafts.
Second case: Septal Defect Repair

I have so wanted to see a valve replacement and OMG the septal defect repair, in which we go inside the heart and take a look round and omgargh I loved it, I had no idea what was going on and I didn't care, I have seen INSIDE THE HEART. Love. Don't think my obsession for theaters is just some kind of Pokemon craze to see as many varied pieces of surgery as I can before my brain explodes with the love, I just love the setting and will go grab as many cases as I can on if I get to hang round the theater suite in the process. WITH BOTH HANDS, damn it.

(Your narrator, not having anything to do save observe, spent most of the day perched on a stool staring into open chests and trying not to get underfoot. And very grateful she was wearing a surgical mask so nobody saw her Look of Extreme Amaze.)

My prize at the end of the day? The Little Book of Valve. Yup, I've made off with the multilingual information leaflet about the carbon valve I saw being inserted.

I probably shouldn't find this booklet interesting. But I do.

I got talking to this really nice anesthetic ODP, by the way. She's also a trained nurse and seems... well, rather like me, or what I want to be like a few years down the line, and she's spoken to the theater manager for me. Next time I'm on duty and he's on duty, he's going to give me The Careers Advice. Squee. Okay, I know I don't qualify (God and the exam board being willing) until July but what the hell, I might as well make a start on seeing what I have to do to actually get my foot in the door.

ITU isn't so bad either, now I'm at least getting oriented. Would go so far as to say that I could see myself working in an ITU post-reg far more easily than I could a general ward. I admit it, I'm attracted to the shiny side of nursing, the side where there are lots of gadgets and things that quietly beep to play with use. All the places I love have gadgets in. Community nursing (which I admit I am the least interested in out of anything I have done so far) has no gadgets, just ulcer bandages which you change on people's carpets whilst being gawped at by supercilious cats. Not for me, I'm afraid. Not enough beep.

My secret is that deep down inside I'm ten years old. And male.

... I really couldn't believe that, when I hit the break room with my dinner (yup, that's nursing, you eat all three meals at work), the television was showing Casualty. HELLO, WE ARE WORKING IN A HOSPITAL. I've complained about Casualty before but guess what? They had a 'gravely injured emergency case in the operating theater' scene and it was so wrong there were no words. Especially the shot of the patient's head (who blatantly had a patent airway given how neat they were lying. I've seen people looking sicker than that at the damned supermarket!). Where was the CVC and ET tube tape? Where were the infusion pumps? The drips? The temperature probe up the nose? The tape over the eyelids? Hell, where was the goddamned anesthetist?!?

And where, oh WHERE was the BLOOD on the SURGEON? You cannot do surgery and NOT get bloody!

(And what's the betting that ten minutes later the patient was sitting up with nasal specs on and alert enough to argue with their nearest and dearest? They bring them out of theaters fully conscious. Blasphemy. Blasphemy! And unsafe practice! Roar!)

I can't watch that program. The inaccuracies piss me off. Screw accuracy consultants. I think that show has a Fallacy Consultant.