Sex in the closets, McDreamy doctors, dramatic lovers, fighters, best friends and over dramatized situations where there are bombs inside patients??? This is not what goes on inside a REAL hospital...but it sure makes for interesting tv on beloved award winning shows like Greys Anatomy and ER. This past Friday I had the opportunity, for the first in my time in my life, to go to work all day with my dad. Up until this point my view and explanation for what my dad did was kind of a mystery. I could tell you what my dad was, his title I mean, but I never really knew the extent of what my father actually did. Many of my friends over the years could easily tell me what their dads did for a living. Maybe they sold insurance or owned their own company. Maybe they were a history professor or an electrician. Or maybe I even got to see some of them at their job because I have a number of best friends who's fathers are Pastors! So anyways when I would tell people that my dad was a PA (a physicians Assistant) with the cardio vascular team...people would turn and say "oh okay so your dads a doctor!" "wow you guys must be millionaires!" NO No you have to go to school for about a million years to be a doctor. While my father did put in many years of schooling after his undergraduate studies at Goshen College, he became a PA and not an MD.
So finally on this Friday 6/24/11, almost 23 years later I returned to the hospital where I was born at 6:30 in the morning. Dad and I woke up at 4:30 ( the way dad has started his day for about 30 years) and got ready and left around 5:30 for the hospital. Piedmont Hospital certainly doesnt look like Seattle Grace but the day started to feel real when we got there and immediately dad passed me off to a nurse who took me into the locker room to change. Why hospital people have to wear nice clothes only to change into scrubs, I will never understand. But anyways in the locker room I grabbed pants, a shirt, a jacket (its kept very cold in the operating room), a scrub hat, a mask, and goggles. I was so unrecognizable that when we walked out of the locker room and into the OR someone asked me if I was a Nurse!ha noooo not me Im a teacher playing dress up! I sat in a chair and waited till about 7:30 when the first surgery or case as they call it would begin. No I was not going to see McDreamy do brain surgery because I was on the CVOR- Cardio Vascular Operating Room floor. My dad works with the one thing we need to keep the blood pumping...the HEART! This is the floor where you go when you have a heart attack or you have blockage in valves or you need bypass surgeries....so the patients are usually not young!lol Anyways I was then taken into OR 18 where my dad was. Finally I was going to see exactly what my dad loves so much! Before I walked in I didn't scrub in (cause obviously Im not the one operating!ha) but I did have to squirt this soap stuff on my hands every time I entered the OR cause everything is very steril. There were a ton of people in the room. At any given time there are usually 6 or more people in the room. people like nurses who pass instruments, the PA anesthesiologist who pushes drugs to make sure the paient stays asleep (my dad was a PA anesthesiologist for 4 years but he just loves surgery so he went back to PA-CV surgery). There is also an assistant nurse who helps the doctor during the surgery, another nurse getting stuff for the nurse who passes instruments, the perfusionist who manages the heart and lung machine (the keeps the patient alive when they stop the heart for surgery) and of course MY DAD the PA! The sounds of Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" lingered as my dad started off the surgery after the patient was put to sleep...although no one broke into song like on that weird episode of Grey's. Then the medical team did a call to order to make sure they knew what they were doing, who the patient was, etc. Then my dad did his job. He made a small incision in the patients leg and got this huge fancy tool and stuck it into the guys leg. It had a camera attached so I could see what was happening inside. My dad was going in to get a Vein! Dad worked for about 20 minutes cutting inside this guys leg to pull out a vein. When he got it out I was surprised that it wasnt bigger. It looked like a small red string. Dad quickly sowed up his leg and then worked to prepare the vein for the doctor. I was very impressed the way dad worked meticulously on this small vein sowing up tiny microscopic holes that were in the vein. He prepped it for another 20 minutes and then the doctor showed up to start the surgery. My dad left because he had to go do rounds (talk to patients and families who were recovering etc). Then I got up at the head of the patient and got to see as the doctor and his nurse assistant began to open the patients chest! I thought killing hens and chickens in Peru was intense...no, cracking open someones chest is insane! First they cut with a scalpel on the top layer of skin, and then they use a tool that cuts through the fat and cauterizes or burns it so it doesnt bleed to much and then they use a small saw to cut through the sternum. Finally when the chest is open they use a device to crank open and hold open the chest so the doctor can work. Then I saw it all the heart and the lungs, these organs we love with and breathe with, sitting there exposed. It was unreal and so interesting to see. So basically to make a really long story short. I watched a three or so hour surgery where they stopped the heart and took the vein that my dad had gotten out and attached it somewhere in there. Throughout the whole process they were talking to me and explaining things and I I was trying to sound like I knew what was going on, but all i could think to say was "My friend Bethany is a nurse!" haha I must have said that like 20 times throughout the day!haha. Anyway after the surgery was over, my dad showed up again the close the body. He literally had to sow up like four layers. He first put wires into the chest to pull it closed. Then he sowed up the fat, then another layer, then the skin and then the guy was done. The nurses wheeled the patient to a room in the ICU where he would spend the next five days to be watched and monitored. The rest of the day was much the same although the second surgery I watched my dad on he had his hands right in the patients chest holding the heart for the doctor....it was very cool. Then finally around 5:15 dad and I left the building. This post is already very long, but I could have gone into more stuff about all the people I met, all the WOMEN dad has to deal with haha. I told my dad that where he works is like working in a school like I do cause you work with a bunch of CRAZY WOMEN....lets just admit it when a ton of women get together in a work environment things get a little insane...but anyways thats another story.
I had a long, but awesome day finally getting to see what my dad does for a living. I realized no, my dad is not a doctor, so maybe he wont get any credit, but he is in there with a team of people saving lives everyday and doing it for 12 hours and smiling and talking to patients and interacting with all kinds of people. Okay okay long enough I know so I leave you with a quote from Grey's Anatomy:
"Its not about what you look like, or your job, or how successful you are. It's about having people in your life who you love and who love you. That's all that matters."
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