No butts about it

My welcome home was rather uneventful. Beth was so kind to pick me up at the airport. Sive protested my absence with caterwauls for days (still more noisy than usual but more like her usual self). I joined my comrades for drinks at a pub a block away and took overnight call admitting patients to Tacoma General.

Then after a long post-call nap on Saturday I attempted my taxes.

Suffice it to say that it didn't go well. The sum result is many wasted hours and a totally dead computer. In fact, I type this from the call room at TG.

Sunday I caught up. Cleaned house, ran errands, repotted plants, shopped, shopped and shopped some more (and we all know how much I love shopping <-- sarcasm again in case you missed it).

Then Monday I started surgery. The morning began with me perusing anal anatomy in my text book while I ate my Kashi waffles. The first case involved making an anus in a child born without one (for those of you Google-happy folks, it's called an anorectoplasty). It was an interesting procedure. I was yelled at all of ZERO times (already an improvement from med school). And I even helped a little. At one moment in the surgery I was holding traction on the rectum, newly freed from its prison too high in the perineum, protruding like a little slug with black threads in my grasp like little whiskers, and I had a terrifying thought as the primary surgeon sewed sphincter muscle to the slug -- what if I hold too much traction? What if I pull the anus right out? And I flashed to terrifying future where Surgeons would shake their heads mournfully and remember the resident that pulled the rectum right out of the baby. But hold the traction too loose and perhaps the anus wouldn't be in the right position! Thankfully, the moment was short and the muscle was tacked on expertly. I let lose of the whiskers and after only a few hours at most, a little baby now could poop.

So hopefully surgery will be a more benign experience this time around. But I have to admit, I still hate scrubbing in, breathing my own breath in the mask, and living in perpetual fear that I may jeopardize the sacred sterile field.

Apologies for the poor metaphor above (I know slugs don't have whiskers) and thanks to Tacoma for being sunny and all spring-fresh and blossomy these last couple days. Making the transition much easier.