Day fourteen we got up by 7:30 to be ready to go on a sailing adventure out to Buck island. Buck island is a National Park by way of President John F. Kennedy who loved the island. About two-thirds of the island is surrounded by an elkhorn coral barrier reef. Alexa, Dr. Moorman, Stephan, and I all went on a sailing adventure with the Big Beard company to explore said island. We sailed out for an hour on the boat and Alexa and I got to hang out at the front of the boat with Stephan. The waves splashed us a lot. We got to the island and had about an hour to play around. We all got on snorkel gear and snorkeled around the island and saw schools of fish in the clear water. Us kids ran on the beach (it is much easier to run at sea level) and jumped off the side of the boat into the ocean. We then sailed out a little more to go to the main event! This was a jungle of reef and we all snorkeled around the area with the tour guide. Alexa and I were about fifteen feet away from a reef shark at one point. We then sailed back to the island to enjoy a barbecue lunch with the crew. All around it was a super fun filled day!
Day fifteen was a day full of surgeries at the hospital. The day started up and the first surgery was fixing a tendon in a women’s left middle finger. She was semi awake during this procedure to help Dr. Moorman ensure that the finger could lift and bend. Dr. Moorman had to put a temporary rod in her finger to make it sure it healed straight. This went by pretty quickly and there was minimal scarring to the hand. The next two hernia cases Alexa and I got to scrub in for. Lesson one with scrubbing in is do not touch anything because nothing in this world is sterile. I got to stitch two stitches into a patient and it was very hard. We had a great support system from the hospital staff though so all I need to do is continue to practice.
^Above is the x-ray of the women from day fifteen^
Day sixteen was an office day. We saw over 20 patients today so it kept us nice and busy. We had an interesting follow up with keloid scars on a patient’s neck. A keloid scar is when an abnormal proliferation of scar tissue forms at that site of a scar, it normally is inflamed which causes patients the sensation of burning and itching. To treat this, Dr. Moorman put steroids in the scar to prevent it from growing and hurting.
Day seventeen we were back at the Plesson surgical center for two more surgeries. We watched a hand surgery first where a woman had cancer cells of the tendon sheaf on her knuckle. She also had a ring on her finger so Dr. Moorman had to get it off using ultrasound gel. We saw another hernia repair that was a more difficult procedure because it was farther into the testicle than the others we have seen.
Day eighteen a turn of events ran us to the hospital for an emergency. A man was using an electric saw and lacerated about 20 centimeters up his hand and inner forearm. He cut open his radial artery, a few tendons of the thumb, and a couple nerves in his hand. He was lucky not to cut the ulnar nerve or he would have had no feeling in his hand. Since Dr. Moorman is one of the only surgeons on the island that can repair arteries, we went in for a three and a half hour long surgery. This time did not include preptime and scrubbing in or the paperwork time after the surgery. Everyone was exhausted by the end of the day so we called it an early night.
^Above is an open hernia sack^ ^Above is the hand that had the mass on her tendon^
Day nineteen we did the procedures that we had scheduled from the day before. We only had two skin lesions and a Blepharoplasty (eyelid removal surgery) until our day was over. Stephan came with us to the office so that we could all go to the Buccaneer again and swim. We played volleyball, cornhole, and jumped off the pier and to top off the night, we swam in the pool with the dogs. It was a great Friday night.
Day twenty we got to sleep in a little until we trucked off to the Buccaneer again for another beach day. Alexa and I have fallen in love with this medical student to beach girl lifestyle. We played another round of volleyball and I “did not improve overnight at all” from CJ one of the fort workers at the Buccaneer. The sun was warm and the ocean was beautiful so it was the ideal relaxed Saturday. I am very excited to see what our last week holds.
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