Blog 9: Surgery Takes a Lot of Time

Our 5th week in Germany included visits to Bingen, the Bonn hospital and the cologne zoo.

Hildigard van Bingen was a bad ass, there's no other way to say it. Visiting her museum and the hilde-garden. Was a really interesting experience. It was one of those moments I wish there was more English descriptions or that I spoke German better. But hearing the history of her life as told by Dr. Wasser was still quite a learning experience. His improptu vocal performance was also quite entertaining, and pleasant. The "lunch" was more like an appetizer, but it was tasty and I always enjoy trying new foods. I especially enjoyed the light and cool white wine, it was a great complement to the rather hot day. The Rhine cruise was much more chill than I was expecting. It was nice to get to sit and see the beautiful German hillsides pass us by. After the cruise we took a quick hike up to see a castle, maybe even a little too quick for comfort. The view ended up being worth it though, which has been a theme throughout this trip.

My day to observe surgery was a Thursday. After scrubbing the attending in my assigned area directed me to a room where a team was preparing to remove a nondual from a mans vocal cords. The breathing and anesthesia situation was tricky since they were operating in his throat they couldn’t intubate like they traditionally do. When they finally got him to go to sleep(he needed a larger does of anesthesia) they used a laser to remove it. Easy peasy, this surgery was done pretty quick. The next patient had cancer and came in to get some infected lymph nodes and nerves removed. Watching the initial cuts and removals was interesting but this surgery was going on for 3+ hours and was basically the same monotonous poking, prodding, and cutting. It was actually the surgeon who asked me why I was sticking around for so long when it was such a beautiful day outside, so I took his advice.

 

That Friday was our visit to the Cologne zoo. It seemed just like a regular zoo, not outstandingly special. That is until we got to meet the elephant. That was definitely the highlight of my day and probably my week. there were two particular photos found reminded me of my self and of Karen if we were elephants:

Me as an elephant:                                                                    Karen as an elephant:

That weekend we planned to go explore the Eiffel region but my body was just not having it, so I ended up spending my last free weekend in my room at my host families house sleeping and eating lots of bread, not exactly how I pictured it. But it was nice to get a break from tavel after doing it basically nonstop for the previous 5 weeks.